Sam McGregor, Signature Brew’s co-founder, didn’t start with a plan. He started with a problem. The beer at great gigs just wasn’t very good.
The frustration was mutual with every musician and anyone who’d ever queued for a flat lager in a paper cup, and that eventually birthed Signature Brew, now one of London’s most recognised independent breweries. It produces millions of pints a year and has built its name at the intersection of music, culture and entrepreneurship.
But as Sam tells Brij in the first episode of Unfiltered with Brij, the real story was never really about beer. It was about figuring things out as he went, carrying more than he let on, and slowly working out what success actually looks like once you’ve reached it.
How Sam McGregor Built Signature Brew From a Gig-Night Frustration
After Brij spent forty minutes talking with Sam, one thing became clear, there was no grand plan behind the idea of Signature Brew.
Because by the time Signature Brew came into existence, Sam, alongside his cousin and co-founder Tom Bott, had already lived through a crash course in running a business. After losing his father while he was at university, Sam came home at twenty-two to take over the family catering business (a bakery and a fleet of sandwich vans), with employees older than he was. At that age, he was forced to make decisions as they came, whether he felt ready for them or not.
It’s not the part of his story most people know. But it shaped how he approached everything that came after.
Years later, while touring with his own band, he noticed the frustration that birthed Signature Brew. The way it started wasn’t research-driven or particularly strategic like most businesses you are familiar with.
“I didn’t really do much research. I just said, I’m sick of drinking sh*t beer at gigs. Does anyone else feel that? And everyone was like, yeah.” — Sam McGregor
He simply asked musicians whether they’d want their own beer, and asked their fans whether they’d buy it. Most of the time, the answer to both was yes, and that was enough to begin.
Why Entrepreneurship Is Often Messier Than People Think
It’s tempting to look at a brand like Signature Brew and assume its growth was carefully engineered. In this episode, Sam is refreshingly honest about how untrue that is.
In the early years, he and his small team were doing everything themselves, from sales, marketing, logistics, production, even working out compliance as they went. There was no scaling playbook. The goal was simply to keep the business alive and see how far that would take them.
“I think that you benefit a little bit from a certain amount of naivety.” — Sam McGregor
The willingness to move, and the kind of naivety, took them a long way. But the cracks eventually showed the moment growth started to outpace the systems holding it together. That tension, between moving fast and building something that could actually last, runs right through the conversation.
The Hidden Cost of Building Something Meaningful
The most unfiltered part of the episode wasn’t about the business at all.
For years, Sam admits, Signature Brew wasn’t something he simply owned, but something he felt he was. The business and his identity had become hard to separate, and the pressure that comes with that is something most founders will recognise even if they’ve never said it out loud.
“It might feel like your life. For me, definitely it was for a long time. I felt like I was intrinsically part of it. The brand was me, and I was the brand.” — Sam McGregor
Looking back, Sam wishes he’d asked himself sooner: “Why am I actually doing this?”, a question that’s easily skipped past when you’re too busy building to stop and look at what’s driving you.
What Success Means Today For Sam McGregor, Signature Brew Co-Founder
When Brij asks Sam what success feels like to him now, he didn’t reach for anything grand, his answer was a single word.
“Stability.” — Sam McGregor
But pushed further, on what actually matters to him once the work stops, he goes deeper.
“I think there’s a lot of ways you can do things that appear to be important, but for me, it’s about doing something useful. If I want to make a difference, I want to have an impact, even if it’s small on a customer, another business, another person.” — Sam McGregor
This is a response that captures one of the central themes of this episode, because the things that motivate us at the beginning of a journey are not always the things that matter most years later.
For Sam, creating something useful, helping others, and contributing to the next generation of founders has become increasingly important.
His answer says more about how far he’s come than a longer one ever could, and is worth hearing in his own words, the moment he says it.
Watch or Listen to the Full Conversation
This is only a fraction of what the conversation covers. From the early days of Signature Brew to leadership, burnout, and what it actually takes to build something that lasts, this episode is full of the kind of honesty you don’t often get from founders.
If you’re building something or thinking seriously about it, it’s worth the hour.
Watch the full episode on YouTube, or listen on Spotify, and Amazon Music.
More conversations like this one are coming. Find everything at brijthankey.com.
