A CONSULTANT is calling time on his career to set up Oxford’s second brewery.

Ed Murray, a self-employed management consultant, is set to hang up his suit and tie to open the Shotover Brewing Company next month.

Large scale brewing in Oxford ended in 1998 with the closure of the Morrells brewery in St Thomas Street.

So far only one company, The Old Bog based at the Masons Arms in Headington, has sprung up to replace it.

Now Mr Murray, a father-of-two is hoping to brew up a storm with his company which proudly sports Oxford’s famous dreaming spires skyline as its logo.

Mr Murray, who has been an amateur brewer for 20 years, will be running the brewery with his wife Pip.

He said: “It’s always been a dream of mine to own my own brewery and this is the fulfilment of something my wife and I have been thinking about for many years.

“We first did a feasibility study on starting a brewery five years ago but the time wasn’t right from a family point of view, with my children at university.

“However, they are all grown up now and we are ready to open for business.

“Oxfordshire had lost a lot of breweries, but since then we have had a few microbreweries springing up and we’re very excited to be part of that.”

Work is still going on to complete the new brewery inside a 200-year-old stable at Manor Farm in Horspath, on the slopes of Shotover Hill.

It is hoped it will be open by November 2, with the first beers being produced by the end of the month, in time to cash in on the Christmas market.

The first two beers to be produced will be a light, hoppy session ale and a copper-coloured premium British bitter with Mr Murray hoping to add two more beers to his portfolio by Easter.

He has not yet concocted names for any of his creations, but he aims to link them to Oxford place names and the city’s academic history.

The brewery will initially be a husband-and-wife operation but, if it is a success, Mr Murray hopes to be able to employ up to four people within three years.

For now, the couple are grateful to get started after an 11-month struggle to open the brewery which will have the capacity to produce 2,000 litres a week.

Mr Murray said: “Finding the premises and getting planning permission in Green Belt land was a long process.

“Now we can’t wait to get started.”