Leeds bar group thirsty for more as expansion plans materialise

THE Leeds-based bar group which has established its bars across the North over the past six years, is now looking to take over the Midlands with its trio of popular bars.

The Burning Night Group brand – which is responsible for The Bierkeller, Around the World and Shooters sports bars – will be opening large venues housing all three bars in Birmingham and Nottingham over the next few months.

The Broad Street venue – which is taking the place of the former Brannigans – will have its grand opening on Friday December 9, after which, it’s Nottingham branch will be taking priority, aiming to open towards the end of February next year.

Group stock controller of The Burning Night Group Stephen McKnight said: “We will continue to grow as we are. We’ve moved towards the east with another two venues, now we want to look at other cities.

“It needs to be quite a large student city with a good population of young working people, but as the venues need to be over 20,000 sq ft, we do have to find suitable venues which isn’t easy.”

With successful sites already established in Cardiff, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool and two more around the corner, the brand plans to further expand across the UK starting with York, London, Glasgow and Bristol.

The American style Shooters bar will offer a place for customers to watch various sports from football to cricket through to rugby and golf. The sports bar will boast large screens, a pool table, American-style food and authentic craft beers from a range of states including California, Chicago and Boston.

With traditional German beers imported from Bavaria and Dortmund served in steins, music to dance to, long benched seating and waitresses in classical Bavarian outfits, the Bierkeller bar will predominantly be catering for stag dos, hen dos, large party groups and students.

As the name suggests, the brand’s Around the World bar was designed to offer its customers a chance to try beers from different countries cultures. Just at this bar alone, there are over 100 beers available and each beer has its own fact profile created by Stephen and his team.

The fact files – which can be found on the Burning Night Group’s website – give customers an insight into the history, taste, aroma, appearance and a suggestion of a food pairing.

Stephen added: “There’s plenty of choice for anyone who likes beer and we also do some really good in house creative cocktails with premium spirits. It’s more of an evening after work bar – maybe with a bit of food kind of bar.”

Though each bar offers something different, the trio do have one thing in common and that’s the beer! Along with a host of other responsibilities, Stephen is in charge of tasting and handpicking the beers.

He said: “We taste the new products to make sure we’re happy with the brands and that the beer is the standard that we want it to be. It all depends on how clean it is, you don’t want anything that shouldn’t be there spoiling the beer.

“In terms of what make a good beer, it depends on the person drinking it some people would say these mainstream lagers, personally I think there’s a whole lot more out there.”