Creative Caversham – Tara Magee

Cheers to Tara as Loddon win national award

FOLLOWING IN THE footsteps of devotees who regularly cross Clayfield Copse and take the idyllic cross-country route to Dunsden, it was delightful to enjoy a summer’s walk there to meet Tara and chat about her work, even as she kept one eye firmly on the progress of her barrels which were bubbling away in the barn where the Loddon beers are brewed.
The 300-year-old barn is on Dunsden Green Farm, where the independent business was set up by Chris Hearn in 2002 following the closure of the Brakspear brewery in Henley. In 2003 Loddon launched the beer which established its brewing credentials – Hoppit. Creating ales for pubs in the Berkshire/Oxfordshire/Hampshire orbit was the business plan… however the pandemic in 2020 changed everything, and via some strange twists, brought Tara to Loddon. “Funnily enough, it all started because, as a coeliac, I couldn’t drink beer,” Tara explained. “As a student I went to Leeds, where initially I studied food science and nutrition, but decided I didn’t really want to work in that field. I came home and did a waitressing job in Marlow, but then I wondered if I could make a beer that I could drink! I signed up to do a Masters in brewing and distilling at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. “But the year was 2020, and due to Covid, we couldn’t do any practical work. So rather than staying in Edinburgh I came back home to Sonning Common, where I could do the written work for my Masters, and then got in touch with Loddon to ask if I could gain some practical experience with them. “I’ve been with them ever since! After I qualified, I was taken on as Assistant Brewer, and then in 2025, when the previous Head Brewer decided to return to Yorkshire, I took over as Head Brewer,” Tara said.
The pandemic led to Loddon diversifying: rather than relying on delivering its beer to pubs in the surrounding counties, it also started to welcome the public to the brewery itself by opening the Tap Yard, where walkers, cyclists and those arriving by car can enjoy a drink, food produced by The Proper Kitchen, or find Loddon products and other locally produced food in the Farm Shop. Loddon are proud that the Tap Yard is now listed in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide – for real ale enthusiasts, where the freshness and integrity of the way the beer is kept is of utmost importance, where better to sample it than metres from the brewery itself?

Tara is responsible for ensuring that the beer keeps flowing: she produces Loddon’s cask ales and kegs as well as the canned craft beers which have recently been launched. She has developed an astonishingly large range of beers to suit different tastes in the relatively short time she has been with the brewery. Loddon revels in catchy and often zany names for each new beer – Black Darter might seem obscure however this stout is named after a dragonfly, which just happens to be the insect which features on the Loddon logo. This July Loddon has unveiled Tara’s latest beer, Dragon Slayer. “It’s a really fruity pale ale,” Tara revealed. “Really suitable for a summer’s day.” Keeping the casks, kegs and cans filled is Tara’s task, and she needs to plan carefully to produce the right amount of beer each week. “We are limited by space,” she told me. “This is a 20-barrel brewery, and I aim to produce 180 barrels of beer this week. My priority is to create the beers that suit each season – extra pale ale in the summer, while stout is more of a winter drink. We’re a very small team at Loddon – and I am the only brewer!”
While Loddon remains small, it is packing quite a punch, and a few months ago the team were thrilled to win National Gold at the Society of Independent Brewers & Associates Awards, for their Cask British Dark Beer, Hocus Pocus. “We have won gold in the regional championships on several occasions in recent years. These beers are then entered into the national competition, so this year we went to the finals at Liverpool, although we weren’t expecting to win anything. They read out the winners for bronze and silver and as we didn’t achieve either of these, we thought that was it. But then they announced Hocus Pocus had won National Gold – they needed to announce it twice, as we didn’t believe it!”
No doubt Tara looks forward to kicking off her stylish yellow wellies (a vital feature of the brewers’ outfit) at the end of the week and enjoying a pint herself. And has she achieved her ambition, to create gluten free beer suitable for coeliacs like herself? Of course she has: Farmers Paradise, Razzle Dazzle, as well as the stout, Black Darter.