North Brewing Co unveils new ‘multi-million pound’ site

Leeds-based business North Brewing Co has revealed its new home, doubling its capacity in a former tannery.

Springwell in north Leeds will also see a new 500-person taproom in the 21,000sq ft factory and will mean brewing output will increase to 16,000 hectolitres (2.8m pints a year).

The new site will provide a central hub for the brewery and its on-trade arm North Bar’s seven sites and taprooms, allowing brewing and bar operations to be under the same roof.

Site funding

The firm has received a Business Growth Programme Fund from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority to support the project and generate seven jobs in the business.

North’s original brewery in Sheepscar, Leeds will be host to Taverner’s Walk Small Batch Project – an experimental arm of the brewery, which will help the company experiment with barrel ageing, sours and fermentation projects.

While Springwell was set to host an opening party on 27 November, this has now been moved to an online event and a definite opening date for the site will be dependent on Government restrictions.

Phenomenal support

Co-founder John Gyngell said: “We are incredibly excited to make the move to Springwell. The past five years have seen fantastic growth at the brewery. We have consistently doubled our production year on year and have reached the limits of our capacity to brew at our current site. Our strong sales mix including export, supermarkets and online sales has seen us achieve record growth throughout 2020.

“The support in Leeds for our business has been phenomenal and we’ve been humbled by the love shown for our brand. We are inspired by breweries in the USA who have created destination taprooms at their breweries, and we cannot wait to do something similar in north Leeds. Creating a hub for North at the brewery will strengthen the connection between our team, bars, brewery and wider community. The bars are currently operating as pop up North Brewing Co bottle shops during lockdown and have played a massive role in the success of the brewery.”