Former tannery converted into HQ for craft brewery

Independent craft brewery North Brewing Co has unveiled its new multi-million pound home in North Leeds.

Springwell, based in a former tannery on Buslingthorpe Lane, sees North Brewing Co double its capacity, open a new 500-person taproom, and move its bar and brewery HQ under one roof.

The careful restoration of the 21,000 sq ft factory showcases its industrial heritage.

North’s brewing output will increase to 16,000 hectolitres (2.8 million pints a year) and the expansion is creating new jobs and securing many more despite the pandemic.

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

Springwell will provide a central hub for the brewery and its family of seven bars and taprooms. It will be home to the North HQ with an office designed in collaboration with Refold and Design Tonic.

This space will allow the brewery and bar operations to come under the same roof and provide a training space for bar teams from across the country to learn a little more about North’s beers.

A 500-person capacity taproom will pour draught North beers fresh from the brewery, with festivals, events, brewery tours, street food traders, a merchandise shop, pop up art exhibitions and space for private hire.

And although the taproom opening has been temporarily delayed by Covid 19, North is preparing to open in a Covid secure manner as soon as the situation allows.

This venue will be home to the successful Eat North street food festivals, which will be held here every weekend.

Springwell will also be home to the North Brewing Co webshop: an area of the business that has seen growth of 800% so far this year.

The webshop offers free delivery on all orders over £20 within a six mile radius of the brewer.

Company co-founder, John Gyngell, said: “We are incredibly excited to make the move to Springwell.

“The last 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.”

North’s original brewery in Sheepscar will be home to the Taverner’s Walk Small Batch Project: an experimental arm of the brewery allowing North to experiment with barrel ageing, sours and fermentation projects.