“A drink should be what it says on the bottle”: You + I’s Alan Moore on raw kombucha from a Glasgow railway arch
Founder Interviews · October 2026 · interview by Rich
You + I is a raw, organic kombucha brewed in a railway arch in the Gorbals, south of the River Clyde in Glasgow. Alan and Kelsey Moore started it at their kitchen table in 2017, under the name Clever Kombucha, and it’s now a certified B Corp sold in more than 500 independent shops across the UK and Ireland, the brand says. We put our questions to Alan: the name change, a brewing day in the arch, why they ferment on French oak, why there are no sweeteners anywhere in the range, and the early months when, as he puts it, every one felt like it could be the last.
Haven’t tried it yet? Our You + I kombucha review tastes all five flavours.
You and Kelsey started You + I at your kitchen table in 2017. What got you brewing kombucha in the first place, and when did it stop being a hobby and become a business?
Kelsey is Canadian, and we first got into kombucha on visits back to see her family, where it is much more of an everyday drink. We came home to Glasgow wanting it and could not find anything we liked, so we started making our own at the kitchen table in 2017.
It became a business when the first independent delis took cases in 2018 and kept reordering. By 2019 the kitchen was far too small, so we moved into our first micro brewery.
You started out as Clever Kombucha. Why the change to You + I, and how did the labels, with their line drawings of each ingredient, come about?
We did not want to limit ourselves to kombucha. We wanted to be a wider drinks company, and a name with kombucha in it was always going to box us in. You + I is the answer: You is our community, our customers and our extended family, and I is the makers crafting every batch. Together it is a shared moment.
The rebrand design work was carried out by Freytag Anderson. We knew we wanted botanical style illustrations on the bottle, and it was their suggestion to go with delicate hand drawn illustrations. Those were done by Ryn Frank. Each label carries a drawing of what is in the flavour, so you can read the bottle at a glance.
In 2020 you crowdfunded your move into a railway arch in the Gorbals. What did having your own brewery change, and what does a brewing day in Arch 9 look like?
Having our own brewery meant proper tanks and proper temperature control, so every batch is made somewhere built for it, and every batch is analysed before it goes out. A brewing day starts with the tea: whole leaf, steeped in the morning, then cooled and combined with the culture and sugar in the tank. After that the work is mostly looking after it, tasting, checking and moving batches along.
Packaging is the most time consuming and labour intensive part of the whole process, even though a lot of it is automated today. In the beginning we were filling straight from a brewing bucket into bottles!
Every bottle is raw and unpasteurised, and you ferment on French oak, which you say is unusual for kombucha. Why do it that way, and what does it bring to what’s in the glass?
The oak rounds off the sharp edges you can get in a young kombucha and leaves something softer underneath the acidity. Add whole leaf tea instead of dust and fannings, and never heat treating it, and you get what came out of the tank rather than something flattened for shelf life. Raw tastes better, and that is the whole reason.
The Original is just water, tea, sugar and the culture, and there are no sweeteners anywhere in the range, while many bigger brands go the other way. Why keep the ingredients list that short?
Because a drink should be what it says on the bottle. Original is water, organic tea, organic cane sugar and the kombucha culture, and the flavoured ones add natural organic flavour. No sweeteners, no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. If you can read and understand every word on the label, we think that is a good sign.
“The delis kept reordering, which told us the drink itself was right even when the business around it was shaky.”
Alan Moore, co-founder of You + I
What’s been the hardest moment so far, the point where you weren’t sure it was going to work?
The first two years. We did not really know what we were doing, we had no money, and we had a young child at home. Every month felt like it could be the last one. What got us through was that the delis kept reordering, which told us the drink itself was right even when the business around it was shaky.
You’ve gone from a few delis to more than 500 independent shops, and Ginger and Lime Sea Salt have just arrived on Ocado. How has selling kombucha changed since 2017, and where do you want You + I to be in a few years?
In 2017 you had to go looking for kombucha, and a handful of independent shops took a chance on us. Today we are in more than 500 independents across the UK and Ireland, including Harrods and Selfridges, and Ginger and Lime Sea Salt are on Ocado.
Far more people know what kombucha is now, so the question has moved from “what is it?” to “which flavour?”. In a few years I want us still brewing in Glasgow, still with a short ingredients list, and in the weekly shop of people who would never walk into a health food shop.
Most of our readers come for alcohol-free beer. Where does kombucha fit for someone who wants something grown-up to drink without alcohol, and when do you open a You + I yourself?
Kombucha suits anyone who wants a proper drink in the glass rather than a sweet soft drink: tea, a sharp or savoury edge, and real flavour. Ginger is the one for the dinner table, and Lime Sea Salt is sharp, savoury and a little bit moreish over ice.
I reach for one midweek, when I am winding down in the evening and want something in the glass that is not alcohol. I would love to tell you I also open one the morning after a big night out, feeling a bit rough, but that rarely happens now that we have four kids. A big night out these days is staying up past nine!
Alan answered our questions in writing in October 2026.
Try You + I for yourself
Our You + I kombucha review tastes all five flavours, from the Original to Black Cherry, with what’s in each bottle and where to buy it. Alan sent us a crate of the five for that review, and we don’t earn anything from links to You + I. You + I says that, like most fermented drinks, its kombucha contains trace amounts of alcohol and is considered a soft drink.
Lime Sea Salt is our pick in the Christmas dinner guide for anyone at the table who doesn’t want beer, and a mixed case is in our alcohol-free gift guide. If you’d rather have a can, our Hip Pop review covers the Manchester kombucha, and our Hip Pop discount codes make it cheaper still.
Next in our founder interviews: Collider’s Harry Cooke on leaving prosecco for alcohol-free beer, brewing to low strength, and the summer Collider ran out of beer.
Here for the beer? Find the alcohol-free version of your usual pint with our Swap Finder, or browse every beer we’ve reviewed. For more of this series, read UNLTD.’s Johnny Johnson on brewing the alcohol out and the pint can, or see all our founder interviews. And if you’re a founder in the alcohol-free space who’d like to be part of this series, get in touch.