MEL Stride, MP for Central Devon, visited Hanlons Brewery near Crediton recently to discuss Government support for small businesses in Devon.

Hanlons Brewery is a family-run award-winning brewery as well as a thriving restaurant and shop specialising in excellent real craft beer.

Originally founded by John O’Hanlon in London in the 1950s, the business moved to Devon in 2000, before settling in its current home at Half Moon Village in 2013, where it was rebranded as “Hanlons” and bought by Dan Taylor and Jim Bungard.

Hanlons has gone on to win a number of awards for its locally brewed beers, including three gold medals at the Taste of the West Awards, and Food and Drink Devon’s Best Producer Award. 

While Hanlons began as just a brewery, it has since expanded to include an onsite bar, restaurant, and shop, which has seen the business’s original customer base more than triple in size.

Mel Stride, MP for Central Devon and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: “Businesses like Hanlons Brewery are the backbone of our local economy in Central Devon, so it was really useful to hear directly from one of our successful local enterprises. 

“We also talked about how the ongoing support and initiatives from Government, such as increasing the VAT threshold from £85,000 to £90,000, are helping, as well as some of the challenges they still face.”

Dan Taylor, from Hanlons Brewery, said: “We appreciated Mel calling in and the opportunity to update him on how our business has developed over the past year or so. 

“We also raised with him some of the issues facing the hospitality sector at the moment, in particular post-Covid recovery and impact of the minimum wage.”

The pandemic posed severe challenges to small businesses, and the hospitality industry was a sector that was hit particularly hard, but Hanlons Brewery is a shining example of a small business continuing to expand and thrive locally despite these challenges.

For more information about Hanlons Brewery visit: www.hanlons-brewery.myshopify.com/ .

More from Mel at www.melstridemp.com or follow him on X (Twitter) @MelJStride.