When 800-litre batches of Central Ranges Brewing Company’s beers are bottled, the labels will prominently display the 1859 Cobb and Co cottage restored at the Beekeeper’s Inn restaurant on the Mitchell Highway.

A former industrial and superannuation lawyer, Janet Lee started in the brewing industry by accident, through her enjoyment of a good beer.

Her first venture was in an industrial area at Orange because brewing at the time had been classified as “light industrial”.

Ms Lee said the legislation has recently changed to cover breweries under the National Foods Act. The major change, allows brewers to break the shackles of having to brew, bottle and sell direct to retail. “Under the new act we will be able to bottle and sell to the public,” Ms Lee said. “It also means we can establish, as was always intended, to cater for tourists.”

Ms Lee said her boutique beers, not unlike a plethora of boutique wineries that have sprung up in the Central West, had to find niche markets and did well to establish the reputation it had in such a short time, with an ever growing following in Sydney and Melbourne.

This week she and her son-in-law Daniel Hewitt and partner Mark Lockwood, whose family owns and operates the Beekeeper’s Inn, were setting up equipment which had been stored in Lucknow in a purpose-built, fully-lined brewery to comply with the National Food Act.

Ms Lee and Mr Lockwood took a great pleasure assisting Mr Hewitt to place the fermentation tanks, explaining the role each piece will play when the brewery is fully operational, producing a range of natural, bottle fermented wheat beer, pale ale, English style amber ale and stout.

The beers will be sold in 330ml bottles, but litre or pint bottles will also be available in the Beekeeper’s Inn Restaurant. Mr Lockwood hopes to offer a mead or honey style beer sometime in future.

The location at Vittoria should help Mr Lockwood to enhance the already well known Inn with patrons from Bathurst and Orange already regularly booking tables for special occasions and many travellers stopping over.

Due to the requirements of the Food Act, Ms Lee and Mr Lockwood will have to import water, even though they have a perfectly good supply from a bore on the property. “Orange water was good for making beer,” Ms Lee said. “But where water is concerned is it easy ... to put in filtration systems.”

Ms Lee has lived in Orange for seven years since the beginning of her life as a brewer and is looking forward to seeing the beer bottling line running again with the label being designed to feature the 1859 Cobb and Co Cottage.