The idea to start a brewery was forming after a short time making all-grain home-brewed beers on the stove top in our old kitchen (kitchen mayhem!) and my beers were getting some good feedback from friends and folks at work.

I dropped lucky after being made redundant from my engineering roll and took a position at Saltaire Brewery. Having sent an email to Saltaire asking if a home-brewer could come and have a look around to see how the professionals did it, I got a reply back saying I was being put in for the job! I didn’t even know there was a job going let alone what I was applying for! Lucky I had attached my CV just on the off chance.

I started out washing casks and ended up as brewhouse team leader, with some of my own recipes becoming regular additions to the Saltaire range. I studied for, and passed, my Institute of Brewers & Distillers exam and learned some solid brewery procedures in my time there, but it was time to do my own thing.

Wishbone Brewery began to take shape in my mind back in 2011 with me registering the domain name and grabbing the Twitter handle. At the time I did a lot of research into set-up costs and found I might have to start very small and cheap.

After a lot of searching, in late 2014 we signed the lease on our premises and ordered the brewkit! It took a restless night and some imagination to see a future in the place we’d taken on. But, we are all indoors on two levels with a view to having our own brewery tap on the first floor, which might be a pipe drame.

We are only a six-minute walk from Keighley Worth Valley Railway station and very close to the mighty Timothy Taylors Brewery, Bridgehouse Brewery and Goose Eye Brewery, all of which are a stone’s throw away.

We started brewing in late August 2015 and our beers are both fined and unfined. Unfined beers don’t have any isinglass finings added, although our unfiend beer is going to have a hazy natural finish, though with time it will clear in the landlord’s cellar. The added bonus is our unfined beers are vegetarian and vegan friendly as no fish-derived products are added to our unfined range.

Contact details

Wishbone Brewery Limited
2A Worth Bridge Industrial Estate
Chesham Street
Keighley
West Yorkshire BD21 4LG

T: 01535 6004129
E: info@wishbonebrewery.co.uk
W: www.wishbonebrewery.co.uk