PETRA Wetzel, the entrepreneur behind the West bar and brewery on Glasgow Green, has revealed plans to open her first outlet in Edinburgh.

Ms Wetzel is poised to lodge a planning application with City of Edinburgh Council to develop a bar, restaurant, theatre and microbrewery on Market Street, next to Waverley Station.

The venture, which will represent an investment “north of £1 million”, is slated to open in Easter 2018. But before then Ms Wetzel hopes to give locals a taste of what the venue will offer by opening a pop-up version in the building during this year’s Edinburgh Festival, having run a pop-up “West House” in George Street during last year’s event.

Ms Wetzel said the 20,000 square foot site, which has lain empty for many years after being formerly used as storage by the train station, is a 90-second walk from Waverley and 20 seconds from the Royal Mile.

“We’re in the heart of the Old Town and it’s a venue that’s bigger than [West on] Glasgow Green, with a beer garden way bigger than Glasgow Green, so we’re very, very excited by that,” she said.

“We’re just about two weeks away from [lodging the] planning [application], and then we are running it as a pop-up for the Festival in August. We’re going to put on a little theatre and shows and a West House bar on our own space near Waverley.”

Ms Wetzel added: “Planning will take up to August, and we didn’t want to miss the Festival. So rather than doing a proper fit-out for the Festival, we will run it as pop up. We’ll close it again in September, and do a full refurbishment.”

The move into Edinburgh comes after Ms Wetzel invested more than £4 million into developing the West business in the last two years. Production finally got up and running at West’s new brewery at its home in Glasgow’s former Templeton’s Carpet Factory in November after a protracted project.

With a capacity of 35,000 hectolitres, eight times the magnitude of the site’s original microbrewery, the brewery has the capability of fulfilling all of the com- pany’s production needs, paving the way for expanded exports and supermarket listings for West brands.

Ms Wetzel said West, which is focused on German-style beers, was poised to bottle its Hefeweizen product for the first time, amid interest from as far afield as Russia. Until now only its St Mungo beer, which has listings with supermarkets such as Waitrose, has been bottled for wider distribution.

Ms Wetzel said: “It’s funny because all of the supermarkets and distributors, [including] our importers from Russia and Hong Kong, are jumping up and down saying ‘when can we have it?’ It’s going to be wonderful to finally be able to put it into bottles.

“We’re hoping to bottle it [in] the first week in March. We’re waiting on getting the proofs for the labels and getting our bottling slot from our bottlers.”

Noting that West outsources its bottling requirements to Morrow Brothers in England, Ms Wetzel said existing customers such as Aldi and Asda are keen to stock bottled Hefeweizen as well.

“I’m going to Russia in February for a big beer exhibition, because St Mungo is doing really well in Russia at the moment,” Ms Wetzel added. “The Russian importer is really keen to have the new Hefeweizen in bottles. It’s lovely to see what you can do when you can brew in volume, rather than being constrained by the little brewery.”

The company recently completed work on a £500,000 events space, West Courtyard, at Glasgow Green. The space, which last week hosted an event for 250 Hewlett-Packard staff, overlooks the brewery and is used for corporate functions and weddings.

“I spoke to the events team last week and they have got 96 weddings booked for Courtyard for 2017 – that’s amazing,” Ms Wetzel said. “It is the only proper event space in Scotland where ... you see the brewery as a backdrop. It’s fantastic.”

The changes on Glasgow Green follow the launch of West On the Corner, a bar and restaurant in the city’s west end.