BUSINESS is booming for a brewery as it opens its new £40,000 tap room and beer garden for punters.

Broad Town Brewery, in Broad Town near Wootton Bassett, is the first in the village since the Hart family's in the 19th century.

Jason and Vincenza Bayliffe opened it in 2019, just months before the coronavirus pandemic hit.

But despite the challenging times, the business continues to be a success and now it has as new bar, the Hop Chapel.

Jason said: “We’re now selling the beer we’re making at our own outlet here in Broad Town – we wanted to push ourselves more as a local business.

“We knew that as lockdown eased, pubs wouldn’t be reopening at the same time because of the restrictions.

"To combat that, we thought we should expand the business.

"It also meant that we could open earlier while the rules said people could only go into beer gardens.

“Food outlets come here every week to sell local produce.”

At the moment, 21 beers are made by the brewer, with more are in the works.

And since August last year, the business has seen its turnover triple through the lockdowns after Jason began delivering beers to people’s doorsteps with the help of two new employees.

He said: “It’s been amazing. It’s all completely safe, we’re following the Covid-19 guidelines.

“I made the very early decision last year to start pushing towards selling directly to the public because pubs had to close.

"That really took off quickly. We did new specials every month to keep it fresh, we’re constantly changing and evolving.

"This has helped us succeed through this tough time.

“We wanted to give them a bit of hope, I pushed on social media to show them that we were working on the chapel and beer garden so they had something to look forward to, so they kept in mind things would start reopening again.

“There were challenges we had to face too over the past year, we had to make sure we didn’t over trade and lose out on money just because things were going well. We monitored our own growth within our own means.

“I never imagined when I opened the brewery that I would ever get to this point. I was fortunate enough to get people on board to help out too. The two employees I took on recently has been a huge help.”