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Durham craft brewery startup prepares to launch first bar

When husband and wife duo Nick and Gulen Smith launched the Steam Machine brewing company in 2015, neither could have imagined how quickly the business would grow in two short years.

The entrepreneurial couple’s craft beers have proved such a hit that production has increased by a whopping 1,477% just to keep up with demand.

The Newton Aycliffe startup, which has gone from producing 500 pints of beer a week to 7,885 at present, is now looking to capitalise on its success by opening its first craft beer bar in County Durham.

Nick, a former chemistry teacher, revealed: “From the outset, our plan was to open a local brewery that produced bold, flavoursome beers but which also allowed people to drink them on the premises in a licenced brew room.

“People bought into the plan, so much so that after only a year we had to move into larger premises to enable us to increase our beer production and to accommodate more people in the brew room.

“We recently bought more brewing equipment which has allowed us to increase production further, but also to increase our range of beers.”

The initial ‘core’ range at Steam Machine consisted of a 5.2% ‘San Franciscan Stream’ Beer, a 6.5% Red IPA, a 6.5% ‘New Age Brown’ Beer, a 6.5% Earl Grey-infused ‘Afternoon Tea’ Beer, a 7.0% Saison Blonde Beer, a 7.2% Lapsang Souchong Smoked Porter, a 9.6% Double IPA, a 10% Treacle Toffee Stout and a 5.3% New World Pale Ale.

Nick and Gulen recently added two further beers to this range, a 4.2% Session IPA and a 7.4% West Coast IPA. All the beers are now being enjoyed by people across the UK, from Glasgow to Plymouth.

The couple also produce ‘special’ one-off seasonal beers that are exclusive to the brew room, which occupies Unit 14 of the IES Centre in Horndale Avenue, Newton Aycliffe.

Nick and Gulen have also recently started switching their beers from being served in bottles to cans.

Gulen says: “We had always intended to move to canned beer and now we are established, we have been able to do this.

“The quality of canned beer is much better than bottles; it is not affected by the light as bottles are and it helps keep in the hop aroma as well.” If it wasn’t busy enough for Nick and Gulen; it is about to be even more because they are planning to open their first Steam Machine bar, with friends and family.

Nick says: “We are very excited about this new venture. Like the brew room we want the bar to become a destination where people make a special effort to come and try our beers, but also guest beers we will stock from other small, local breweries.

“We had a pop-up brewery at the Bishop Auckland food festival and over 2,500 people sampled our beer from around the county and beyond, so now we just need to find a home for this project.”