Thwaites Brewing Division Takes The Knock

Marstons have bought Daniel Thwaites Brewing Division it was announced today:

Marston’s buys Daniel Thwaites brewing division operation:Marston’s has reached agreement with Daniel Thwaites to acquire the trading operations of Thwaites’ beer division. The acquisition includes two leading, premium brands: Wainwright and Lancaster Bomber ales. The total cash consideration is £25.1 million excluding working capital. Marston’s has been brewing Thwaites’ beers since early 2014. As part of this acquisition, it has entered into a long-term exclusive agreement to supply all beer, wine, spirits and minerals to Thwaites’ pub estate. Thwaites’ beer division is a high quality sales business of scale concentrated in the North West of England, including a 150-strong team of regional sales, marketing and distribution staff operating in the Independent Free Trade, National On Trade and National Off Trade channels. The business has shown good growth in recent years, including the acquisition of Hydes Brewery’s free trade business in 2012, which increased Thwaites’ business in Manchester. Thwaites’ two principal beer brands are Wainwright, one of the most popular golden cask ales in the UK and Lancaster Bomber, a premium ale. Both brands have won numerous awards in recent years and are highly complementary to Marston’s market-leading portfolio of premium craft and bottled ales. This acquisition is consistent with Marston’s brewing strategy to focus on popular premium ales with local and regional appeal, and provides an opportunity to capitalise on the developing free trade market and wider consumer interest in the beer category. The transaction is expected to complete on 17 April 2015. In the 12 months to December 2014 Ebitda is estimated to have been around £7 million before overheads of approximately £2 million. The acquisition is expected to be earnings-enhancing in the first full year of ownership; in the current financial year it is estimated that the contribution to profit before taxation will be around £1.5 million. Ralph Findlay, chief executive of Marston’s, said: “I am delighted to welcome our new colleagues to Marston’s. We are acquiring a very high quality business with good people and brands, and with growth potential. The acquisition is consistent with our beer business strategy to focus on local provenance and premium brands, and provides opportunity to capitalise on the developing free trade market and increasing consumer interest in the beer category.”

While extremely disappointing news in some ways, this hardly comes as a shock to those of us in the North West.  The writing has been on the wall since Thwaites first of all announced several years ago that it would move out of the Star Brewery Blackburn to a new green field site and sell the existing site to Sainsbury's. Years then passed with no progress and in 2012 the brewery was closed as "obsolete" without finding a new one.  With the exception of Crafty Dan brands, the beer was outsourced to, yes, you've guessed, Marstons. Thwaites then announced a new brewery after all and then maintained a deafening silence on the whole matter. I wrote about the brewery here in less than glowing terms and here in a lot more positive ones.  Seems my enthusiasm was somewhat misplaced. Thwaites will continue as a Pub and Hotel Company though one has to wonder for how long?  The record of such Pub Companies is quick demise though admittedly these are changed times, so who knows? Maybe it is a smarter move than it first appears?

However, oddly, it seems that all is not lost brewing wise.  According to the Wolverhampton Express and Star (Thwaites beers are largely brewed in Wolverhampton by Banks')  "Thwaites has retained ownership of craft beer brands and other cask ale brands, including its seasonal ale range, which it will continue to brew and sell in its’ own properties. Daniel Thwaites’ chief executive Richard Bailey said: “This is a very exciting development which allows us to focus on our pubs, inns and hotels, whilst retaining a small brewery to continue to supply our own properties with our fantastic beers and opening up a wider drinks range to our customers through a long term supply deal with Marston’s.

So as you were in some ways, though where these beers will be brewed isn't clear.  We'll have to wait and see.

It is odd that Thwaites refer to their beer brands as "Third Party Brewing Business". Well they are now I suppose.

Crafty Dan

Set in a very cramped town centre location where it has been since 1807, Daniel Thwaites is one of the biggest, if not the biggest of the surviving family brewers, owning around 350 pubs. You won't find a Thwaites on the board though, the family name having been Yerburgh since the female line inherited and married one. It is still firmly family controlled however.

 The brewery itself is rather large, with a lot being crammed into the site. When I visited it last night though, it wasn't to see the large automated modern brewery it has become, but the fairly recently installed "Craft Brewery" where, shall we say, the more interesting beers are brewed. Set in a spacious part of the brewery, this self contained 20 barrel plant is in no small measure where Thwaites sees a major part of its future. Our guide was at pains to point out that when he first started doing the tours, the brewery only used five different hop varieties and now uses at least 25 to produce a range of 12 "Signature" seasonal beers plus quarterly beers and "one offs". In addition experimental, development beers and beers commissioned by individual customers are produced. The plant itself is a full part of the production of the brewery, as its beers mostly go out to trade, but this is very much a hands on operation. We did visit Fermentation Room 1 in the main brewery, where a large number of traditional open squares produce the brewery's main output of Original, Nutty Black, Lancaster Bomber and of course Wainwright's which is now their biggest selling beer.  The brewery is very self contained, with all racking, bottling and kegging done on site.

In the bar, we (National Winter Ales Fest workers) enjoyed the hospitality of the brewery, with Original, Bomber, Wainwrights, TBC and BB1 on offer. BB1 and TBC (Thwaites Best Cask) are produced in the micro brewery with the others coming from the larger main brewery. All were in the tip top form you'd expect and I particularly enjoyed the dark BB1 (it's their postcode) which has added cherries and a touch of sourness, at a very drinkable 3.7%. Think Belgian Dark Mild and you won't be far out. It was enjoyable too to talk to the very enthusiatic team that looked after us and to glean snippets of interest. Thwaites, like many others including Lees have more or less got out of the contract brewing game, as margins are so low. (Most supermarket beers are brewed by the likes of Burtonwood and Robert Cain) but they did brew (off and on) Punk IPA for you know who and still contract bottle and can as  required.

