Thursday 28 May 2009

Aaaaaah . . . . . there's so much

I've started preparing for my trip to London next. Annoyingly, I'll be a day too early for the launch of Pete Brown's "Hops and Glory". Damn.

As part of my preparations, I've been browsing the catalogue of The London Metropolitan Archives. Guess what I've found? Brewing records from another nine breweries. Namely:

  • Truman's Burton Brewery
  • Russells Gravesend Brewery
  • C N Kidd and Son Limited, Steam Brewery, Hythe Street, Dartford, Kent
  • Noakes and Co Ltd, Black Eagle Brewery, Whites Grounds, Bermondsey
  • Hodgson's Kingston Brewery Co Ltd, Kingston Brewery, Brook Street, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
  • Camden Brewery Co Ltd, Camden Brewery, Hawley Crescent, Camden Town
  • St Paul's Brewery, Bedford
  • Charles Beasley, Plumstead
  • H and G Simonds, Reading

Crazy, eh? I haven't finished going through the other breweries yet. Then there are the malt and hop records from Truman, Courage lager brewing records and all manner of other good stuff I want to look at. I sometimes wonder if I'll ever finish.

4 comments:

Doc said...

They all sound great.
Any references though to Cobb & Co brewery ?
In particular Cobb-Margate Pale Amber beer (OG 1.080 IBU 130).

DR

Ron Pattinson said...

Just had a look. Their records are held at the East Kent Archives:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=2006-cobb_2-1&cid=1-2-16#1-2-16

It looks like the only brewing records they have are for 1823-1824.

The amount of information held in archives in staggering. I've only ever really bothered with just the London Metropolitan Archives. My guess is that across the country there are brewing records for hundreds of breweries.

Andrew said...

Friary Meux have some stuff there as well, I'm planning a trip this summer to look for some distribution deals between them and Carlsberg

MentalDental said...

Just to cheer you up Ron :-) , I will be at the launch of Hops and Glory (the rail system allowing!) so I'll have a beer for you.

There. I bet you feel much better now.