A LYME Regis entrepreneur is turning his garden shed into a microbrewery to fulfil a long-held ambition.

Mark Jenkin has applied for planning permission to convert the workshop at the end of his garden in Woodmead Road into a small brewery.

He is hoping to turn his hobby of making homebrew beer and wine into a business, selling his beer locally and nationally through a website.

Mr Jenkin said: “It is something that has been niggling away at me for a while. I’ve been doing homebrew beer and wine for quite some years and always enjoyed it.

“I don’t know if it’s a lifetime ambition but certainly a long-held ambition to do something different and something I would enjoy – and at the end of the day, creating something that other people will enjoy.”

He finally got the push he needed when his telecoms job recently came under threat.

He said: “It shook me up and I thought ‘what would I do?’ “I wanted to do something I enjoy doing and something I could be proud of, so I thought why couldn’t I start a microbrewery?

“The business plan just grew over the past six or eight months. I will employ someone on a part-time basis and do part-time myself because I’ve still got a full-time job.”

His son Sam, a sixth former at Woodroffe School, will be assistant brewer, helping out at holidays and weekends.

The plan is to produce about seven beers, including a bitter, ginger and stout and the brewery will go by the name The Mighty Hop, a name chosen after – appropriately – an evening spent drinking beer.

“It came from nowhere and it stuck,” said Mr Jenkin.

He has submitted a planning application to West Dorset District Council to change the use of the building and install a small chimney to let the smells out.

If permission is given, Mr Jenkin hopes to be brewing by late spring, supplying local businesses with beer in bottles.

He said: “There are many ways to deliver beer to the market but the main two are by casks or bottles.

“It’s the off-licence, café, restaurant, tourist attraction and corner shop market that I’m interested in because I will be supplying it in bottles. .

“I will also have a website sales business, for example selling wedding beers. I am brewing a beer that is similar in look and smell and in its chemistry, I suppose, to champagne and it pops when you open the lid.

“Hopefully when it gets to the end consumer they will get cheaper beer, which everyone likes.”