David Donley, Chief Engineer, Brew Dogs

If those surprisingly comprehensible Scottish accents have charmed you into binge-watching Brew Dogs, you’ve probably also been won over by the likes of their bespectacled, silver-bearded right-hand-man, David Donley. A prop guy, gardener, artist—the list goes on—Donley didn’t think twice when he was asked to hit the road with the production crew. Each episode, Martin Dickie and James Watt task him with the impossible, and he makes it happen. From starting a fire with two sticks to building a wind-powered brewhouse on the roof of a building, Donley’s understated victories have become the heart of the show.

What was the toughest assignment they gave you?
Alaska was the biggest. They wanted to [pretend] we were in a seaplane and the plane crashed—how would we make a “survival beer” using parts [from the wrecked plane]? OK, well, if I had a plane I could do that. … Well, the De Havilland Beavers are seaplanes. They’re extremely ubiquitous throughout Alaska. So I started calling around saying, “So, uh, I need some parts from these planes, do you have a junk yard or spare parts?” Each and every vendor and pilot started laughing at me. … They said, these planes were made from 1948 to 1967 and after that they stopped manufacturing them, they worked so well that the people who had them just kept them running. All these planes up there are 40 years old. So there are no spare parts. They don’t junk them. I ended up buying junk parts at an aviation warehouse in the Mojave Desert. … After the fact, it was a lot of fun. During the process, it was a pain in the ass. [Laughs]

Tell me about something we didn’t see on television.
In New Orleans—I’m not going to name names, but the initials are J.W.—in the swamp, we had these two swamp boats. One has the brew system, one has the water-purification system. … As we come back an hour later, there’s only one boat there at the dock. All the crew is here, everyone’s going where the heck is the boat with the brew system? And we look out and somebody has forgotten to tie it up, so it had just drifted out into the bayou about a half-mile out of the way, and it was stuck in the trees, on a cypress stump. That never showed up on the show.

What have you learned from the people you’ve worked with?
What I have taken from all of these guys, the brewers, it’s things like, you walk into their pub, their restaurant, you see whatever style they’re emanating and each one has a specific style, but the brewers themselves—first of all, they’re craftsmen. But then the side of them that’s an artist comes out. So in the brewery, they’re the craftsman, and in their pub, in their restaurant, in their labeling, their presentation, their style, they’re an artist. So it’s the combination of craftsman and artist that I’ve come to appreciate in all of them. Well, in most of them. No, that’s not true. [Laughs]

What will you take away from the experience?
The love of the process … and don’t be afraid to fail, because that is going to happen. … You’re just making a beer, so if it comes out right, you get to enjoy it and you get a little buzz, and if it doesn’t—well, OK. The end product is something that spreads warmth and joy. ■