Stu Brew turns 10!
Stu Brew, the student-run microbrewery based at Newcastle University, has recently celebrated its 10th birthday. In this interview, founding member and alumna Zelda Mendelowitz takes us back to where it all began.
5 June 2025
Stu Brew marked its 10th birthday earlier this academic year with a 2 day beer fest held on campus. Guests enjoyed food from local vendors and live music from student societies – including the Jazz Society, DJ Society, and Newcastle Student Radio – and, of course, plenty of Stu Brew beer!
To mark the anniversary, we caught up with one of the first co-presidents of Stu Brew, Zelda Mendelowitz (BSc Biochemistry, 2014; MSc Synthetic Biology, 2015), to reminisce about the early days and learn more about how it all started.
Hi Zelda! Let’s start with the all-important question – how did you come up with the unique names for the beers?
We wanted to lean into the student brewery concept and come up with fun names that would be relatable to students.
We named the first beer that we produced ‘Overdraft IPA’. The recipe has been optimised over the years and is now called ‘Extended Overdraft IPA’. Some of the other names that they have come up with include ‘Exam Room Tears’ and ‘Lab Session’.
What I love about Stu Brew is the ability to recruit students with different interests. Some students are interested in the brewing and engineering side, while others are interested in the business and marketing aspect. So having all these different perspectives really helps with creativity.
What is your proudest moment from your time with Stu Brew?
It took some time to get the licenses to secure the site, to order and install the equipment, and when you take a recipe from a small batch and scale it up, it’s never exactly the same. So, we had to tweak the scaled recipe, and we focused on mastering that one IPA, Overdraft, at scale.
The coolest moment for me was completing that first brewing day and then selling the beer for the first time. I remember we had to roll the casks from Merz Court (where the microbrewery is based) to the Students’ Union - now they have an electric buggy to transport them! We sold the beer straight from the cask at our first event.
How did the idea for Stu Brew originate?
The Students’ Union received a grant from the National Union of Students’ Student Green Fund to support sustainable volunteering projects, which included Stu Brew and other projects such as woodland management and beekeeping.
The idea was to set up a sustainable microbrewery. Brewing is inherently an unsustainable process – it uses a lot of energy and water and produces a lot of waste products.
I learnt about the Students’ Union receiving the grant and got involved from there.
In the early days, we were recruiting people to join the project who could add value. One person we recruited was Dr Chris O’Malley, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering, who has been an integral part of Stu Brew.
Chris helped to establish a partnership between the Students’ Union and the School of Engineering to allow a microbrewery to be set up in Merz Court on the University campus. This agreement involved the brewery being used by engineering students Monday to Friday to research new ways to make the process more sustainable, whilst the commercial activity could take place on weekends.
Can you tell us more about the sustainability aspect?
It was important to focus on reducing waste. The hops used are grown on student allotments and any hop residue is composted back there. Whilst the spent malt is collected by a local farmer who uses it as animal feed, rather than throwing it out after a brew day. In terms of energy efficiency, a hot water recovery system is used for the brewing process.
Chris and his students have worked with other breweries in the city to share best practices for reducing waste. For example, there’s a lot of cleaning involved in the brewing process. They were able to take samples from different breweries after their cleaning process and identified that some were completing excessive steps that were just creating waste and didn’t result in a cleaner brew. As a result, they’ve helped to cut down their steps and reduce the overuse of hot water, electricity and cleaning products.
Stu Brew is Europe’s first student-run microbrewery, did you think it would still be running 10 years later?
I had a feeling it would. Chris has been so passionate about the project from the beginning and has really helped to keep things going.
With it being a research lab Monday to Friday, there are always fresh ideas from students that cycle through the University and join the project, keeping it innovative.
How has your involvement with Stu Brew helped with your career now?
I was a Biochemistry student at the time. Obviously, I was interested in the science aspect of brewing, but I was also really interested in the business side and getting that experience because I didn’t necessarily get that from my course.
Since leaving Newcastle, I’ve completed a PhD in Biology and became a scientist. But I’ve now moved to work in finance, so I’m still very much interested in business. I work in New York as a Biotech Equity Research Associate. We look at biotech companies and study their data to make predictions on, for example, whether their clinical trials are likely to succeed. Stu Brew definitely sparked my interest in business finance!
Are you still involved with Stu Brew?
I always try to visit Stu Brew whenever I’m in the UK and I stay up to date with their activity.
One of the projects the students are working on right now is capturing CO2 emissions from the fermenters to investigate ways to reduce CO2 emissions from microbreweries. They are also working on distilling expired beer or batches that maybe didn’t sell as well and turning it into gin to further reduce waste, which I think is really interesting!
Now that I’m based in New York, I’ve helped to establish the Newcastle University New York Alumni Network and we are hoping to plan a Stu Brew beer-tasting event soon.
10 years on
Today, Stu Brew can be found in venues across the city as well as Luther’s Bar in the Students’ Union. A pop-up bar outside of the Students’ Union also operates during Fresher’s Week and graduations.
Stu Brew regularly holds a ‘Brewery Bash’ on campus. These events welcome local food vendors and feature live music from student societies. They also hold ‘Open Brew Days’ throughout the year allowing visitors to watch the full brewing process.
Student society members have exclusive access to a range of events and activities such as brewery tours, beer-tasting nights and bi-weekly visits to craft pubs. The society also runs an annual international trip to visit and learn from breweries around the world. This year they ventured to Belgium for 5 nights during the Easter break.
From Newcastle Podcast
Find out more about Stu Brew in a recent ‘From Newcastle’ podcast episode with Damien Pease (current President), Kypros Iakovou (Quality Analyst) and Dr Chris O’Malley (Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering, Head Brewer and academic lead).
‘From Newcastle’ is a fortnightly podcast featuring the latest developments in health, science and culture and the creative arts from Newcastle University.