Hucknall brewery Lincoln Green is brewing up a real town success story

Lincoln Green started out in 2012 and from small beginnings has grown to the point today where it runs eight pubs across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire and has a thriving supply business to supermarkets, it’s own in-house brewery shop and online sales.

The man behind the success is brewery founder Anthony Hughes, who originally hails from the north west of England and moved to Nottinghamshire in 1998 for a different job, before coming to Hucknall to start Lincoln Green 11 years ago.

Anthony, aged 54, said: “It’s been a real success, we started out just as a brewery in 2012 but then we opened our first pub, the Robin Hood and Little John in Arnold in 2014.

"That was such as success, and we enjoyed running it so much, that we decided it was a much easier route to market our beer if we had our own pubs and we now have eight across Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire."

Those eight include the Station Hotel in Hucknall and the most recent additions have been the White Lion and Black Shale Bar & Kitchen in Beeston.

Anthony continued: “I think the key for us is that our beer and our products are something people can trust.

"When they see Lincoln Green, either on a pump clip or on a pub itself, they know it’s going to be something of good quality.

"We discovered just what that level of customer trust is when we took on The Mill & Brook in Long Eaton earlier this year.

“A huge number of new customers suddenly started coming to the pub simply because we had taken it over."

The plan is to continue expanding Lincoln Green’s roster with Anthony saying they hope to have around 20 pubs by 2030.

But while the expansion of pubs is a steady process, the brewery’s output of new beers continues at a pace.

Anthony explained: “We always have a core range of four beers – Hood, Marion, Archer and Tuck – but then under the Blackshale project, which takes its name from the coal seam which runs under the brewery, we have more unusual craft beers.”

And at a time when many businesses are feeling the strain amid ongoing financial uncertainty, Lincoln Green’s ongoing success is something that Anthony feels justifiably proud of.

He said: “I’m hugely proud of what we’ve done.

"We started off in 2012 employing just two people and as of now we’ve got 90 people that work for us within the brewery or across the pub estate.

"If we continue our growth plans, that just means we are creating more and more employment opportunities and I am passionate about getting peope to see hospitality as a really serious career path.

"So one on the things we offer all of our employees is the opportunity to take up apprenticeship training opportunies with us as well and we want people to grow with us and end up seeing hospitality as serious career choice.”