Andy Hamilton

Northampton born Andy Hamilton is an expert on home grown food, wild food and brewing. After an assortment of "interesting" jobs from being a mash potato man in a food factory to the dizzy heights of "operative in charge of cardboard box making" for a clothing warehouse. Andy finally took the bold move to restart his career and received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Bath Spa University while simultaneously teaching himself how to live a near-self-sufficient lifestyle.

Whilst studying for his degree and working part time in a psychiatric hospital, Andy co-created a website on self sufficient living with his brother Dave: www.selfsufficientish.com. It quickly gained a huge following and was featured on BBC News 24's Click Online and across most of the UK broadsheets.

Following their success Andy and Dave went on to write the much-coveted and critically acclaimed book, The Self Sufficientish Bible. Andy writes a regular wild drink blog for the Guardian, a wild food one for Home Farmer and has contributed to Wired magazine, The Ecologist and BBC Food among many others as well as appearing on the BBC's Autumnwatch Unsprung, countryfile and on local and national radio.

He has foraged for The Eden Project, BBC's Autumnwatch and Ways with Words Dartington Literary festival. During his time uncovering some of the best of Britain's wild food, Andy has eaten his way through a wide variety of wild flora and fauna and has toured the UK in search of the great British homebrew. His nuts and bolts, accessible approach to self-sufficiency has garnered hundreds of thousands of fans the world over. His new book on the subject of homebrewing is titled 'Booze for Free' and will be published in 2011 by Transworld.