It would have been much easier to acquire a new factory unit, install some shiny, stainless steel brewing plant and produce perfectly acceptable beer, but that was a million miles away from what Paul had in mind.
Great beer is not just the product of the ingredients and the recipe, but also of the plant that brews it.
In a world of ever increasing bland, mass-produced beer Paul saw an opportunity to return to what his family had done best since 1827, making real beer in the time-honoured fashion.
Fate played a kind hand here as an old maltings building, once part of Lightfoot's Brewery (Masham's “other” brewery purchased for Theakston's by Paul's grandfather in 1919) became available.
This landmark building, standing high over the banks of the Ure, had fallen in to disrepair as years of neglect as a semi-redundant grainstore had taken its toll. Despite its overburdening rat population, rundown fabric and the little matter of raising the money, Paul assembled a small team around him to fight the rats and build a brewery. A traditional country brewery.
Paul searched the length and breadth of Britain to find suitable plant and equipment. The early 90's had seen the demise of many breweries following the onset of take-over and rationalisation within the industry. At times it became a race against the demolition contractor to whisk away vital and rare equipment before it became scrap.
Paul Ambler (Head Brewer and now also a Director) worked with Paul to restore and breathe new life into these bygone bits of brewing heritage.
The brewing copper, mash tun and hop-back came as a matched set from the old Hartley's Brewery, in Ulverston, in the Lake District.
The first three Yorkshire Stone Square fermenting vessels were refugees from Hardy and Hanson's brewery of Nottingham. The next three were literally snatched from under the ball of the demolition contractor who was levelling Darley's Brewery at Thorne, near Doncaster, to make way for a supermarket.
So it went throughout the summer of 1992, the two Pauls ingeniously stringing together all of the bits to create the brewery.