Who is New Prometheus?

Posted on January 24th, 2019

New Prometheus is born of a passion for brewing well-crafted quality beer and is the brainchild of founder & brewer Richard Harrall.

Richard grew up in Dorset which has a rich history of real ales. As a keen real ale drinker, he decided to learn how to brew his own beer. His first book on homebrewing Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing: Recipes, Tales and World-Altering Meditations in a Glass opened up a whole new world. This was the first time he had heard the term craft beer and he wanted to know more.  

Since then he has sampled and experimented with many different styles, regularly visiting breweries, pubs and beer festivals at home and abroad to widen his knowledge and gain new inspiration. He even grows some of his own ingredients with seven varieties of hops at the last count. He considers himself very lucky to have such a vibrant beer scene locally in Bournemouth and surrounding areas both on a homebrew level and also on a commercial level with a fantastic local brewers group and a number of excellent breweries and pubs.

Richard cites the second London Craft Beer festival as a turning point in his beer journey as it introduced him to many sour styles such as gose and convinced his wife that she liked beer! This was swiftly followed by his first trip to Brussels. In preparation for this trip, he read Wild Brews: Beer Beyond the Influence of Brewer’s Yeast by Jeff Sparrow Brewing and had a whole list of styles and breweries that he wanted to try. Around this time he joined the Wessex Brewers group a collection of avid homebrewers who are a great source of encouragement, friendship and support. If you are local he recommends you come along to one of their meetings.

The inspiration for New Prometheus came from the subtitle of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, The Modern Prometheus. Richard is a big fan of gothic horror and he finds Frankenstein evokes images of mad scientists, bubbling cauldrons and the alchemy of brewing. The Shelley family also have connections to Bournemouth and specifically Boscombe where Richard lives so it seemed like divine intervention. Prometheus is a god after all!

Richard is a big fan of saisons, lambics, big impy stouts and well-kept cask bitter but the thing he loves most is a well-balanced beer. His favourite beer (so far) is Ardenne Saison from the Brasserie Minne.