Corrie’s new ale hails from Lees

They’ll never serve Jack Duckworth with “Coronation Street” bitter in the Rover’s Return — but it could be a lucrative new brew for JW Lees.

The Middleton Junction brewery has secured a five-year deal with the makers of the ITV soap to produce cask and bottled versions of “Coronation Street” premium ale.

It will be launched on Wednesday (1 April), marking the latest link between the 180-year-old family brewing company and the Street.

Advertising and broadcasting rules mean that the premium ale name will not be seen on beer clips and bottles when the Rover’s Return is being filmed.

But managing director William Lees-Jones believes the new brew will open up a lucrative national market.

He said: “It is a great platform and will make it nationally accessible a lot further afield, not just in pubs in the North West, but nationally.”

William Lees-Jones approached ITV when he read that the programme makers wanted to have their own beer.

He said: “I told them it had to be JW Lees because of all their links with the brewery.

“Other brewers were interested, but because “Coronation Street” is their biggest programme, ITV wanted to make sure the integrity was 100%.”

Programme makers have used J W Lees’s wood panelled boardroom as the headquarters of the Newton and Ridley brewers, fictional owners of the Rovers, and they have also used the company’s dray wagons.

Suranne Jones, who played feisty Karen McDonald in the soap, is also linked with the brewery — her father, Chris, works there.

It’s even said that Newton and Ridley was based on the Middleton junction brewers.

The “Coronation Street” cask ale will be launched next week in Manchester Central, formerly the G-Mex centre, and the bottled version will follow shortly afterwards in pubs and supermarkets.