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Dunham Massey's offering at the Swan with Two Necks in Little Bollingtom

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1:00 am, July 7, 2008
New brewer taps into guest beer market

By Joanne Birtwistle

The Dunham Massey Brewing Company has only been in production since October 2007, but is already providing “a comfortable living”, said its founder John Costello.

The business, based in a barn in Dunham Massey, was set up by Costello after he took voluntary redundancy from his job as a manufacturing systems engineer.

Prior to that, he was a brewer for Tetley Walker in Warrington before it closed down. He invested £40,000 from his redundancy and savings and expects the company's turnover to be around £80,000 in its first year.

“We used to brew traditional North Western beer at Tetley but a lot of family brewers have disappeared. I want to do that — in the traditional style,” said Costello, whose only employee is his son Anthony.

The company uses all English ingredients and tries to source those as locally as possible.

Its biggest customer is the Swan with Two Nicks pub in Little Bollington, which has stocked Dunham Massey beer from day one.

“Most people are walkers around the area, who will have been to Dunham Massey, so they like to come and drink the locally produced beer,” said manager and licensee Ann Amphlett. She has seen the sale of cask ales increase by 20 per cent since stocking Costello's beer.

But getting the beer into pubs can prove tricky because most are tied-in to serve only those beers provided by the pub company. Some pubs, like the Swan, allow guest ales from one company.

“As a small brewer we are in the guest beers market. But a lot of brewers are fighting for that same market,” said Costello.

Until 2002, when the law was changed, any tenants of brewers which owned more than 2,000 pubs had the right to sell a guest beer.

CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, is calling for the introduction of a new guest beer right for pub company tenants which would benefit small, local brewers.

Costello also sells bottle conditioned beer through its barn shop over the brewery, the National Trust shop at the Dunham Massey country estate, and other farm shops. It has recently started supplying restaurants too, such as The Fat Loaf in Sale and Altrincham.

Four varieties of beer are regularly brewed at the moment, including the 4.5 per cent Dunham Massey Deer Beer, with one or two additional seasonal beers. A recent addition to the list of occasional brews was Chocolate Cherry Mild, which the Campaign for Real Ale liked so much it asked for it to be casked for the Stockport Beer Festival, where it won a Bronze award.

“The cask sold out within an hour,” said Costello, who has been asked by the Campaign for Real Ale to provide another four 18 gallon casks for the Great British Beer Festival, to be held at Earls Court, London, in August.



COMMENTS? jbirtwistle@crain.com