Spoilt by Progress

If you look at the Banks's Brewery website, it describes, in a timeline, the various breweries taken over by the company. For most of the time the owning company was Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries and then Marstons, and now Carlsberg Marstons Brewing (CMBC).

Back in the day, brewing companies, on the whole, took over other brewers to acquire outlets, or sometimes, to buy out an owner who wanted to cash in. The latest in the company's line was the buyout by Carlsberg of the minority share of the brewing company formed by Carlsberg and Marstons as a joint venture.  Moving back a little, Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries themselves had acquired several breweries by takeover. These included well known names such as Jennings in the Lake District, Camerons of Hartlepool (now independent again) and Julia Hansons of Dudley, taken over in 1943. In 1999, Marston, Thompson and Evershed and Mansfield breweries were acquired. This was a now a big company, and it was renamed Marstons to reflect its national presence.  

Further additions to the company were some brewing interests of Thwaites and the former Wells and Youngs brewery in Bedford, which was bought and sold, and along the way, all taken over breweries were closed and others, too, were acquired and eventually closed.  Under Marstons though, breweries such as Jennings, Ringwood and Wychwood hung on, only to be closed when Carlsberg acquired a controlling interest.

Now the original brewery, the Park Brewery in Wolverhampton, is set to close next year. CMBC cite the lower demand for cask ale and the loss of the contract to brew San Miguel - though what that has to do with Banks's is somewhat opaque. The Park Brewery has been in operation since 1875 and its beers were once legendary in the Midlands, though much less so now.  Reading about it, it seems to be considered as a traditional brewery, with somewhat outdated brewing kit. The subsequent lack of flexibility, and the availability of additional capacity at the former Marston's site at Burton, means the writing was certainly on the wall. Nor can its value as a city centre site be overlooked.

It is almost forgotten that Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing Limited, existed from Jan 1993 - Mar 2004.  The famous Joshua Tetley Brewery in Leeds was taken over by Carlsberg Group. The Leeds Brewery was closed in 2011, and demolished in 2012, with production contracted out by Carlsberg to remaining breweries in the group.  In the meantime, they had already shut the huge Tetley Walker plant in Warrington in 1996 and then sold the Ind Coope Brewery Burton Brewery to Bass in 1998, with the loss of brands such as former Champion Beer of Britain, Ind Coope Draught Burton Ale. Although the brewery is still brewing under Molson-Coors ownership.  Tetley Bitter was farmed out to become the shadow of its former self that it remains to this day.

So, is over capacity the real reason for this? Sadly, there is little point in denying that is a fact, but the lack lustre brands produced by CMBC does not give much hope for the future either. Where does this leave us, then? In the short term, many of the large number of existing brands from formerly well thought of breweries, will be brewed on a single central site. The outcome of that will also probably mean more rationalisation in time. Choice will be diminished once again. Cask drinkers expect more than bland beer brewed down to a price that Pub Companies will pay, when they know it could be so much better. Sales will diminish further.

What can we learn from this?  The big players, all foreign owned, do not see it as their future to any meaningful extent. Cask is being further driven into being a niche product. Family and other small brewers need to fill the quality gap, though routes to market make that difficult.  

And finally,  if you want to keep your brewery alive, keep away from Carlsberg.  They have form. A lot of form. 

Supermarket bottle ranges will also likely be rationalised, and would anyone bet money that CMBC Burton has a long-term future?

Carlsberg makes the previous famous Whitbread Tour of Destruction seem like a minor blip in brewing history, and do they brew the best beer in the world?  well,you already know the answer to that.

A Piss Up in a Brewery?

I've quite a lot of time for Thwaites - nowadays that is. It wasn't always so, as almost all they ever offered was smooth beer in various forms, but a concious decision several years ago to return to cask has seen the brewery profile multiply by a huge factor and with beers like Wainwrights becoming a runaway success, they had the confidence to build within the main brewery, the Crafty Dan Brewery, producing specialist craft beers in cask, keg and bottle, which I visited and wrote about here. The beers have been good too, with several winning awards and some of their seasonal beers have been spectacularly good - and different.

