Truman Ale pours again: Britain's new brewery is 300 years old

The Old Truman Brewery will be a natural choice for a party to mark the symbolic return, and the new beer could be poured as early as next March (Richard Dawson)

Drinkers with a care for history and a London landmark will wait with open mouths next year for the triumphant return of a beer that helped shape their city.

Truman's ale was brewed in Brick Lane, Shoreditch, for more than 300 years until it fell to the merger monopoly of the 1980s. But hop smells will waft over east London again after two university friends who bought the rights to the name secured a site not far from the old brewery.

Michael-George Hemus and James Morgan, both 32, already supply 150 pubs with their new Truman's beer, brewed at borrowed premises in Essex and Leicestershire, but have just signed a lease on a site near the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

Hemus used to work in the old brewery, three miles west, as a product designer; the building became an arts and new media space after Truman's taps were turned off in 1989. Curiosity inspired a quest with Morgan and they acquired the rights in 2010. Realising the demand for craft beers, they now plan to become one of London's biggest brewers.

The Old Truman Brewery will be a natural choice for a party to mark the symbolic return, and the new beer could be poured as early as next March. "I suspect we'll have more than a few sips," Hemus told The Independent.