THERE’S now’t more Yorkshire than a pint of Keighley-brewed Timothy Taylor’s ale.

So, it was something of a surprise when this traditional family firm dating back to 1858 appointed an American-born boss to take it forward.

Tim Dewey has lived in the UK for more than 30 years and is married to a Welsh-born wife whom he met in the 1970s while studying English literature at Oxford for a year under a scheme giving US students experience abroad.

Tim, who hails from near Boston, Massachusetts, is very much an Anglophile and seems more than comfortable in the chief executive’s chair at Taylor’s which he took over in December.

He was head-hunted when his predecessor Charles Dent decided to stand down after 22 years.

Tim, who has spent much of his career in the drinks sector, was appointed with the brief ‘evolution not revolution’. He is the first person with no Taylor family connections to run the business in its 156-year history.

After four years with Unilever he joined International Distillers and Vintners – now Diagio. He started as a brand manager and rose to become international marketing director for Smirnoff vodka and ran Diagio’s global innovation centre in Bishops Stortford.

His career has also included stints at British Bakeries, whisky distiller Wm Grant and brewing group SAB Miller. He then joined liqueur producer Drambuie as global marketing director and UK commercial director.

Tim admits that before he was approached about the role in Keighley he hadn’t heard of Timothy Taylor and tackling such a lack of recognition among ale drinkers is at the top of his “to do” list .

“We have recent research that shows that, although we have good brand awareness for a company our size, there are still 40 per cent of ale drinkers that still have not heard of Timothy Taylor, which gives us plenty of scope to increase sales.

“But we won’t compromise quality for price. It’s a great shame that ale is an undervalued category in the UK market. The level of care and attention that goes into making the beer is amazing."

Tim has fed his thoughts to a British Beer and Pubs Association working group covering this area.

Expanding Taylor’s pubs estate and boosting sales of bottled beers – currently around ten per cent of output – as well as developing export sales, are priorities in Tim’s in-tray.

In the brewery, he would like to see more capacity for making ‘short-run’ beers such as The Champion brew made for the Tour de France and repeated for the recent Tour de Yorkshire cycle race.

Taylor currently has a pub estate of 18 mainly tenanted venues, including two managed houses. Tim expects to add around two a year in a gradual expansion.