Underlying all this, for several years the bigger plan has been to vacate the cramped central Blackburn premises which houses the Star Brewery, sell it to Sainsbury's for yet another supermarket and build a new, smaller, state of the art brewery on a greenfield site on the outskirts of Blackburn by the motorway. Seems like a good plan, so what could possibly go wrong? Well everything it seems. The local council has offered several sites but none has been followed up and it now seems for reasons unknown, that the proposed Sainsbury redevelopment will not take place either. It is hard to ascertain why and although the local Lancashire Telegraph has a good go at it here, I'm none the wiser really.

But one thing is clear. Thwaites are to sack most of the brewery workforce, close the main brewery which they describe as "obsolete", keep Crafty Dan going, outsource the brewing to Marstons of all their main brands (some may also be brewed at Burtonwood I am told) until such time as they can find a new brewery site. Yes the same brewery site they have been unsuccessfully seeking for years. Thwaites it seems are more or less up shit creek without a paddle. Their main brands brewed by rivals, their brewery more or less closed, their workforce sacked and the new brewery no nearer than ever. Some cynics from rival breweries in the North West that I have spoken to, believe that Thwaites will never open a new brewery.

 Only one way to prove them wrong I suppose, but time is running out.

The workers didn't take being given the heave ho lying down. The Thwaites sign on the brewery tower was altered to reflect their feelings.

The Last Brews

Two for you here. No prizes for guessing the breweries, but like Goal of the Month, have a go, just for fun.

I wonder what they'd taste like, but I'm not about to find out.

Mortlake to Close

Watney Combe Reid - the Stag Brewery, Mortlake 1989

© Copyright Stephen Williams and
licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Seems that the last vestige of the old Watney Mann empire will be swept away in 2010 with InBev's proposal to close the Budweiser plant at Mortlake, formerly Watney's Stag Brewery. The company adds all the usual weasel words that always accompany such things: "no reflection on our workforce", "changing market conditions", "increases in taxation" "need for synergies after our takeover of AB" etc. etc.

It is always sad to see a brewery close, but this had an air of inevitability about it. A declining brand, a large and expensive brewery and the need to pay for a takeover. Nobody will miss the beer which will be trunked in seamlessly and tastelessly from elsewhere - though goodness know where that elsewhere is - but people will lose their jobs. That's never a cause for celebration. Maybe this is the beginning of the end for Budweiser in the European market, where it has no real following anyway. The King of Beers? Seems to me more hollow a phrase than ever.


The Stag Brewery in Mortlake, West London, which employs 182 workers, dates back to the 15th century and is one of the oldest brewery sites in the UK.

Tetley's to Close!

I worked in Leeds for over 10 years. Every morning I would drive past the Joshua Tetley Brewery before heading the short distance to work. I could see the brewery, with steam rising from it, from one of the offices I used to occupy. I would watch the comings and goings as I drove past. There used to be Ind Coope wagons bringing up supplies from Burton on Trent to their sister brewery. Tetley-Walker drays from Warrington would be picking up this and that. I'd see them on the Pennines. The Burton Brewery is now part of Coors giant site, sold off years ago. Dallam Brewery in Warrington, the home of Peter Walker who merged with Tetley in the late sixties has long gone, with its beers being transferred over the Pennines.

In the dog days of my Leeds career the brewery had its Joshua Tetley 1822 signs taken down and replaced by a watered down version by Carlsberg who became owners. Carlsberg signs abounded and big tankers in Carlsberg colours, rather than drays laden with casks became the normal sight. Now it is all to end. Carlsberg have announced the site will close by 2011. The company said it needed to maximise efficiency to remain competitive in the face of increasingly challenging market conditions, adding: "Unfortunately, in this environment we can no longer justify running two major breweries in the UK." The spokesman said the company would continue brewing Tetley beer, preferably elsewhere in Yorkshire, if not somewhere in the north of England, but "definitely" in the UK.

There are those who will not mourn the loss of this major brewery. I am not one of them. I still enjoy the odd tart pint of Tetley's and spent a lot of time drinking it, albeit Warrington brewed, when I lived in Liverpool. I don't doubt the commercial case for closure by a brewer whose influence in the UK beer market in the UK beer market has been one of slow decline (some might say incompetence) since they came into it, but to see Leeds without Tets in it will sadden me on a personal level. In its day - and that day has gone - it was a legendary beer.

The closure has been inevitable for some time as the UK beer market shrinks, but as has been said by many, beer drinking is more than just supping the best beer. It is about friends and memories and happy days. I had a lot of happy days with Tetley Bitter. I for one will miss it.