Newport has gone for year's without having a local brewery - but that is all about to change.

Richard Jackson said: "There hasn't been a brewery in Newport for 40 years, but by the end of this year we expect to have dozens of Newport's pubs serving up our new beer for a new city. "Newport has a university and a cathedral. Having our own brewery is also a badge of civic pride."

Mr Jackson was formerly landlord of the Orange Tree, in Pill, and of the Red Lion, in Stow Hill, from where his new beers - Newport Pale Ale and Newport Blonde - are to be launched in the summer.

Kerry Dobbins, 50, is a former Royal Mail manager and beer enthusiast who is joining Mr Jackson in the £30,000 venture. The business relationship is made closer by the fact that they're brothers-in-law. "We've got a location for our brewery in the Shaftesbury area of Newport, for which we are trying to get planning permission," Richard says. "My family has been involved in the licensed trade in Newport for generations. My father was actually born at the Royal Albert, in Maindee, in the 1930s. "I'm a real trainspotter about beer. Very shortly after Kerry and I became brothers-in-law we realised we had a consuming interest in beer. It wasn't long after that a business plan started to emerge."

Kerry, of Queen's Hill, Newport, said: "The first pints of Newport Pale Ale and Newport Blonde will be pulled in May if all goes to plan. We have both been away on brewing courses to Sunderland University and are convinced that we can come up with a product that is perfect for Newport. We are reuniting the city with a tradition that goes back at least as far as 1385."