Amber Ales, at Asher Lane in Ripley is being run single handedly by Peter Hounsell in his spare time and has proved popular with beer lovers since he began
brewing four months ago.
Peter installed the brewery over the summer and has since been supplying local pubs such as The Nags Head and the Moss Cottage with real ale, bitter and stout.
Around 50 casks of beer,
making 3,000 pints are brewed in a week. His beer Amber Pale was declared the best out of 100 at the Tamworth Camra group beer festival in September and in October he won a silver medal for Original Black Stout from the Society of Independent Brewers East Midlands competition.
"I can't keep up with demand at the moment,' Peter said, 'It's been phenomenal, people like it because it's local and the awards give us extra credibility."
The brewery is proving so popular that people have even turned up asking to look around. "I have to ask them how did you know I was here?" said Peter.
Peter's love affair with real ale blossomed when he took up brewing his own beers at home. From there he has fine tuned his recipes to produce his three core ales.
Peter's ability to brew top quality ales stems from a chemical engineering background, which he has a degree in. He has also taken classes at a brewery laboratory in Sunderland: "It's like chemistry in buckets, rather than test tubes. I used to experiment with home made brew but decided to do it on a bigger scale."
Though it sounds like hard work Peter said it's not if you enjoy it: "It's nice to make something real, using traditional English malt and hops.
"You can do the first brewing process in an evening then draw the ale off into the vats to ferment for three or four days before being casked."
Peter, who hopes to take the project on full time by easter is currently brewing a Christmas special called Winter Ruby. He names the ales after what he feels best describes it: "I like to call it something that gives a clue as to what the beer is like."
Peter currently still works full time at another job, meaning his busy schedule includes two jobs and two young children, aged just three and 15 weeks.
His wife Jane helps market the business. She said: "When we started the project we decided to get some feedback and were surprised at how much interest it generated.
"It was originally meant to be a nice, quiet start, but it's really taken off and we have even been supplying our beer to distributors in Manchester."
The future for Ripley's own brewery looks promising with an ever expanding customer base. Peter is also looking at providing bottled beer to clubs and farmers
markets and in January the ales will be available at the mid - Derbyshire beer festival.

By Sarah Bould