John (Jack) Henly Hobday's Profile

I was awarded my BSc Psychology in 2010, and I am now Co-Founder & Director at Anspach & Hobday - a Microbrewery & Brewery Tap based in Bermondsey, London.

I started the business with Paul Anspach (a King’s Alumnus!) after we successfully developed our brewing skills at home. The business has been running for three years and the company now employs 6 people, including a current UCL undergraduate in his second year studying Pharmacology.

One of my lecturers in the Psychology Department, Dr Keith Langley, encouraged me to start home-brewing. He suggested it would save me some money! At the time I was also considering applying for a PhD in a complex area of Psychology called area called Visual Psychophysics – Dr Langley’s area of expertise, but I’m afraid the brewing bug had taken hold.

UCL helped teach me how to learn effectively. Once you have that skill you can put your mind to anything. And whilst some people are surprised my background is Psychology, and not business or biochemistry, it certainly helps in business if you have an interest in understanding how people think - companies and business relationships are really about people after all. Psychology, also gives you a great set of tools in learning how to empirically explore statistics and model theories based on your results. Creating a business model and projections based on results shares similar foundations and logic.

One of my memorable moments as a student at UCL was probably in a lecture in the third year before our finals, Professor David Shanks summed up the key to a successful memory: Repeated efforts at recall. That’s worth remembering.

My proudest career moment since leaving UCL is probably when Paul and I entered our home-brewed Porter into the International Beer Challenge - a professional blind-tasted competition for brewers. We were desperate to gain credibility and distance ourselves from being seen as just ‘enthusiastic amateurs’. The business had only just been incorporated and we had each invested £250 into the bank account. The entry into the competition had cost £350 of that £500. So it was a real vote of confidence in ourselves and our belief in this future business – we went on to win a silver medal! It was a big investment of company money but it was an investment that paid off. We decided that if we could not back ourselves how could we expect anyone else to.

Having been a part of UCL is to have something in common with some of the greatest minds past and present. After you have been through that experience you humbly hope you have learnt a little from them too. I think looking at some of the other alumni and realising I was attending the same brilliant university was quite an inspiration too.

The most exciting thing for me now is to think how I can give back to UCL (and hopefully save others from wasting their student loans on bad beer!). I have an ambition that we will setup a ‘UCaLe’ brewed by students for the students. It’s development could involve multiple disciplines, and it would be served at events and of course at the uni bars. Part of the profits of its sale could go towards a stipend for psychology graduates working at the department or perhaps a grant for paid work experience at our brewery – watch this space!