Coniston BrewingCompany

Coniston Brewing Company was set up in 1995 by Ian Bradley in a shed behind the Black Bull Inn, the roughly 400-year-old coaching inn on Yewdale Road that his family owned and ran. The inn dates from the era of the local copper and slate trade and later hosted Victorian tourists arriving on the Furness Railway branch line. Bluebird Bitter, brewed on site, won Supreme Champion Beer at the Great British Beer Festival in 1998. The brewery remains a family operation, with Ian, his wife Helen and son Oliver running the brewing side alongside the pub. Beer is sold in the inn's bar and bottled for wider distribution, with the plant kept on the original site rather than contracted out elsewhere. The inn has eleven en-suite bedrooms, serves food through the evening, and keeps a fire and flagstone floors typical of a Lakeland coaching inn. Walkers using the Old Man of Coniston paths pass the door on their way back into the village.