Meet the team

Ian Burgess

Head Brewer

Ian is our award winning master brewer who is responsible for all the great WJ King Ales.

Ian’s career started in the lab of the world famous Truman Brewer in London’s Brick Lane. Seeing that the real fun was in making the beer and not analysing it, Ian transferred to the Brewhouse where he learnt his trade brewing classic beers such as Sampson Hanbury’s Strong Ale (7.6%), Ben Truman’s Export Draught and Watneys Special Bitter.

He decided to move to Sussex to raise his family and was soon recruited into Harvey's of Lewes as number 2 brewer where for the next 19 years he ran the day to day activities of this world renowned 250 bbl brew house.

During this time they collected a cabinet full of international awards, expanded the brewery by 125% and added a new fully automated bottling line.

Ian was a key member of the team that worked around the clock for nine days to restart the brewery after it severely damaged when the town of Lewes was flooded in 1987.

For many years, Ian wished to have his own brewhouse and was delighted when the opportunity to purchase WJ King came along.

In his first few months as Head Brewer, he has expanded production by 40%, launched three new beers to great acclaim and developed a further three which will be launched this year.

His first creation Brighton Best was launched in October 2010 and quickly became one of our best selling beers.

This was followed by Brighton Blonde a hoppy golden ale.

Ian has also been fine-tuning some of the much-loved WJKing recipes, such as the ever-popular Kings Old Ale which won the Silver Medal at the National Winter Ales Festival in 2011

He lives with his family in Isfield, East Sussex.

Nigel Lambe

Chief Executive

Nigel is our much travelled business leader who looks after the commercial side of the business. Having worked in large multinationals for 17 years after university running a diverse set of businesses Nigel decided that he wanted to stop commuting and get involved in local, high quality business where each individual could make a real difference. With a background in PepsiCo Restaurants and Grampian Foods as well as a number of technology and logistics businesses he was researching local food companies when a serendipitous conversation led to a meeting with Ian Burgess. It took all of about 20 minutes for the pair to decide to work together and after 9 months of planning, it eventually led to the purchase of WJ King. Nigel focuses on sales and finance and plots numerous ways to get more drinkers enjoying Ian's beers. No stranger to awards Nigel has recently been honoured by Insider magazine as their Entrepreneur of the year 2011. He also led previous businesses to Number 6 in the Deloitte Fast 50 and Number 53 in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 for high growth businesses and is a previous runner-up in the Sussex Business awards. In addition to his role in WJ King, Nigel advises the Boards of a number of private companies in the supply chain, food & drink and hospitality sectors such as eCourier, the Mill End Hotel and serves as chairman of Small Batch Coffee Company.

Orla Lambe

Marketing Director

Orla has worked on some of the biggest brands in marketing such as Jameson whiskey, Kerrygold butter, Lancôme cosmetics and Brita Water Filters throughout Britain and continental Europe.

Having graduated from University College Dublin, Orla continued on to further studies at the Sorbonne in Paris where she lived for 6 years, and is a fluent French speaker.

Orla has led the rebranding of the entire range of WJ King beers, the launch of our new beers, rebuilding of the website and all of our PR and marketing activities.

Sue Whitty

Sales Executive

Sue has an encyclopedic knowledge of the pubs of Sussex. She is also our most experienced member of staff having joined WJ King as a Sales Executive 8 years ago. Sue originally trained and worked as a primary school teacher, but was drawn to the beer industry when she ran her own pub, The Star in Rusper. Sue was then appointed as King & Barnes first female Sales Representative and has sold beer to great pubs all over the South East. After the demise of King & Barnes Sue returned briefly to teaching, but was delighted to receive the call to come and lead WJ King’s external salesforce..