An old Oakengates pub that closed around two years ago is to be reopened especially to serve beer made in Ironbridge.
The Old Fighting Cocks, on Market Street, is a Victorian pub which has been given a £250,000 revamp to create a place for Ironbridge Brewery to sell their beverages in Telford.
Three years after establishing the award-winning Ironbridge Brewery, local entrepreneur Dave Goldingay is to open the brewery’s very first pub with a Shire horse parading through the town on Tuesday, March 16, at 10.30am.
Mr Goldingay, from Ironbridge Brewery Ltd, said: “We are opening on March 15 and there will be no big screens or pool tables, just beer.”
The Old Fighting Cocks is thought to have closed almost two years ago but has now been restored as near as possible to a traditional Victorian ‘cask ale emporium’.
In the main ground floor rooms will be high-quality traditional fixtures and fittings to create ‘a cosy, warm and friendly atmosphere in a restored Victorian pub, dedicated to real ale’.
Upstairs is a function room for specially organised events and private hire.
The pub will serve beverages from Ironbridge Brewery and feature guest ales from similar microbreweries around the country, as well as high-quality lagers.
The opening has come about through a partnership between Ironbridge Brewery and the family-owned Everards Brewery of Leicester under their Project William initiative.
Nigel Booth, an Oakengates trader, said: “I think it is absolutely excellent that the building has been refurbished. It has architecturally always been nice but had fallen into dilapidation.
“For someone to rejuvenate that building, to a proper state and an effective pub, that is the type of pub that will survive here.”