Tom Gray and Ian Smith from Polar Bear holding BrewDog’s Punk IPA
By Natasha Stapleton
There is excitement in the air this week for local craft beer lovers as BrewDog brewery have announced the launch of their new Leicester bar.
The craft beer bar, which opens in April, will be located on Friar Lane in the town centre, at the two-storey property formerly known as Wills Bar.
Tom Gray, 27, from Scream pub Polar Bear on Oxford Street, said: “It’ll be a great gimmick for the city, we need more places like this in Leicester. It’ll be a bar that attracts people in their 30s or late 20s and not many Leicester bars do that.”
BrewDog announced that the horseshoe shaped bar was being converted on their website, along with ones in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Brighton and a second in Leeds.
They posted on their website: “The curving bar gives us plenty of room to imminently load 20 draught taps for the drinking pleasure of all Leicesterians.”
As well as serving craft beers, the bar will feature a full BrewDog food menu, arcade games and vintage pinball machines, and will host various events and tastings.
There has been concern for bars such as Polar Bear, Soar Point, Queen of Bradgate and The Obar in Leicester that are already known for selling craft beers, on whether the new bar will take customers away or increase the amount of craft beer drinkers in the city.
Ian Smith, 27, also from Polar Bear, said: “We don’t think it’ll affect us, the target audience is completely different and our BrewDog bottled beers will be cheaper than the ones sold at the bar itself.
“It’ll possibly mean that more people will buy our BrewDog beers, their Punk IPA is our most popular craft beer we have on the bar.”
James Watt and Martin Dickie founded BrewDog in 2007; they opened their first BrewDog bar in their hometown of Aberdeen in 2010 and now have 26 open bars across the world.
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