The owners of a popular Chester Market bottleshop and taproom have celebrated the opening of their new venue in Chester city centre.
That Beer Place’s new high street venue has finally opened its doors after many months of anticipation. Having been successful in Chester Market, That Beer Place has acquired the two-story building on Foregate Street, which was formerly Berketex Brides and had been vacant for over three years before being acquired for a bottle shop and taproom.
That Beer Place was opened back in 2018 by owners Lisa and Dale when Chester Market was all but lost, but with the help of other traders, they helped turn it around to become the UK’s best small indoor market by the end of 2019.
The new Foregate Street venue, which is open seven days a week, boasts 10 ever-rotating beer taps, 4 cider taps, over 400 bottled and canned beers, and over 100 ciders. Cask beer lines are also due to be added to the venue in the coming weeks. It also hosts breweries, cider makers, and fellow independents for beer and cider tastings.
The new draft gear, designed from the ground up by co-owner Dale, will allow a variety of beers to be served at style-appropriate temperatures, and the level of carbonation can also be adjusted. In essence, lagers will be served cold and more carbonated, while darker beers will be served cool and less fizzy to highlight the unique characteristics of each style of beer.
We love the current market and another empty unit is not what people want or need to see. We want to be there until the end to help support our fellow traders that still have their businesses in there. Our opening weekend has been amazing! We’ve seen lots of familiar faces and met some lovely new people. The response and support from customers has been overwhelming. Other businesses on the street have been in to welcome us and wish us luck, which is fantastic. It already feels like home. I think we’re going to love it here.”Co-owner Dale said “I’m really excited about having a tasting room that will allow us to run more events and have more fun collaborations with indies from all across Chester and beyond. The move onto the high street came as a shock to many as it was assumed that That Beer Place, along with many other favourites would simply move from the revitalised Chester Market into the new market as part of the Northgate development. The constraints the new Market’s business model would have put on us would have meant we would have to cut back on many things we do today. Reducing our range, restricting our ability to run events and have outside collaborations, cutting back our wholesale and beer training operations and even limiting our online sales. Essentially, we’d have to stop being us and all at a very significant increase in cost. Why would we want to pay more to be so much less? It just didn’t make sense. Going out onto the high street was our only choice.”
