Myself Neil, and wife Maxine spent nearly 30 years owning and running a bakery in Bury. Our son Lance worked with us for nearly ten years. Our bakery customers travelled to us from a wide area for the quality of our products and it was our proud boast that we were able to make a good living from a location lacking the footfall of the high street. Time came for a change, and brewing to me was just a forward-step requiring many of the skills honed at the bakery, mainly good taste! The whole process started back in February 2009, in the depths of the recession, hence the name Brightside. Our daughter Carley joined us in late 2009 having previously worked in sales in the wholesale wine trade. The initial pilot brewery was temporarily housed at the back of the bakery and in the previously unused space upstairs, allowing us an income from the bakery while perfecting the equipment, brewing techniques and beers. Hence, no financial pressure to sell beer with which we were not entirely happy. It was largely due to the confined space downstairs that led me to design and install the equipment myself. A lot of research both from books and the web enabled me to do this, sometimes employing centuries-old techniques, sometimes modern and occasionally my own solutions to correct problems that cropped up along the way. By late 2010, the equipment was installed and Trials began. Our first beer was sold in June 2011. Fermenters were added to increase capacity, and when the bakery was finally sold in July 2013 we moved to an industrial unit in Radcliffe and became full time brewers! We are an established name in Manchester, with a growing reputation for quality and consistency. Our beers can be found either permanently or as guests in most of the free of tie pubs and bars in the City, and we are now extending our presence outwards towards Crewe and Chester in the South, and Blackburn in the North. You may also find them pretty much anywhere in the UK by way of swapped casks with partner breweries.