The new owners of Ashford's £1.7m brewery say they might expand their operation in the town and across Kent if business is good enough.

Private equity firm Risk Capital Partners acquired the 2019-built facility in Victoria Road and the Curious Drinks business from founding parent company Chapel Down earlier this year.

New management was brought in, in the form of pub and brewing veteran Mark Crowther and former UK head of Budweiser Budvar, Simon George.

Having reopened on Monday, the Curious Brewery is already seeing a roaring trade in its on-site restaurant and bar.

Currently the taproom is the only publicly available part of the brewery, with tours unavailable due to Covid restrictions enforcing "the rule of six, which makes it temporarily unviable".

However Mr George hopes the brewery will be fully open again soon, and noted how a post-lockdown boom could mean changes at the business.

"It's definitely in our commercial plan to grow and expand production," he said.

"The brewery was designed for quite logical expansion, so at the point we need to expand capacity that option is there for us.

"One of the very big successes of the business is the taproom - people like coming there and meeting the brew team - and there's the question of whether there's an opportunity further down the road to possibly spread its footprint.

"Is there an opportunity to expand out into the other parts of Kent? Yep, that's definitely something to consider."

Though it's "early days", the managing director did highlight "the very strong local support base for the brewery, so we're delighted by that and very respectful of that".

Their respect for the Ashford community extends to their staff, who have all been kept on from before the most recent lockdown and have received extensive product training.

The brewing industry is expecting a post-lockdown boom, as money that would usually be spent while on a holiday abroad might instead be spent in a pub during a staycation.

"We are seeing sales uptick significantly as the industry reopens," Mr George said.

"So it's a huge opportunity but that said, there are still some very challenging forces on the industry and there could be tough times ahead for the industry as a whole."

And the team at Curious Drinks hope to capitalise on that, and also to expand their drinks range with limited editions.

The new drinks could be produced quarterly, and would allow the company's beers to stay up-to-date with the latest customer trends.

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