Bottle shop offers something new for beer lovers in Peterborough city centre

Bottle and Board opened as a straightforward takeout in Wentworth Street back in April, after converting a former recruitment agency office.

That was, of course, weeks into lockdown but for former brewer Eddie Baines, who with wife Gina ran a bottle shop in Borough Market in London for many years, that was just an inconvenience.

And when lockdown was relaxed on July 4, the couple were able to make use of the bar area and outside seating to allow customers to drink on the premises.

“We have the outdoor seating for when the weather suits and inside for about 16 because of the Covid safety regime we have to follow - although if we were allowed we could seat 12 at the 7 metre-long bar,” said Eddie, who has been in the industry since the early 1990s.

“We are still waiting on the cold room to be completed at the moment and the plan is to have four taps - nominally German, Belgian, American and one other beer.

“But while we don’t currently have draught beer we have a wide selection of bottles and cans - there are fridges filled with American, Belgian and German beers as well as a wide variety of bottled English beers.”

Eddie said the business was still very much a work in progress - delayed by the effects of lockdown which, for example, meant missing out on tapping into the tens of thousands of visitors who would otherwise have been making their way to the Peterborough Beer Festival this month. A sign over the door would have to wait.

“We are still new to Peterborough - and different - that is the whole purpose of what we are doing,” said Eddie.

“We are not an off-licence, or a pub or micropub. And we won’t be selling white wine, prosecco or gin etc, That is not what we are about.

“But a lot of people have come in and said the city has been crying out for a bottle shop like this for a long time, which is encouraging.”