BEER making is in the blood for one family whose brewery launches on Saturday (September 13) in the heart of St Helens.

Connoisseur Ales Brewery will announce itself with a pub crawl around the town where drinkers will be offered samples.

On Saturday, the brewery, located beneath Wolverhampton House in Church Street, will open its doors to the public who are invited to visit, meet the brewers and taste the beers.

Experienced licensees and ale enthusiasts, Mark, Gillian and Kevin Yates, from Sutton, promise to deliver “delicious, locally produced real ales”.

With names like Bloody Mild, Raven Street Porter, Hempen and Bete Noire, their initial range — including two bitters, a stout, a mild, a porter and an Indian pale ale — promises to cater for all tastes.

Kevin, 29, said: “My dad Mark is creative and he loves producing new ales — we want to start off with a good, solid base of beers but we’ll keep adding to the range.”

Mark, 57, said: “It’s important to us to get our beer tasting just right and make a real impact on the local real ale scene, working with our friends at George Wright and the Evening Star breweries to put St Helens on the real ale map.”

Kevin told the Star his father started home brewing in the Thatcher years as a response to the rising cost of living.

Since then, he said, the hobby has become a full-time business for the family of three.

In the early noughties, they learned to brew on a large scale at Liverpool’s Wapping Brewery and then they ran the Albion pub in Warrington, winning CAMRA’s Cheshire pub of the year 2012 and Cheshire cider pub of the year 2012.

Kevin said: “We left in 2013 and decided to focus on brewing rather than going back into another pub.Now is a time to make beer rather than sell other people’s. And St Helens was a natural choice to locate our brewery - it’s our home town.”

The family are also planning to bottle their beers.

A range of Belgian ‘genevers’, English meads and fruit wines including cowslip, nettle and quince, will also be stocked at the brewery.

For further information on Connoisseur Ales Brewery, visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/connoisseur.ales.brewery.