New South Shields brewery's relief as it continues trading during lockdown

Chris Donovan only opened One More Than Two Brew, in Portberry Street, South Shields, in September after March’s initial pandemic restrictions began to ease.

After quickly attracting drinkers from across the region and beyond to his micro brewery, tap room and bottle shop, there were fears the business might have to close completely for the next four weeks as the second lockdown loomed.

But the bottle shop is remaining open for off sales with details of a new home delivery service for local orders expected to be confirmed within days.

A new bottled beer in collaboration with another brewery and a distillery is also likely to be launched over the coming month.

Mr Donovan, who promotes other local produce from the premises and calls One More Than Two Brew the “community’s brewery”, said: “There was a worry that we might have to close completely.

“But because we were already doing off sales then we can continue that side of the business.

“Most of our money comes from the tap room and the pubs have naturally stopped taking casks from us so we will probably lose about £10,000 this month.

"But I totally understand why these things have to be done and if the lockdown helps bring the figures down then I am all for it.

"We call ourselves a community brewery and it is the safety of that community which is most important.”

Mr Donovan, 35, from South Shields, has also thanked the community for its support since the brewery opened.

He said: “Things were going brilliantly in the tap room.

"There was plenty of support locally and we were also getting people in from Newcastle, Sunderland and Gateshead.

"We even had a couple from Blackpool come in on the way to Whitby because they had somehow heard about us, probably from our Facebook page, and decided to pop in for a pint.”

He stressed that only one customer at a time will be allowed inside the bottle shop area of the business to observe social distancing restrictions.

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