Thornbridge Brewery plans a London pub

Thornbridge, the Bakewell-based brewer, is on the lookout for a London pub in time for next year's Olympics.

Simon Webster, Thornbridge's chief operating officer, said his company had identified the capital as somewhere it wanted to operate a pub and had asked Enterprise Inns, from which it already leases pubs, to help in its search.

"We're pretty tied up for 2011, with two pubs hopefully coming on-stream in the next few months, but London is somewhere we'd like to be, especially with everything that 2012 will have to offer," he said.

Meanwhile Thornbridge, which currently operates three pubs, is looking to lease two more from Enterprise. As with its latest site, the Greystones in Sheffield, the brewer will pay the pubco a tie release fee and be able to offer its own-brewed ales, which include the award-winning Jaipur.

"We're hoping to meet with Enterprise soon to talk about two more of their pubs in the Sheffield area. These are sites that are effectively 'broken' and that need revitalising," he added.

Webster said the first two months of trading at the Greystones had seen 25,000 pints of Thornbridge beers sold, while the pub's formerly derelict function room now operated as a successful music venue, featuring a performance today (February 14) by former Dr Feelgood guitarist Wilko Johnson.

"The pub is trading well but we've worked hard to get people in," Webster added.