Paradise Garage Brewing: "I moved my entire Mead business from London to Kelham Island in Sheffield"

Moving across the country is daunting, but moving your business across the country with you can be an even taller task.

Yet, that is exactly what Timothy Young has done. His, albeit young, mead brewing business is being shifted from London to Sheffield - specifically to Kelham Island.

This is how Paradise Garage Meadery found itself in the Steel City.

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“I spent 15 years teaching English all over the world as a second language,” Tim told The Star. “I was in Vietnam when the pandemic hit and that meant I didn’t have any work.”

With additional time at his disposal, Tim could obtain honey and fruits from local markets and gave mead brewing a go. It certainly wasn’t the wrong place to try it either, with Vietnam hosting a booming brewing scene. Tim called it the “home of craft brewing in Asia”.

“I just started making it and the first time it came out great,” he said. His first batch was enjoyed in some local bars.

Eventually, Tim needed to leave Vietnam and return to the UK. He found himself in the South of England, with a newfound passion for creating mead and the new Paradise Garage Brewing business.

Get a bespoke headline round-up, as well as all of the latest breaking news updates, when you sign up to The Star’s free newsletter He added: “My mate runs a great beer brewery in London. He offered me space in his brewery if I could buy the kit.

“It became clear very quickly that it wasn’t going to be practical. I had to move.”

Whilst Tim had his own space in the brewery, he found he was getting in the other brewers’ way and they were getting in his way. When brewing, he was travelling into the brewery to add yeast to the alcoholic concoction, before simply heading home again.

From London to Sheffield

It was time to go.

Tim said he looked at a number of places as options, but thanks to a friend who worked as a professor at the University of Sheffield, the Steel City caught his eye.

“I looked at Sheffield and found the Welcome to Sheffield site,” he said. “It is there I was introduced to Kelham Island and I thought to myself ‘That is where I need to be’. It looked perfect.”

It was just about finding somewhere for Paradise Garage Brewing to call home. That home materialised whilst scrolling through Rightmove and Zoopla - a unit inside the recently modernised and renovated Caledonia Works on Mowbray Street, Neepsend.

Tim visited on a few occasions, before signing the dotted line and moving his business in.

He’s already got a few locations across the city offering Paradise Garage Mead - including Starmore Boss in Sharrow Vale.

Whilst that is a big part of the brewing business, Tim also has plans to sell his mead directly to customers from his store in Neepsend.

He believes Caledonia Works has brilliant potential as a destination for people to visit in the area and envisions a bar and other businesses moving in.

The Caledonia Works courtyard looks perfect for hosting live music for events at which people can use independent venues like Tim’s.

“My other thing is music.”

Meaderies are already rare in comparison to their craft ale counterparts. Tim told The Star there are 10s of them compared to 100s of craft breweries.

Yet, with limited competitors, Tim is still very keen to set himself apart

He said: “My other thing is music. I have worked as a DJ at different bars.

“Paradise Garage is the name of what some consider the best nightclub that ever was. All my meads are named after New York nightclubs.”

There is a party and disco theme running throughout Paradise Garage Brewing and can even be seen in the branding too, with the logo drawing inspiration from that same New York nightclub that the business is named after.

“I wanted to differentiate myself from what everyone else is doing,” Tim said. “Mead is the oldest alcoholic drink in the world.

“The biggest supplier of mead in the UK is English Heritage. It’s a gift shop item.”

That is the big thing Tim wants to change. Who says mead has to be a beverage from your visit to your local castle, or the drink of choice at medival re-enactment events? It can certainly do that, but Tim wants to push the boat out.