The Burscough Brewing Company Limited was established in April 2010 and commenced brewing on the 30th November 2010. We are located in the cobbled courtyard behind the very popular Hop Vine public house in the centre of Burscough, West Lancashire. Our aim is to brew high quality cask conditioned ale using only the finest malt, whole hops, yeast and water and without the addition of any artificial additives - a truly natural product to be enjoyed.The Burscough Brewing Company Limited was founded and registered on the 17th April 2010 by Andy Brocken and Mike McCombe who are the two directors of the company. Anyone local to the Burscough area will know Mike as the landlord and proprietor, with Julie his wife, of the very successful Hop Vine public house in the centre of Burscough village. Andy has spent the last 26 plus years working in the IT industry but is an avid real ale fan and has this year completed a brewing course at BrewLab, Sunderland and spent time brewing at Wylam Brewery Heddon on the Wall, Northumberland. Our Brewery is located in a cobbled courtyard to the rear of the Hop Vine pub and is housed in the old stables that played an important role in the former life of the pub when it was a busy Coaching House on the old Turnpike Road, which is now the A59. It has been very rewarding seeing the almost derelict buildings brought back to life and refurbished to accommodate a modern micro-brewery. Our 4bbl brewing plant started out life back in October 2006 at Black Mountain Brewery, Llangadog, South Wales and was used until spring 2009 when, after the brewery closed, it was sold to Oban Ales, Kilmelford, Scotland. Oban Ales commenced brewing in February 2010 but due to a number of difficulties decided to cease brewing and sell the plant in September 2010 and fortunately for us we were successful in buying it. Andy visited Oban at the beginning of October and assisted with Oban Ales final brew and the plant was shipped to Burscough where it arrived early morning on Tuesday 26th October. Brewing commenced on Tuesday 30th November 2010 with Ringtail Bitter being the first beer produced and this was quickly followed on Wednesday 1st December with four barrels of Priory Gold. We couldn't have picked a worse time to commence brewing as night time temperatures plummeted to below minus 10 which provided us with all sorts of additional challenges to overcome. Suffice to say overcome they were and we presented both beers for the very first time in the Hop Vine on Saturday 18th December 2010, just in time for Christmas