RAISING a glass to a new brewery in Thorne is Doncaster North MP Ed Miliband this week.
Mr Milliband will visit Thorne Brewery's newest facilities, where real ales such as Thorne Best Bitter and Thorne Pale Ale are now being brewed, for a tour tomorrow.
Former Business Link social enterprise manager, Mark Burton has fulfilled his dre
am of running his own brewery and brought brewing back
to Thorne.
With funding from Key Fund Yorkshire and others, and support from Business Link Yorkshire, Thorne Brewery is now brewing 1,000 gallons a week.
Inspired by his background, Mark set up Thorne Brewery as a social enterprise (a business where profits are reinvested for social or community benefit).
The brewery is currently in negotiations to supply Wetherspoons with Thorne Best Bitter, and currently employs two, with plans to increase to six, and expects to make a small profit by the end of the year.
It is set for a turnover of nearly £300,000 in year one, reinvesting any profits to establish a visitor's centre.
This will support the company's aims to create jobs and training opportunities for local people, and to develop tourism in Thorne.
Thorne Brewery recently launched a community share offer to members of the Friends of Thorne Brewery. This scheme will pay dividends in beer.
The only way to receive the share offer document is to join the Friends of Thorne Brewery.
Mr Milliband said: "I am pleased to see that Thorne Brewery has started brewing real ales, and that pubs around Yorkshire have begun to sell their beers.
"It is great to see beer being brewed again in Thorne which has a long tradition of producing beer going back to Darley's Brewery which brewed ale until 1986.
"This Brewery has an entrepreneurial spirit that has included a real community focus, which I think is a welcome development."
More details can be found at www.thornebrewery.com
