Bethan & Dan Jones: 'We are Bragdy Cybi' (2021)

Description

Lede
The story of a Holyhead micro-brewery.

Story
We are Dan and Bethan Jones and we are the owners of Bragdy Cybi, a micro-brewery in Holyhead. We moved to Holyhead in 2006 when Dan was relocated by his employer. Dan losing his job in 2019 was the catalyst for us to become self-employed and establish Bragdy Cybi. Without any background or experience in beer brewing, Dan set to work at learning the craft. We took advantage of various courses offered by Business Wales and Cywain before starting out and we transformed a building in Holyhead’s Williams Street into a small brewery and shop.

We put Dan’s entire redundancy money into buying equipment and renovating the building’s plumping and electricity. We had four 160-litre fermenters full of beer when the first lockdown was imposed. Our plans to attend fairs and markets quickly changed in 2020, but luckily we had the chance to open our shop to customers.

Throughout 2020, despite the pandemic and lockdown, Bragdy Cybi went from strength to strength and received great support. At certain times, we even ran entirely out of beer. From December 2020, we had to consider expanding in order to supply enough craft beer to fulfil local demand and to sell to the market more broadly. Through a combination of profits, loans, grants and donations through Crowdfunder, we went ahead to buy more brewing equipment and moved the production to a unit on the Holyhead industrial estate.

By now, the new brewing equipment is in place and we are ready to bottle our first batch of beer. In the meantime, we have plans to expand the shop to the High Street where craft beer by other Welsh micro-breweries and local Anglesey gins are sold. We plan to run an occasional tap room at the new site together with brewing experiences with the brewer, tasting sessions and a variety of talks. We hope to be able to put Holyhead’s High Street back on the map for the right reasons!

• https://perma.cc/9AXF-G2XH (link opens in new window)