I first visited this site over 20 years ago and last night may have been my last chance to visit the brewery again, as it will move in the next couple of years to a new, less cramped green field site near the motorway,  as soon as planning permission has been gained for Sainsbury to buy the site, knock it down and build a supermarket. Oh and of course for Thwaites in the meantime to build a new brewery.  A shame, but one thing is for sure. While the "old" brewery will be scrapped, the craft brewery will be dismantled and taken to the new site.  

Thwaites see producing a wide variety of interesting craft cask beers as very much a part of their future.  Craft Cask?  Of course and why not?




We were all given a lovely 3 pack of a new beer too.  Name?  Crafty Dan.  It is made with UK and Munich malts, Amarillo, Pacific Gem and Fuggles hops.

The White Lion

Yesterday I met a CAMRA colleague in the Landlady's new pub, the White Lion in Delph, a picturesque village in the Pennines just on the Greater Manchester side of the border, a fact that has this former West Riding outpost somewhat divided, as evidenced by the White Rose flag flying from the Band Club.

This is still in my CAMRA Branch area, so I'm the local Chairman which is rather nice really and makes introductions pleasant and me feel part of it, in a minor way at least. The White Lion is stone built on a corner and is warm and welcoming, having had the Landlady's 60 Minute Makeover. It has been decided, unlike most Delph pubs, to open all day and it was doing a fair trade when we arrived. One or two were even enjoying the spring sunshine outside on benches. Beers are from Thwaites of Blackburn and were a pleasant surprise, more of which later. The Landlady's first task was to remove smooth beer and install four handpumps and all are on all the time. She is selling them like hot cakes she says.

Thwaites in recent years have a lack lustre record in cask beer. Most of their pubs sell smooth these days, but things are changing. According to the Landlady, it is her record as a cask ale award winner that first attracted Thwaites to her, as they want things to change. Cask beer is booming and they are back in the game. Good for them. Before the pub changed hands the cellar was renovated with automatic tilters and new lines as well as four handpumps installed and the spear extraction used for the lone cask beer removed. I doubt if Thwaites have many pubs with four cask beers on at once, but here they have and they are selling.

What of the beers? Nutty Black is a lovely traditional mild; almost jet black in colour with sweet malt and a slight bitter edge. Very drinkable for a 3.3% beer. The Original Bitter was a surprise, though I only had a sample. Better than I remember, it was though underpowered at 3.6%, its bitterness slightly lost by a touch of wateriness. Wainwrights at 4.1% was pale, bittersweet and quaffable. It is her biggest seller so far and gaining popularity with her new locals. I didn't try Lancaster Bomber, but overall was impressed. Thwaites also do a range of seasonals and the landlady is already looking to have a fifth pump installed for that. She is nothing if not ambitious in selling cask ale.

In addition to cask there is a couple of genuine German imports in the shape of Warsteiner and Koenig Ludwig Hefe Weiss (to be replaced by Paulaner sometime in the future) and even a couple of cooking lagers, Carling and Fosters, so something for everyone, though I'll bet the Landlady will soon have cask as her biggest seller.

So, a good news story. It is early days, but we have a local pub revitalised, traditional beer success and a Family Brewer getting back to cask. See, it isn't all grumpiness and negativity here!

Danny Boy

Daniel Thwaites has been brewing in Blackburn for 202 years. Their cask beers are starting to reappear more widely after a long (and most would say unsuccessful) love affair with nitrokeg. Now they are picking themselves up and getting over it. Good.

Though, as is common these days, it isn't actually called a mild, Thwaites have brewed a four per cent cask mild for May. I had some last night at the Bury Beer Festival Organising Meeting. Highwayman is rich, dark, chocolatey with decent roast malt and a creamy head. Most of us drank it.

Must have been all right then.

Two Contrasting Nights

Tyson has already mentioned our somewhat odd outing to Ramsbottom to allegedly sample trial Thwaites beers. Instead we were treated to a kind of bizarre charade, with only one trial beer being available of the four offered, not that we knew this at the time. It is strange though how, when you are advised that you are drinking Thwaites beer, that your mind closes to the possibility of the beers sampled being something else. Both Tyson and I recognised that one beer was chock full of diacetyl and one other had an odd but familiar spiciness, without making the mental connection to say "Aha, These cunning sods from Thwaites have brought some ringers in, namely Deuchar's IPA and Greene King IPA." Now both of us I think can be excused the GKIPA blunder, as I doubt if any has passed our respective lips for a long time, but it just goes to show that you can fool some of the people some of the time, even a couple of hardened soaks like us.

Now I have to admit that the GKIPA wasn't that bad. You wouldn't want a lot of it, but it was better than the Deuchars and the Thwaites trial beer, which we placed a comfortable last. That at least serves them right. What came top? As it turned out it was none other than Taylor's Landlord. Now I'm not sure what the other several hundred (as it seemed) people came up with, but hopefully Thwaites will get the message that producing another bland beer in the hope of stealing some of the bland market, just isn't going to cut it these days. An odd night out indeed and a slightly perplexing one.

Last night was different. An old work colleague and I met for a limited time. We went to the Grey Horse in Portland St, Manchester, a tiny tied Hydes house. We drank the straightforward and easy going bitter. On this occasion catching up was all we wanted to do and the beer, for once, was incidental. A good perspective reminder.

Of course recidivist that I am, I couldn't resist popping into the Marble Arch for a quick half on the way to the bus stop. Mallinson's Ephesus gave me a last hop hit. I am never disappointed with their beers.