ARRAN Brewery has secured planning permission to build Scotland's first sake brewery in Ayrshire.
Plans for the brewery, based on the site of the former Dreghorn Primary School, include a bottling facility and beer hall, as well as a brewing school, visitor centre and research and development hub.
Six staff are currently employed at the site, and there hopes to extend that to 30 as the project develops.
Arran, run by managing director Gerald Michaluk, said the site will house rotating exhibitions as well as permanent expositions about Japan, brewing and distilling.
Mr Michaluk said "We are very pleased to have received planning permission and will now be seeking building warrants so work can start in earnest. Currently the site is being refurbished and brought back up to its former glory.
We will very stretched at the moment with two major developments on the go here at Dreghorn and at Loch Earn where a new brewery and visitor centre is being built."
The firm said the sake produced at Dreghorn will be based on Japanese rice produced in the US. It will largely be sold in Japan, where Arran currently sells beer.
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