Pioneering micro-pub boss Colin Aris has retired after 10 years at the helm of the award-winning Conqueror in Ramsgate’s Grange Road.
When Colin set up shop in 2010 it was Thanet’s first micropub and only the fourth one in the country. There are now more than 500 across Britain.
Now the Conqueror will come under the stewardship of Mike Beaumont, owner of the Four Candles micropub and brewery.
Mike, who opened The Four Candles in 2012, followed by the site’s microbrewery in 2014, said: “Colin was kind enough to ask me to take over the business and I was glad to accept. It’s an important part of the micropub revolution and Colin has had lots of Kent CAMRA awards as well as reaching the top four in their national competition.
“The Four Candles has been building up quite a following at our base at Sowell Street, St Peter’s, and we’re brewing house beers for several of the other micros across East Kent.
“The ‘Candles may be Britain’s Smallest Brewpub but we have enough capacity to make cask ales for the Conqueror too. It won’t just sell our beers though – we’ll have lots of bottled ales and a small spirits bar.
“We’re giving the place a bit of a spruce-up and hope to be open in December.
“People have been asking if the name will change. It definitely won’t! Colin named it after his grandfather’s ship and the Conqueror has family connections for me too.
“My cousins traced the Beaumont family back to Normandy and it turns out that two of our ancestors were at the Battle of Hastings.”
Colin added: “I’m really pleased that the Conqueror will be in Mike’s safe hands. I sincerely believe that he’s the ideal person to take the pub onwards and upwards and I know that all the regulars are eagerly looking forward to the new era.”
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That’s Fork ‘andles, ‘andles for forks.
They be boozers. Not half mate!
I knew Colim as a young lady, his dad teaching me golf, living 6000miles away now, it was surprise to see his name pop up on my phone. I’m pleased he turned to business. No word of what his future might be ? How can I contact him again
Michael, who was a “young lady”, Colim (Colin?) or yourself? Just curious!
I thought I had corrected the y. It appears not.
News alert! No, it’s just another shed selling beer… what have we come to when a news item doesn’t mention real jobs being lost while yet another ale House changes hand. We seem to be obsessed with what is being termed as hospitality… Its just another boozer where youngsters will be spending money they’ve received from bonkers Boris under the furlough scheme. You know, this is where Boris handed out money for people not to go to work but were free to go to the pub and the beach and anywhere but work. Bloody rediculous. Shut these piss holes and get people back to their work on the factories, offices and thousands of other jobs are NOT anything to do with drinking or eating. Some hope!!! We have been convinced that if you shut a pub, our economy will collapse. What utter nonsense!!!