RICHARD BAKER used to be a 'big cheese' in the Falklands. Now, he's small beer in the Ribble Valley - and proud as punch about it.

Richard, 39-year-old brewmaster at the recently-established Bowland Beer Company at Bashall Barn, was the general manager of the Falkland Island Development Corporation, which was set up to develop the islands' economy following the Falklands War in 1982.

But he's traded that high-profile task to run his own brewery business right in the heart of the Ribble Valley. He's moved his family lock, stock and beer barrel from the capital of the Falklands to just outside Clitheroe.

A pilot plant has been installed with a modest capacity of 650 pints per week, but when phase two of the plan kicks in, the Bowland Brewery will be re-housed in the refurbished milking parlour next to Bashall Farm Shop and Cafe and up to ten jobs will be created as the business develops. The larger-scale equipment, with its copper-domed boiling copper, wooden-clad mash tun and fermenting vessels, will be very much on view and visitors will be encouraged to come and talk about the brewing process and beer in general.

Richard is keen to ensure that the emphasis remains on creating consistently high-quality, hand-crafted ales rather than chasing volume.

The sale of beer on the premises allows him to regularly check its quality and he is concentrating initially on working with a small number of local pubs and restaurants.

"We have big ambitions for the brewery," said Richard. "The ultimate aim is to carry the Bowland name beyond the Lancashire borders and even into export markets. Talks have already begun about exporting Bowland Brewery beers to the Falklands.

"Britain is famous for its beers and Bowland is at the centre of the kingdom - we will use that positioning to create a really powerful brand." He also believes that the range of beer styles becoming available from the ever-growing number of micro-breweries in the United Kingdom will attract even more people to the joys of real ale.

Richard added: "The craft brewing industry in the United States is massive with thousands of micro-breweries and brew-pubs producing interesting and high quality ales.

"We are now seeing the same sort of developments here in the UK and all of the major supermarkets now carry a sizeable number of different beers, some of them from tiny micro-breweries.

"Consumers like choice and variety and the scale of production at a micro-brewery, and the hands-on approach of brewers who really love what they're doing provides this."

With the brewery being based at Bashall Barn, within staggering distance of the Les Routiers-recommended Green Oak Cafe at Bashall Barn, Richard also intends developing greater links between quality foods and quality ales.

"Again, this is something that the Americans have been doing extremely well - beer and sausage tastings, beer and cheese tastings, beer and whatever takes your fancy!

"People are quite comfortable with this approach to linking foods and wines and, if anything, beer styles are even more complex allowing even greater opportunities to create really exciting combinations.

"I'd like to see restaurants having tasting notes alongside the beer list as well as the wine list."

The Bowland Brewery currently has three brews on offer - Best Bitter, a 4.5 per cent ABV premium bitter; Bashall Blonde, a five per cent ABV pale and smooth beer, similar in style to a lager, but with a citrus twist in the finish; and a rich and powerful Cromwell Stout, described by one taster as 'puritanically wicked' at six per cent ABV.