Crafty Hartlepool brewery lives up to its name following coronavirus pub closures

Crafty Monkey Brewing Co, based in a converted farm outbuilding in Elwick, near Hartlepool, had to adapt when the initial March lockdown deprived it of 90% of its trade overnight.

Upping its production of bottled beers to partly compensate for pubs shutting, the firm’s joint owners are currently busy delivering festive online orders for its real ales across Teesside and County Durham.

Pat Garrett, 53, from Hartlepool, who runs the brewery with Gary Olvanhill, said after Thursday’s announcement that the North East would remain in tier three: "Things are going well at the moment in the build up to Christmas and we’d like everyone to thank everyone who has supported us during all this.

"But we know it is going to get difficult in January and February.

"It might not be until everyone gets the vaccine that the situation improves because even moving into tier two is not much different than tier three because people cannot go out with friends.

"Even then it may be just like starting all over again because you don’t know which pubs will reopen.”

Mr Garrett and Mr Olvanhill, 55, from Stockton, founded the brewery two years ago after taking redundancy from the oil industry.

Mr Garrett insists the brewery will continue trading beyond the current crisis and added: “Before the first lockdown, we were more than happy with where we wanted to be after just two years.

"We were delivering to pubs as far away as Whitby, Barnard Castle and Newcastle.

"At that point, 90% of our trade was direct with the pubs with a little bit of bottling for back up.

"Now we have had to turn it all around although not in the same volumes.

"I suppose you could say we have had to get crafty to get our beers out in the current situation.

"Hopefully though it will not be too long before we are delivering our cask beers to all our pubs again.”

Crafty Monkey is continuing to accept Christmas orders for its beers until Monday, December 21, with the aim of delivering them by the following day.

Further details are available from its website at www.shop.craftymonkey.beer.

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