IT always gives me pleasure to announce the arrival of a new brewery in the locality as it simply furnishes me with evidence that demand for craft beer continues unabated.

The latest micro-brewery on the beery block, Northern Whisper, is nestled in the Rossendale Valley - Cloughfold, near Rawtenstall, to be precise, a new enterprise set up by Carmelo Pillitteri and brothers, Josh and Barney Vines.

Carmelo, previously brewed at the rear of Nino’s restaurant in Cliviger, and the beers at his former Fighting Cocks brewery were constantly in demand. He decided it was time to expand thus giving him the opportunity to satisfy the increasing thirst of discerning beer drinkers.

The new partnership was forged by chance. Both Josh and Barney are involved in the running of Kiln Clough farm in nearby, Helmshore and they regularly collected spent grain from Carmelo’s brewery to use for cattle feed.

They identified the ideal site for their new venture in part of the premises owned by slipper wholesalers, Response Footware. Carmelo said: “It was just the size to house the new 10 brewery barrel (almost 3,000 pints) operation.

“We aim to have the first roll-out of beer by the first week in July. The initial brewing cycle will be two brews for the cask beer and then one for keg.”

The first brew will be Yammerhouse, a robust, American-style Pale Ale at 4.5%. A beer that mostly has the characteristics of Nomad, a very popular beer that Carmelo brewed at his former premises.

Oppenchops will be another early beer to hopefully tingle the taste buds, a golden ale at 4%ABV. The name “Oppenchops” is Lancashire slang for a gossip.

Two more of the core beers will firstly be Blighty, a traditional British Bitter, copper in appearance at 3.8%. And secondly, a 4.8% stout, namely, Beltie (the nickname for Galloway cattle).

Carmelo said: “We wanted to brew a stout, especially after the success of the Spaghetti Stout brand I brewed at my former brewery.”

Carmelo is a go-ahead and adventurous brewer and he is also in-tune with the increasing demand for keg beers, as well as for cask conditioned ales.

He said: “We want to tap into the burgeoning craft keg beer market. And I will be brewing a wide range of keg beers from a Kolsch style German lager (Bocholt) to a raspberry sour beer (Lady Muck). The sour beer will have 100 kilos of raspberry puree added during the conditioning process.”

The latter two beers tell me how the beery landscape is changing and brewers are now rolling out an ever-increasing number of exciting beer styles for us try.

Long gone are days of a limited choice of beers. Brewers, like Carmelo, are fully aware that the sagacious slurpers of today, demand an eclectic selection of beer styles, flavours and strengths. And I wish this new venture every success in satisfying that demand.