A LOCAL brewery has been busy celebrating its fifth anniversary – and live music, great food and local pints were the main items on the menu.
Bond Brews, based on Heathlands Road in Wokingham, commemorated its birthday last weekend with a miniature, Covid-safe festival.
After spending 20 years in IT, Wokingham resident Dean Bond decided to ditch the office and follow his dreams, which led to him launching Bond Brews five years ago.
And Dean had hoped to celebrate the company’s anniversary in June, but postponed the event due to the coronavirus pandemic
Performers at Saturday’s festival included local artists Abi Powell, Savour the Flavour, and Dezzie Daunt.
“I like to support local, and that’s why I kept all the beers, food and artists local,” Dean said.
“It’s a way of promoting our local businesses and musicians, and giving them a chance to get out again after the virus has kept them inside for so long.”
Bond Brews’ event raised approximately £400 and all proceeds will be going to charity.
“My dad passed away from prostate cancer a few years ago, and now every time we raise any money it gets donated to Prostate Cancer UK,” Dean added.
“I’ve had nothing but positive feedback. Customers have passed on messages to us to say it was great and they really enjoyed it.”
In order to keep festival-goers safe, the organisers treated the event as if it were in a pub, enforcing the rule of six.
“We made a QR code so that people could register at the gate, we separated tables and we organised a table-service system,” Dean explained.
“Last year we had over 200 people turn up to celebrate our anniversary, so we used our outdoor space as an ‘overflow’,” he adds.
And now, Bond Brews is planning for the future.
“We’re selling a lot more bottles than we ever did,” Dean explains. “So I would like to expand our bottling equipment going forward.
“I do want to keep Bond Brews within a 30 mile radius of Wokingham because I love supplying the local community, but I would like to see more of a local presence in the next few years.
“The one positive thing to come out of the pandemic is that we’ve met a lot of new, local and regular customers, and the festival was a great way to give something back to them.
