To be or not to be

When Mike and Luci first arrived in Reading, the town lacked the kind of venues they wanted to drink in. Sure, they had the incredible Nags Head, and The Fox and Hounds in Caversham — two truly brilliant pubs, by anyone’s measure — and while Siren’s taproom wasn’t quite up and running, Mike and Luci frequented the brewery’s then on-site bottle shop, a 26-minute drive outside of Reading, and credit Siren as the instigator behind the development of Reading’s craft beer scene. “I think they led the way locally to sort of show people what great cask and great keg could be,” says Luci. 

“We set up Double-Barrelled in 2018, and at the same time opened our taproom concept in Reading town centre. Because a lot of people worked in London, a lot of Reading residents were used to seeing that London craft beer scene, they’d been to the Bermondsey Beer Mile, they were familiar with Beavertown. Reading was crying out for a taproom scene of its own, so people didn’t have to go all the way to London to experience that. When we started DB, that’s what we wanted to create; somewhere we wanted to drink, essentially.”

Luci describes the day they opened as “the most bonkers day ever”. A queue of 80-odd people had formed outside the taproom prior to opening, a crowd Mike and Luci were equally excited and terrified to contend with between just the two of them. “Obviously my stress levels were through the roof, but at the same time, the crowd just showed that people were so excited about the concept and what we were trying to bring to it,” she says. “To have a place like that as full as we were on a cold January day was just brilliant. I think for us, the people of Reading and the support we've had from Reading got us through lockdown. People really wanted to support their local breweries. They understood the value that a community-led brewery brings to a place, and we're really grateful for that.”

The year after Double-Barrelled opened its doors, Phantom Brewery followed suit with a similar concept, and has only recently taken on the unit next door to its original site as additional, dedicated taproom space. Elusive Brewing, also in Finchampstead, is a little older than Double-Barrelled, but has really found a strong stride in recent years. In 2024, Siren opened a substantial town center bar in Reading, another sure sign that the town is somewhere beer and breweries are growing into, and investing in. Luci says that this is, in part, thanks to Reading’s food scene. 

“Restaurants and food vendors have been really supportive of their local breweries as well, which is really cool. There's a well known Indian restaurant called Clay’s in Reading, and has been sort of heralded as some of the best Indian food in the country by lots of food writers [Grace Dent, Jay Reyner, and Tom Parker Bowles to name a few]. They have our beer on, they have Siren’s beer on, they’ve done food and beer pairing and other events like that. That’s pretty amazing, as far as I'm concerned.”

Luci continues to say that Reading itself is growing quite substantially. “There’s a lot of flats under development, probably in part because we’re on the Elizabeth line now, so we’re officially a part of the tube map. I've certainly seen a younger demographic coming into Reading, and recently, it’s felt like quite an up and coming place, it just naeeds a bit of time. There's a lot of great projects in place, we’re getting loads more investment funneled into our theaters and our libraries, which, I don’t think is happening in many places these days. So, more than anything, I just want people to be patient.”

In imploring people to hang tight, and stick with Reading as it comes into its own, there is a deep, forgiving, almost familial love in the way Luci talks about Double-Barrelled's home. Just as the town has supported the brewery, the brewery is sticking by its town, and willing it into whatever form it will take next.