A RECENTLY-opened Wiveliscombe brewery is opening a tap room in time for rugby fans to watch the Six Nations.

The facility at Nuttycombe Brewery, which has bucked the national trend of 120 beer makers closing or going into administration in the last 18 months, is believed to be the first new licensed premises in the town in decades.

The tap room, which opens next Wednesday (January 31) ahead of the Six Nations kick off on Friday (February 2), is to be named Hancock's Dray, a nod to the former Hancock Brewery, founded off Golden Hill in the early 1800s by William Hancock.

Nuttycombe Brewery was established during the second lockdown by Ross Nuttycombe, a publican of 20 years from Watchet, and Simon Brown, who has long been involved in the pub industry, after they bought part of the premises of the former Cotleigh Brewery, which closed in 2021.

Simon said: "Since then the brewery has flourished, and under the guidance of former Cotleigh head brewer, Shaun, who is vital to the operation, and our new assistant brewer Joel Hancock, a direct descendant of the original Hancock family, beers new and old are now being brewed every week and delivered nationally.

"As well as discovering one of the horse-drawn drays while renovating the property, we also found handwritten recipes for the original Cotleigh beers and were able to produce these popular products to age old and award-winning standards under Shaun’s expertise."

Their debut Nuttycombe brew, Sovereign, was released for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee and was well received with subsequent beers Doonican’s and Snow Leopard going on to take a gold and silver medal at SIBA’s Tuckers Maltingsfest in Newton Abbot in April 2023, within the first year of brewing.

A recent enquiry to supply 15,000 bottles of Old Buzzard to Sweden has potential to deliver the flavours of local Somerset beers further afield.

In March last year another local brewery, Pitchfork, closed in Weston-super-Mare and Nuttycombe stepped in and acquired the rights to their brands, including award-winning Pitchfork Ale, Old Slug Porter and East Street Cream, ensuring they are still available to beer connoisseurs’ countrywide.

The new tap room will showcase the three brands. There will be a big screen to show sports starting with the Six Nations, as well as live music evenings.

There are said to have once been 33 pubs in Wiveliscombe and the horse-drawn Hancock drays were a regular sight as they supplied customers often as far as 25 miles away.

Following a decline in the 1960s, brewing then resumed in 1980 with both Golden Hill Brewery, which later became Exmoor Ales, and Cotleigh setting up.