A HUSBAND and wife team, originally from Gwynedd, have invested their redundancy money into setting up a new brewery on Anglesey during the coronavirus lockdown.

Daniel Jones was the plant manager at Amlwch's Rehau factory before being made redundant at the end of December 2019.

Having worked for the company for 26 years since finishing his A Levels, he had travelled to Japan, Russia, Spain and Germany with the company, but recently he decided that there was an opportunity to do something completely different.

Daniel, with his wife of 24 years, Bethan, both originally from Blaenau Ffestiniog, decided to invest the redundancy money into the new 'Bragdy Cybi' business venture.

He said: "I started on the shop floor in Blaenau Plastics and ended up being the plant manager at the Amlwch factory. I’ve enjoyed every minute of working for the company and have made a great many friends there.

"But, when I knew the factory in Amlwch was closing, I like many others didn’t know what to do. I thought about what I liked doing, which is watching rugby and drinking good beer. I’m too old to play rugby now so I decided to find out about making beer.”

Daniel set about learning about the brewing process, attending courses with help from Business Wales, Cywain and Menter Môn.

He started with a homebrew kit, taking over the family’s utility room and dining room. While experimenting with different batches of ales at home, he was learning about craft beer and running a business.

Daniel's wife Bethan said: “It was getting to the stage that we couldn’t keep up with demand with our home brew system and Dan’s equipment was everywhere in the house.

“We decided to take the plunge and look for bigger premises so that we could expand and grow the business.”

With support from Mon CF in Holyhead, the husband and wife team found a suitable building on Williams Street Holyhead and after being granted planning permission, set about transforming the old office building to a microbrewery.

The Leader:

The produce being made at Daniel and Bethan Jones' Bragdy Cybi Brewery.

They are now working with a 200-litre system, making their three core beers, Cwrw’r Borth (IPA); Cwrw’r Llan (Bitter) and Cwrw’r Bae (Blonde) and others are being added continuously, including a popular blueberry Stout called Stowt Dulas.

Daniel added: “We decided to use local names for our beers as research tells us the people are very keen to buy Welsh produce, and it’s part of our history since moving to Holyhead 14 years ago.

“We had planned on having a grand opening and a tap room but all that’s on hold for now. In the meantime, with all the food and drink festivals cancelled for the foreseeable, we decided on a soft opening, allowing people to come to our shop one at a time to buy bottles of beer to take home.

"We are incredibly grateful for the support we’ve had from local people and we’re confident that we will be stronger once the lockdown is over.

"It’s not the best time to be starting a business but we’ve already invested so much money, time and effort into this venture we have to be optimistic and look to the future."

The couple hope to be able to offer online sales soon as well as having their beer on sale in local restaurants.