Dublin's glitterati can breathe a sigh of relief; the new owners of Lillie's Bordello plan to leave the Grafton Street celebrity hang-out as it is. Bono's favourite table (in the corner beside the door, next to Westlife's) is safe.

Downstairs in Judge Roy Bean's however, Oliver Hughes and his business partner, Liam La Hart, are planning a wholesale renovation. The two founders of microbrewery chain the Porterhouse will be extending the franchise to their new premises, which they bought for €5.5 million in November from Dave and Mairéad Egan, owners of the Bruxelles bar on Harry Street.

"We will be making a few small cosmetic changes to Lillie's, nothing major," says Mr Hughes. "The differences will be more in the style than the appearance. We will be looking to attract a more exclusive crowd and less tabloid attention, so our customers know they can enjoy their drink in private.

"We haven't decided how we're going to fit out the new Porterhouse. All our premises have their own aesthetic, there's no standard look. The most recent, in Glasnevin, is a converted art deco garage that's very different from, say, the one in Temple Bar.

"We'll sit down for a brainstorming session with the architect over the coming weeks. He's coming with us to Germany next week, so don't be surprised if it ends up looking like a Munich beer hall!"

Dublin-born Mr Hughes (45), who worked as a barrister for 10 years before switching his attentions to brewing, opened the first Porterhouse with his cousin, Mr La Hart, in Bray in 1989, but it is perhaps the Temple Bar premises that is most widely known.

Opened in 1994 on Parliament Street, the bar quickly became Ireland's most well-known microbrewery and was ideally positioned in location and timing to benefit from Temple Bar's transformation from fledgling cultural quarter to full-blown party zone.

Five years ago, the Porterhouse went international and there are now two bars in London.

"Part of our success in England stems from our decision not to market the bars as Paddywhackery pubs.

"After our first year in Covent Garden, things weren't going so well and we were wondering if we'd made a mistake. But then we started getting busier and we were 15 per cent up that year and 15 per cent up the following year," says Mr Hughes.

Despite rates of £125,000 compared with €25,000 in Temple Bar, the Covent Garden outlet operates on net margins of 20 per cent and 2.5 times the return generated in Dublin, and contributes a third of the group's turnover, which was €15 million for all five premises last year.

The Porterhouse currently brew 10 beers of its own (three lagers, three ales, and four stouts, including one with oysters) and stock a wide selection of bottled beers from around the world.

They avoid mainstream brands sold by the international brewing giants and Mr Hughes is constantly abroad looking for new brews, a job he says is pleasurable.

It was this passion for quality beer that inspired him to open the Porterhouse, and he believes that focusing on quality may help alleviate some of the ills of Ireland's binge drinking culture.

"Our beer tastes like proper beer. It has full, strong flavours and you know when you're drinking it that you're drinking alcohol, so you'll be less inclined to keep drinking way beyond what you should," he says.

"The problem lies in targeted marketing by global drinks companies at young drinkers. If something tastes like lemonade, a flavour you've been used to since you were a child, then you can just keep throwing it back."

Mr Hughes is an advocate of more flexible hours for the trade, so that opening hours are staggered to encourage a more continental style of slower drinking over a longer period of time.

Asked if people would just use the extra time to drink even more at the same rate, he lays the responsibility with the publican: "The key to flexible hours is a well-run, well-regulated bar. Well-run bars should be rewarded, perhaps with an incentive of longer opening hours, while guys with badly-run bars might find themselves being forced to close at 10.30pm."

Mr Hughes's desire to keep Lillie's off the front page will not have been helped by the high-profile departure of club manager Ms Valerie Roe last weekend - she claimed they didn't "share the same vision" - but his campaign for quality received a recent boost with the Minister for Finance's decision to lower excise duties for microbreweries in the Budget.

The move, which was called for by the Irish Craft Brewers' Association, is intended to revive the country's craft brewing industry and provide jobs.

Staggered excise has proved an enormous success in Britain, where its introduction a few years ago revived the craft brewing industry.

The effects of the development will be to cut the excise on 20,000 hectolitres, or producers of 40,000 kegs per annum. On a pint with a 5 per cent strength in alcohol, it will reduce excise from 56 cent to 29 cent. There are about 12 microbreweries in the country affected by the change.

"We're delighted about the decision," says Mr Hughes. "We have reduced our prices on the back of that even though it's not intended to be passed onto the customer, it's more to help expand the industry.

"The Exchequer won't lose out anyway as the industry is so small, so it's a win-win situation."