WEYMOUTH'S Quay Brewery is looking to move from Hope Square and find itself a new home in the country.

Owner Giles Smeath has operated in the former Devenish Brewery building for several years but feels the time is right to move on.

He said: "The bottom line is with the logistics of working in a building where modern health and safety and food legislation are making it impossible for us to continue where we are.

"We have become established and we have reached the point where we need to expand into something which is better suited to what we do.

"For example, we can't really bottle beer of any note where we are at the moment."

Quay Brewery's beers are a firm favourite with drinkers and the company now brews more than 300,000 pints a year.

Mr Smeath said he has been looking at a rural site on the edge of Weymouth at Bincombe.

He added: "It is a redundant farm building, a large barn which would be ideal for us because it has its own yard.

"This is one of the problems we have at Brewers Quay because we don't have our own yard and have to load in a busy street.

"The barn would give us all the space we need and provide us with a better loading area.

"I am hoping to complete the move in the spring and possibly by the end of January which would be ideal for us because it is our quietest time of the year."

Mr Smeath currently employs three staff but this could be increased to five if the move to Bincombe goes ahead.