Moorhouse's: bright future in the pipeline

Something amazing is happening in Burnley. "How much beer can you produce?" I ask David Grant, managing director of Moorhouse's, as we stand on a gallery looking down on gleaming mash tuns and coppers in the brewhouse.

"We can brew 1,000 barrels a week," he says. "That's two brews a day — at a pinch we could push three brews a day through." You don't need a degree in advanced maths to work out that this adds up to 50,000 barrels a year. That makes Moorhouse's a big regional brewer — don't use the word 'micro' here, for the company is four times the size of many long-standing family brewers.

Everything about Moorhouse's is remarkable. The brewery almost closed in 1985 but was rescued, re-built its business and acquired a small estate of six pubs. In 2000 it won the coveted Champion Beer of Britain award from the Campaign for Real Ale for its dark mild, Black Cat. The publicity led to a dramatic increase in the sales of all Moorhouse's cask beers, including Pride of Pendle and Pendle Witches Brew.

Brewing continued in a cramped site that dated from 1865, alongside equally cramped offices. The maximum amount of beer that could be produced was 320 barrels a week and the site was creaking at the seams as demand for Moorhouse's beers went on rising.

This was happening in an area that had lost its mills and mines, and was cruelly affected by the recession.

And yet five years ago plans were laid for a new brewery and offices to keep up with the clamour for the beers. The cost was originally £3.2m but it grew to £4.5m. The enormous sum was funded by Yorkshire Bank and directors and shareholders, with grants and loans from the Northwest Regional Development Agency and Burnley Borough Council.

Grant wipes make-believe sweat from his brow as he mentions the last two bodies, as the development agency is being wound up and the local council has to trim its budget as a result of central Government cuts. "We got in just in time," he admits.

Moorhouse's is used to turbulence. The company was founded in 1865 by William Moorhouse as a general drinks manufacturer. His son developed "hop bitters" that were less than 2% alcohol and sold in temperance bars and hotels at a time when the anti-alcohol lobby was a powerful voice and had the support of the Liberal Party.

The Moorhouse family ran the company until 1978 and it then changed hands four times in two years.

In 1982 Alan Hutchinson seemed to put Moorhouse's back on an even keel. He owned a chain of hotels, bingo halls and nightclubs and he added Moorhouse's to supply his estate with beer. But Hutchinson died suddenly in 1985 and his company was bought by Apollo Leisure, which had no interest in the brewery. Moorhouse's was put up for sale and seemed destined to close until Bill Parkinson dropped in to a Burnley pub for a pint of Premier Bitter.

In common with the man who liked the electric razor so much he bought the company, Parkinson enjoyed his pint to such an extent that he bought the brewery. He had made his money as a manufacturer of heavy lifting gear and he now poured his energy and experience into reinvigorating Moorhouse's, taking on Grant, with a vast experience of the drinks industry, as his managing director.

Grant is bullish about the future. "The trade is growing at a phenomenal rate," he says. As well as the six tied pubs — the General Scarlett and the Stanley in Burnley, the Dusty Miller in Bury, the Pendle Witch in Atherton, Greater Manchester, the Craven Heifer in Rawtenstall and the Rising Sun in Blacko, both in Lancashire — Moorhouse's has 300 free trade accounts and delivers to Cumbria, Cheshire, York and to JD Wetherspoon outlets as far south as Birmingham. Grant says that while the north-west has lost its industries there are still "fantastic pubs" in suburbs and villages. He employs six salesmen and they call on all their accounts every four weeks, taking orders for a month in advance. Free trade sales are up 15% on last year.

He plans to employ extra salesmen to attack the off-trade but Moorhouse's is, belt and braces, a cask-beer brewery. The new brewhouse is a traditional ale plant, based on mash tuns and coppers, and there are no plans to add either keg beer or lager. Grant thinks the future is sound because cask beer is not going through one of its peaks that will be followed by a trough. The market is changing as young people, including a growing number of women, switch to real ale and talk about the subject with great knowledge, down to identifying specific varieties of hops.

The new site includes facilities for training brewers and publicans and there are spacious rooms and bars for conferences and even wedding parties. Two chefs will be taken on who will use locally-sourced ingredients and match beer with meals in a restaurant called the Cauldron.

"The new brewery has been built to last for 30 or 40 years," Grant says. £4.5m is an eye-watering amount of money but Grant is optimistic the loans will be paid back on time. "It's simple — we've got to sell more beer," he laughs. And, by George, I think he'll do it.