Skipton brewery toasts record year (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Skipton brewery toasts record year

2:01pm Tuesday 8th September 2009 in Business By Chris Holland

Skipton brewery Copper Dragon is celebrating a record year.

The brewery opened its new £4.5 million premises and visitor centre at the Snaygill Industrial estate in November last year.

And since then, it has seen record sales of both cask and bottled ales and a 50 per cent increase in annual turnover to £4 million.

The brewery, which was established in Skipton seven years ago, has also taken on more staff and now employs 45 people.

Steve Taylor, Copper Dragon Managing Director, said: “This is supposed to be a slow time in the brewery trade, but we are operating at near full capacity with our hand crafted cask ales, and sales of our bottled range are going through the roof. We are in the enviable position of having to turn away demand from foreign markets, but that is an issue that we are –actively addressing.”

He added that the brewery was now turning over more than £300,000 every month – the same amount it was turning over annually when it started seven years ago.

“Approaching half a million pints of Copper Dragon are sold every month in pubs across the UK together with around 25,000 bottles from retail outlets, but those are growing rapidly by the month and our ales are now available from Newcastle across to Carlisle down as far as the Midlands,” said Mr Taylor.

“There is a lot of doom and gloom around at the moment and its good to be bucking the trend with a quality team of staff in place and a quality range of ales.”

He added that the new bistro, which opened a year ago, serves up more than 100 meals every day and tours of the brewery were proving very popular. The brewery’s conference facilities were also proving popular with companies choosing to come back. There is a personal touch to everything we do here and I like to think that our approach, ethos and integrity, is playing a major part in our success.”