Click photo to enlarge Southern Man to set sail . . . Clockwise from top: James Livingston outside the Speight’s Ale House “plug-in pub” which, in what

Speight’s is going to float a pub over to London. Yes, it’s true, and the company is looking for a crew.

A $300,000 Speight’s Ale House, unveiled in Dunedin yesterday, will be freighted to London on a 70m-long chartered container ship in July.

The journey will take an estimated 70 days, with the ship going via Samoa, Panama, the Bahamas and New York on its way to London.

Lion Nathan representative Jessica Venning-Bryan said the concept was conceived after the company received a letter from an expatriate New Zealander working in London.

“Not only have I traded in the fresh air, open spaces and the sunshine of home for a dirty old office job, but I’ve also had to forgo the sheer joy of a cold Speight’s after a hard day’s work,” Tim Ellingham (27), formerly of Dannevirke, complained.

Speight’s approached Mr Ellingham’s best mate, James Livingston, of Wellington, with a real Southern Man plan.

How would he like to take a few beers over for Mr Ellingham and some other mates? In a pub?

Mr Livingston (27), a Recreation New Zealand project manager, said he did not hesitate when he was asked to jump on board, and his mates in London were excited.

“They think it’s great that I’m coming over. But they think it’s even better I’m bringing a pub with me.”

The pub was constructed by Dunedin company Three Bald Men, which builds all Speight’s Ale Houses.

Two 12m-long shipping containers join together to form the frame of the pub and can be separated for storage purposes.

The interior incorporates Central Otago schist and New Zealand woods, air-conditioning, a dishwasher, glass-washer and a fully-functioning, copper-sheathed bar, complete with bowsers.

“It’s basically a plug-in pub,” the project’s manager, Michelle Jones from Sydney, said yesterday.

“It would have to be a world-first. We’ve certainly never heard of anything like it before.”

Speight’s is looking for three crew members to join Mr Livingston on the journey, and the bar will be open from 6pm to 8pm every day of the voyage.

The pub, which leaves Dunedin on July 24, will be temporarily moored on a barge in the upper Thames, before a permanent home is found.

“It’s Speight’s big push into London,” Ms Venning-Bryan said.