Brewers are back in Kendal after 35 years (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Brewers are back in Kendal after 35 years

3:10pm Wednesday 28th September 2011 in Kendal news By Allan Tunningley

BREWING is to return to Kendal town centre for the first time in 35 years – with recipes resurrected from the last big brewery.

A micro-brewery has been built into a new extension to Burgundy’s, the popular watering hole, in Lowther Street.

Owner Mike Pennington enlisted the help of locally-based professional taster Derek Kingwell.

He managed to track down the recipes for the last beers brewed in Kendal by Whitwell and Mark, which closed in the 1970s, and whose buildings make up the Brewery Arts Centre, in the town.

Those recipes form the basis of the Brew House. They will be brewed by Stuart Crawford, who formerly worked at Hawkshead Brewery, now based at Staveley.

As well as their own beers, Mr Pennington is also organising Meet the Brewer weekends, where other brewers will come in and brew their own beers.

The first guest brewer will be multi-award-winning Peter Goldsborough, a former brew-er with Burnley’s Moorhouse Brewery, and now with Cross Bay Brewery, in Morecambe.

That demonstration will be on October 29, coinciding with Kendal Food Festival.

The Brew House, at Burgundy’s, is the latest venture by entrepreneur Mr Pennington who has owned and run Burgundy’s for 25 years.

The wine bar opened at a time when it provided something new to the town which had more than its fair share of traditional ale houses.

It opened with 120 wines, including 40 Burgundys, on sale. But by the early 1990s the emphasis had switched to the embryonic cask ale revival.

Now Mr Pennington has fulfilled a long-standing ambition to add a micro-brewery to the premises.

“Because we have been involved in real ale since 1992, it is a natural progression,” said Mr Pennington.

“When the buildings behind and next to us came on the market, it was just too good an opportunity to miss.”

The micro-brewery will be on show behind a glass partition in the new Brew House area.

“Customers will be able to see the beer being brewed and then drink it.

"We want the customers to be involved, to give us feedback and make suggestions which we can act on,” he added.