WHEN John Feeney bought a home-brew kit to use in his cellar he used to gaze wistfully at the old Bank Top tennis pavilion yards from his stone cottage.

Even then an idea was fermenting in the back of his mind that one day he wanted to brew beer on a much larger scale — perhaps using the building only yards away from his house.

His idea came to fruition when he started Bank Top Brewery in 1995 and within seven years he managed to achieve his ambition of opening up in the former tennis club.

But there was much hard graft setting up the original brewery in dingy premises in Back Lane, off Vernon Street, and his greater ambition had its roots in his small home-brewing set-up.

John said: “When I brewed my own beer in the cellar, I used to keep it in barrels stamped with Bank Top because that’s where my house was — we had the end house in Eleanor Street.

“I had the basic skills already there with my home-brewing experience and I also had a lot of friends who used to come and drink my brew in the cellar.

“It was so strong that often we would get so drunk we would fall up, not down, the stairs, and one mate even barred himself from the cellar bar after falling upstairs and on his way out he fell over the garden wall.

“We used to have a role of dishonour on the wall and Dave Sweeney (now the sole owner of the brewery) was on it.”

He added: “I was a lorry driver for more than 20 years with Markland Tubes until I was made redundant. And after 12 months of painting and decorating, I said to my wife Janet, ‘I want to open a brewery’, so she said ‘go ahead and do it’.”

He took a short course in micro brewing at Sunderland University and applied for grants and loans to get the business off the ground.

Eventually, Bank Top Brewery opened and produced its first commercial brew with the first pint of Samuel Crompton’s Ale, named after the famous Boltonian, being pulled at the nearby Howcroft Inn by Coronation Street star Bill Tarmey, who plays Jack Duckworth.

Although the first brew was fine and every pint was sold, there were occasional disasters when the beer, which can be affected by malfunctioning machinery and the weather, didn’t reach the desired quality.

But he persevered and experimented, and over the years he has produced a wide range of bitters and milds to suit every palate.

Since that first brew of 1,440 pints, Bank Top now produces 55 to 66 brewer’s barrels a week or 3,168 pints per brew — or 30,000 over a week — which is sold to more than 150 outlets.

The brewery now sells 13 varieties of beers and staff enjoy dreaming up new and exotic names, often with a local twist, for each beer.

Since the first beer was christened, others have been named after all the knights of the Round Table and local personalities, including Fred Dibnah and Sam Allardyce, but the best-selling beer is Flat Cap.

Now, after seeing his dream become reality, John is about to retire this month at the age of 60. He says he will have more time to practise his Samurai martial arts skills, which he took up about seven years ago with pal Andrew McClelland.

When they have time John and Andrew perform demonstrations of their fighting skills using genuine Samurai swords, and both have the scars to prove their enthusiasm.

John said: “By using real swords which are razor sharp, instead of wooden sticks, it makes you concentrate very hard.”

As he contemplates imminent retirement, John plans to do all the jobs around his Egerton home that his wife Janet has lined up for him before they set off next year to ride his custom-made trike along the Route 66 highway from Chicago to Los Angeles.

He bought the trike to use as a company vehicle to promote the brewery, along with the number plate 666 BTB, and John plans to have it shipped to America in preparation for his trip.

The 2,440-mile Route 66 takes in eight states and will take John and Janet two months to complete.

John said: “I had to get the trike specially made as Janet said she wouldn’t ride on the back of a motorbike, so I had to compromise.”