Brewery changes focus as bar plans scrapped
DAVENPORTS brewery has abandoned its plans to open a bar in a former Birmingham police station.
Instead it says its focus is now on launching a new venue in Moseley.
The brewery announced in January 2016 that it was eyeing the old Jewellery Quarter police station to launch what was heralded as the first new bar under the historic brand name Dares in more than 30 years.
But the ground floor unit in the ‘Big Peg’ building is now being marketed again to potential occupiers.
A spokesman for Davenports said: “We are sad that we could not take the opportunity forward in the Jewellery Quarter.
“The main factor was protracted complexities in our investment combined with wanting to concentrate our efforts on one site that we felt had the greatest potential.”
Davenports, which began in Birmingham in 1829 and was reincarnated in recent years, has now submitted plans to turn the former HSBC branch in Moseley into a new bar and ten-bedroom hotel under the Dares name.
The spokesman added: “We look forward to having the Moseley site open later this year, we estimate in the last quarter, and are looking in the medium term for a brewery tap house site in the city.”
Dares was a beer founded in the 1920s which was resurrected a couple of years ago by Davenports.