Farmer Jim Beary has come up with the ingenious idea to combat rising wheat and diesel costs by producing Beer Bangers from his hungry hoards – with an extra tipple pint of Hen Harrier chucked in for good measure.

Jim, owner of family-run Ribble Valley Meat Company in Woodplumpton, said: "It's a bit of a struggle at the moment because the feed's so expensive.

"I decided to do something a bit different and come up with an end product to sell to people rather than just selling pigs to market."

The free-range Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs at Greenside, Ribchester, are fed on the waste by-products from the brewing process, further reducing costs.

Jim, 28, said: "It's the end part of the brew – just not quite the quality that would go into the pub or a bottle. They absolutely love it. It's not bad for them at all, we don't give it to them in huge quantities."

With the price of pig feed almost doubling in the past year, it is estimated that farmers are losing on average around £27 per pig, with many breeding sows having to be killed earlier than usual.

Pigs taste of what they eat more than any other animal and the beer is added to their feed in the last month.

He has teamed up with Bowland Brewery to produce the tasty sausages.

Jim, from Ribchester, said: "We've played around with the feed a lot over the last year or two to see what difference it makes to the meat.

"Everytime we've been out and sold them, they've sold out straight away.

"We're already working on a couple of new recipes using some of Bowland's other brews.

"We've sent some down for Anthony Worrall-Thompson to try, so some quite good names are interested."

Jim, who lives in Ribchester, suffered a major blow with the cancellation of the Royal Lancashire Show earlier this month, but is now looking towards the Garstang Show, the Ashton-under-Lyne farmers' market and the Edinburgh Foods Festival.

He then hopes to roll the sausages out to pubs, restaurants, farm shops, delicatessens and eventually supermarkets.

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