Duo hope to score with microbrewery
WOLFPACK Lager, the craft beer business founded by Saracens player Chris Wyles and former captain Alistair Hargreaves, is expanding with its first microbrewery in Queen’s Park, North West London, due to open imminently.
The pair launched Wolfpack Lager, currently brewed in Suffolk, in 2014, when Hargreaves was also still a professional rugby player, as they wanted to plan ahead for their retirement from the sport.
Hargreaves retired last autumn, at 30, after sustaining five concussions in two years, and spoke in support of The Mail on Sunday’s Concussion Campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the danger from concussion in sport.
During his career he won four international caps for South Africa. American-born Wyles has captained the USA Eagles.
Hargreaves said to create Wolfpack – a nickname for Saracens – ‘we consulted a lot of people. We both brew as a hobby, but we went out and spoke to people with decades of experience in brewing.’
Now it is sold in around 50 pubs in London and on the ‘Wolfpack Bus’ on match days at Allianz Park, the home of Saracens Rugby. The duo have plans to sell Wolfpack through pubs nationwide.