AN award-winning brewery with its eyes on expansion has chosen Bradford as the city to lay down its roots and is to take on the former Bradford Brewery building at the top of town.

EYES Brewing, which bills itself as the UK’s first and only wheat-focused brewery, is to reinvent the vacant Rawson Road site after Bradford Brewery suddenly closed its doors in mid-August.

EYES currently cuckoo brews around Yorkshire, which means brewing on someone else’s equipment, but it’s hoped a permanent base in the city will help the business to fulfil its growth ambition.

Director Dan Logan, 33, said: “Now we’re at that stage where cuckoo brewing worked at the beginning, because it meant we didn’t have to invest a lot of money into it, but now we’re brewing so much that it doesn’t make sense anymore.

“We were looking around for a building, thinking maybe in 2019 we would find somewhere, and then when Bradford Brewery came up it just felt really right.

“We’d brewed there 18 months ago, we really liked the vibe of the place and thought Bradford would be a good place for us to put our feet down and start properly.”

He added: “It was really exciting for us to think that whereas in Leeds we would have been one of many different breweries, being in Bradford we would be able to be, if we do it right and do it properly and really get into the city, the brewery in Bradford.

“I think that’s what our hope is, that the people of Bradford will kind of get excited about having a brewery in the city again.

“I hope we can work with different people in the city to make it a real hub for things.

“Not just a brewery where we send stuff out, but a place where people are proud to have that beer brewed in their city.

“The hope for the place is to grow and to get the beer out there, to be in more places.”

Dan said the three-strong EYES team are excited about the opportunities Bradford offers.

"It will be a lot of hard work, but I think we’re ready for that step,” he said.

“I’d love it if it was an area where people come and drink when they’re on their way to the football, where people come with their families, where people come and discuss creative things.

“Where old people come and drink as well as where young people come and drink.

“It would just be a nice community feel to it.”

As part of EYES’ ambition to become a hub in the city, the brewery will also be looking to work with local artists.

It’s something they have already done in Leeds and the aim is to change some of the rooms in the building into exhibition spaces.

It’s hoped the building will be open by the end of November or early December.