DMC Brewery Leeds: Meet couple behind UK's first bar dedicated to serving alcoholic ginger beer

Yorkshire Evening Post

DMC Brewery, the first bar in the UK dedicated to serving alcoholic ginger beer, will open in Leeds this autumn. Here, husband and wife owners Giuseppe ‘Gez’ Romano and Ele Romano, talk about their venture. Video: DMC Brewery Leeds YT.

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat rock music)

00:03 As you all know, we kind of started out

00:09 as being predominantly a ginger beer brewery

00:11 because that's what we really love to drink.

00:14 We just couldn't find anything on the market

00:16 that really worked for us anymore,

00:18 so it literally became a thing of like,

00:19 do you know what, let's just have a go

00:21 at brewing it ourselves.

00:23 And that's literally where it started from.

00:25 And we did like the original, and it was like,

00:27 do you know what tastes really good with this?

00:28 What about if we put some orange in there

00:30 and some cinnamon?

00:31 Oh my God, it tastes like Christmas time, that's great.

00:33 And then it was like, oh, let's try this

00:34 and let's try this and let's try this.

00:35 And we just ended up coming up with all of these weird

00:38 and wonderful flavors that weren't out there on the market.

00:41 And it was this kind of thing of like,

00:43 do you know what, let's sell it.

00:45 It was literally, you know,

00:46 Jez taking it in to people that he worked with

00:49 and letting them try it and them kind of going like,

00:52 oh, this is really, really good.

00:54 And then lockdown happened and we were very much like,

00:57 well, Jez was very much like, let's just do this.

01:01 Let's just see what happens.

01:02 And I was a bit like, no.

01:04 And he was like, yes.

01:05 And I was so, yeah.

01:06 And it went backwards and forwards,

01:06 but eventually he got his own way and we did it.

01:09 And it's just been like, it's been really exciting.

01:12 - From brewing in the cellar to then like getting a chance

01:17 to go brew in someone else's brewery,

01:19 to then get stocked in bars and restaurants,

01:21 to then open our own brewery,

01:23 to then take this next step to like moving the brewery

01:27 to Leeds City Centre and opening a tap room as well.

01:30 The level of production has grown to the point

01:33 where we need to expand.

01:35 We need to upgrade the scale of the brewery.

01:38 We need to upscale.

01:39 The distribution is hugely outweighing our ability

01:43 to keep up with it.

01:45 So, you know, like in order to actually able to produce

01:48 the amount that is in demand at the moment,

01:50 we need to upscale, we need to grow the brewery,

01:52 we need a tap room, we need somewhere for you guys to come

01:55 and party with us, you know?

01:56 'Cause that's what DMC is.

01:59 It's not just a brewery, it's a party, it's a family,

02:02 it's a community, it's everybody coming together

02:05 and having a good time.

02:06 You know, for us, the dream is to be able

02:07 to run our own business with our community,

02:10 with our family, with our friends,

02:12 and actually spend time together while we're doing it.

02:15 - We really wanna keep on doing what we're doing

02:17 because it just gives us such a amazing opportunity

02:20 to create something and share it with everybody as well,

02:23 which is really lovely.

02:25 We wanna have like a safe space where everybody is included

02:28 and where everyone feels like they can just come

02:30 and be themselves and just have a really, really

02:34 lovely, lovely, great time.

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