Raising a glass to the first local brew for 50 years

He and two friends got stuck into a 11,500 pint-a-week operation, and £250,000 later they are the proud owners of the first brewery to open in a Yorkshire town for more than half a century.

Mr Page, 55, used to run an agency of the Halifax bank in Rotherham, and said he was left “high and dry” in 2010 when the plug was pulled on the local branch network as the financial sector imploded.

At first he was left with a major headache, but once he recovered from the hangover of offloading premises and helping staff find new jobs, his long-held ambition to brew beer burst into reality.

Enlisting the help of fellow Campaign for Real Ale member Mick Warburton, he set up Chantry Brewery, which brewed its first ale on premises in the town’s Parkgate just a few days before Christmas.

The new brewery is in a modern industrial unit, but according to Mr Page and Mr Warburton is just a few yards from one the town’s best known refreshments companies, the former Hague’s minerals and soft drinks company.

That business was run by the family of the foreign secretary and MP for Richmond William Hague and Mr Page said he believed they started there because of the quality of the water in the area.

Although there is a brewery on the Wentworth Estate, north of Rotherham, Mr Page said the last to exist and brew beer in the town centre was Bentley’s, which closed at some time in the early 1960s.

He added: “There hasn’t been a brewery in Rotherham for at least 50 years and as big fans of real ale we have seen a lot of micro-breweries springing up in Sheffield and we wanted one here in our town.

“We’ve been interested in brewing for 30 years and when the opportunity came up we just thought: ‘why not?’”

Mr Warburton, 44, signed up on a residential brewers’ course at Sunderland University, and graduated alongside people 
from places as far apart as the Falkland Islands, Ecuador, 
Delhi, Mexico and Portland, Oregon.

He then returned to Rotherham and he and Mr Page tried to get assistance from the local council to set up the business, which was not forthcoming.

“We spoke to every council department and each one said it couldn’t help us. At that point we thought we must be crazy setting up in Rotherham, but we really wanted to stick to our roots,” Mr Page said.

“We have really got the idea off the ground thanks to help from local Camra members who have given us their building and decorating skills. They even helped us to sell and deliver the beer.”

Chantry’s first ale, New York Pale, is 3.9 per cent and described as a “pale session bitter, with a citrus taste and crisp bitter finish”.

It was named after Rotherham United’s newly-completed New York stadium.

There are now plans for a stout and a bitter and Mr Warburton, of Rawmarsh, said pubs and clubs which have already sold New York Pale have told him that customers are asking when the next brew will arrive.

He added: “It has gone so much better than we thought it would. It’s not just pubs in Rotherham that want the beer, pubs in Sheffield are buying it and we are getting orders from further afield.

“We have even got our beer into some of the big pub chains, like JD Wetherspoon, but we want to make sure it is going to places that can look after it, because badly-kept beer could ruin our reputation.

“We are using all the best ingredients we can find, including malt from Castleford and of course the water, which we think has the best mineral content in the area. We are wanting to make premium beer, but sell it at a reasonable price. Around the £3 a pint mark.”

Mr Page said the real sense of achievement kicked in when he walked into the pub he has been drinking in since he was a teenager and saw the Chantry Brewery beer clip on a pump on the bar.

He added; “I have been going in the Sitwell Arms in Whiston, Rotherham for nearly 40 years and to walk in there and see your own beer on the bar feels like a huge achievement.

“I think everybody who has been involved is really proud that we have managed to give Rotherham its own brewery again.

“And judging by the reaction we have had from drinkers, they are proud to be able to drink beer brewed in the town.”