THE WELDER'S Dog celebrated a very hoppy birthday two years after teacher turned bar owner Ben Coombes took the plunge.
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In a town where pubs largely rule the roost, opening a small, craft beer bar was a bit of a gamble, Mr Coombes said.
"It's funny how life goes, teaching is a stressful job that'd see you drinking a bit and you get sick of drinking the same old thing," he said.
"Kids drove me to the bottle and now I sell the bottle, but it's led me to something new and exciting.
"I think to do this job you have to be personable and have a lot of patience, there's a lot of similarities between teaching and bar-tending."
In the two years since it opened the bar has introduced beer yoga and survived it's first two Tamworth Country Music Festivals.
It's the same model as the bar in Armidale but with a bit of a different clientele.
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As an owner, Mr Coomes said he has to be a bit of everything.
"Working in a bar you become a therapist, financial planner, politician, all sorts of facets are brought up in bar talk so you have to have an opinion on everything," he said.
"Now we've got the brewery going we have a bigger variety of our own beers that are local and people seem to really enjoy that," he said.
The bar celebrated with a tap takeover of its own beers on Thursday, brewed in Armidale.
Mr Coombes looking to expand with a development application in with Tamworth Regional Council to hold 12 pop-up events in the warehouse next door in the future.
"So watch this space, we're spit-balling some interesting ideas there," he said.