“Ale in the head but family at the heart.”
Mason’s Ale is the pride of North Yorkshire but, when his father passes away, Paul Mason - a man who has never touched a pint of beer in his life - inherits the family business alongside his two brothers; pessimistic Tim and happy-go-lucky Mark. However, when it becomes clear that the company will go bust in a matter of months, Paul is forced with an impossible choice: sell to the eccentric Harry Heslop - the man who ran off with Tim's wife and owner of a much larger, rival brewery - or allow the business to go bankrupt and destroy the legacy his father entrusted to him. Obsessed with emulating his late father and blinded by Harry’s promises of fame and fortune, Paul sells the company and destroys his relationship with his brothers. Despite much short-term success, eventually, scheming Harry reveals his true colours and forces Paul out of the business, leaving him with a pregnant wife who he can no longer support, an estranged brother and his old man's legacy in tatters.
Determined to honour his father’s dying wish, Paul hatches a plan to open a new brewery directly across the street from Mason’s Ale but the brewer who doesn’t drink soon finds his head spinning as he realises that he has so much more to re-build than just a brewery.