Former licensee to open £400,000 Bradford city centre brewery and brewpub

Matthew Halliday, a Bradford-born entrepreneur, plans to open the Bradford Brewery and its attached pub, the Brewfactory, later this year.

The project is part-funded by Bradford Council Growth Zone – a £35m initiative to attract businesses back into the city centre and to equip the local community with the skills they need to get the jobs.

The grant money will go towards refurbishing the building and buying the equipment.

The 10-barrel brewery, which will be a housed in a restored disused industrial building off Westgate, will have an initial production capacity of 16,000 pints per week, and will be housed with the pub on staggered levels.

A glass wall will allow customers to look directly from The Brewfactory bar into the brewery so they can watch the beer being brewed while they drink.

Expert advice​

After working for a number of years in the charity sector, Halliday ran the Fisherman's in Bingley, West Yorkshire, from Jan 2012 to November 2013. He was recently awarded funding and business advice on the project by former Dragon’s Den star Doug Richards.

Halliday believed there is a fast-growing local and national market for interesting and innovative craft-brewed lagers and ales, with microbreweries coming to the forefront.

He said: “The idea to launch Bradford Brewery came from my love of London's craft beer drinking scene. Yorkshire is slowly catching up but we're still a long way behind.

“I wanted to do something positive for Bradford and hope that Bradford Brewery will not only produce some great beers, but also help to change perceptions of our great city.

Halliday added: “We’ve got long-term plans for the business and have aspirations of seeing Bradford beers on every bar across the district.”

The development, which is close to Bradford’s North Parade beer scene, will create 11 full-time jobs.

It will be Bradford’s first city centre brewery since the closure of Hammonds Bradford Brewery in 1955.