A RHYL micro pub celebrating a successful first year in business is planning to expand even further by the end of the year.

The Dove, situated on the corner of St Margaret’s Drive and Rhuddlan Road, was the first of a new breed of pub opened by Dovecote Brewery last March, and since then three more have followed.

The Denbigh-based brewery has also opened a Dove in Prestatyn and two similar micro-pubs christened The Hoptimist in Rhuddlan and Abergele, in collaboration with the Cwrw Ial Brewery, from Eryrys, near Ruthin.

Richard Green, an industrial chemist originally from Walsall, and his wife, Sue, from Rhyl, set up Dovecote Brewery in Denbigh 20 months ago when he decided to make his home brewing hobby into an alternative career.

"He said: “There has been a massive explosion in microbreweries. We were talking about it 10 years ago and I’ve been wanting to own a pub for 25 years so this is the realisation of a long held dream," he said.

The pair set up the brewery in Denbigh and started brewing in June 2017, initially selling to pubs in the area before eventually supplying to 42 outlets.

"We wanted to grow a self-sustainable business and that’s why we opened the Dove in Rhyl which our son, Dominic, runs," Richard added.

“It just made perfect economic sense to open our own pubs and to do it in a particular way. We've tried to create a special atmosphere with no music, electronic games or food but you can be sure of a warm welcome, good conversation and a great choice of craft beers, gins and ciders.

"At Dovecote we use only the best ingredients including mains water which comes from Llyn Alwen on the Denbigh Moors and we’re very much focused on our ales being a natural product and we now brew 12 different beers, some of them seasonal.

“We chose Rhyl to launch our first micropub because we identified that the locals were very responsive to what we were proposing and the support from the local community has been fantastic."

“It’s something we believe in and know it works, so much so that we are now looking to roll it out further afield. We have looked at a number of potential new sites all around North Wales and our intention is that further expansion will happen very quickly.”

The Dove combines a high quality local product with a warm, welcoming and slightly quirky venue. It is part of a growing network of independent food and drink retailers in the county that Denbighshire Council’s #lovelivelocal campaign is promoting in the run-up to Easter.

The project sees the Dove and other food and drink producers in Denbighshire's eight main towns featured on a series of videos on social media.