Back in 2001, Ray Welton used to rent part of the Hepworth &
But Welton has now moved to his own premises Welton Brewery 100 yards away from Bill King's brewery on the Foundry Lane estate.
Welton is a larger-than-life character, full of bubbling enthusiasm for beer and life in general. He started brewing in Dorking 10 years ago "there'll be one hell of a p***-up to celebrate" but his family has been involved in booze for far longer.
His grandfather was a cider maker at Newdigate, in Surrey, while his father started a drinks wholesaling business in the 1980s and dealt with the likes of Eldridge Pope and Ringwood breweries, with sales of between £2m to £3m a year.
But the company was hit badly by the recession in the late 1980s and, when his father died, Welton sold the business to the Beer Seller in 1994. A year later, he started his own small brewery in Dorking.
"I was mentioned in the King & Barnes company minutes," he chuckles. "They said: A bandit in Dorking is stealing our trade'."
Certainly a K&B connection
There was certainly a K&B connection, for Fred Martin, a former head brewer at Horsham taught Welton how to brew.
Welton, an engineer by trade, used his background to construct a brewery that is radically different to Andy Hepworth's and Bill King's. It's a case of something old and nothing new, with fermenters built from old Carlsberg tanks, parts of a mash tun from a brewpub in Croydon, and a copper that Welton found on a dump with a tree growing inside it.
"I've picked up bits and pieces from everywhere," he says. "It's the Steptoe in me."
He's no Steptoe where beer is concerned. He has a keen eye on the modern beer market and the bottled beers he's planning will be suitable for vegans, made without the use of fish finings.
Brewing 40 barrels a week, Welton says he doesn't clash with Bill King as he tends to sell beer to old contacts in the Dorking area. The small pub company Brunning & Price also takes his beer for outlets in Cheshire and North Wales.
However, he admits his first beer, the 3.5% abv Kid & Bard, was his nod to the King & Barnes era, which has influenced so much of his brewing days.
He has since added a number of others, but his most remarkable beer is Pride&Joy at just 2.8%, a beer reminiscent of the "boy's bitters" brewed for agricultural workers in Victorian times.
