The Luton brewery replaced both the J.W. Green/Flowers plant, which had also been in Luton, and Whitbread's original Chiswell Street premises. It wasn't a happy place, troubled by poor industrial relations during its short life. I did try the version of Best Mild brewed there. It was shit: bland and insipid.
I drank Castle Eden beer quite a few times and was pretty impressed. No idea why this continued to brew cask when it was discontinued by all of Whitbread's other northern breweries.
Obviously, I never touched a drop from Magor, Whitbread's big Welsh keg factory.
Luton
Luton,
Bedfordshire.
Founded: 1969
Closed: 1984
Tied houses:
One of Whitbread’s new, large breweries. Plagued by poor industrial relations, it didn’t last long. No cask.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Best Mild | Mild | keg | 1030.8 | |
| Trophy | Pale Ale | keg | 1035.8 | |
| Tankard | Pale Ale | keg | 1039.3 | |
| Mackeson | Stout | bottled | 1038.8 | sweet |
| Heineken Pils | Lager | keg | 1032.8 |
Magor
Magor,
Wales.
Founded: 1979
Closed: still open
Tied houses:
Another new, large brewery. One which has lasted. No cask.
Nimmo
Castle Eden,
County Durham.
Founded: 1825
Closed: 2002
Tied houses: 202
Bought
in 1963. Formerly West Country Breweries. In the 1970s, the only
Whitbread brewery in the North that produced cask beer. Pretty good
stuff.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Trophy | Pale Ale | draught | 1041 | pleasant, hoppy |
Time for yet another plug of my latest book, "Keg!". From which this is an excerpt.
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7 comments:
Are there examples of genuinely good beer coming from one of the newer industrial-scale breweries? I'm curious if it was possible in those facilities and the problem was ingredients and methods. Or was it just too hard at that scale with the equipment they used?
Magor brews Stella Artois and Budweiser. The Belgian Stella wasn't too bad, a cut above the likes of Harp or Carling and reminded me of holidays in the Low Country.
A couple of years ago Aldi in Australia had a big special on Stella in 420 ml cans so I bought a case. With their Euro connections I had assumed it was Belgian.
Nope, BUL in the UK presumably at Magor.
Vile.
Ron I think your reference to West Country Breweries might have been intended for Flowers (also acquired in 1963) not Nimmos in the North East.
Other end of t'country.
Of course there were. Banks's and Tetley's. Boddington's. Theakston's. Matthew Brown's was supposedly very good.
The fetishisation of small, inefficient breweries is a modern thing.
Yes, Whitbread bought Nimmo at Castle Eden and the Flowers brewery in Sunderland at the same time. Flowers was soon closed, but Castle Eden was kept, their XXXX sold under the name Trophy. In time they contract brewed for Whitbread after a management buyout.
Thanks, anon, I wasn't aware of a Flowers brewery in the NE but note that it was actually the old R. Fenwick brewery that closed in 1964. Even growing up in Newcastle I don't remember any of that as I didn't grow my beer gland till later in the early 70s !
Yes, Fenwick's was on the south bank of the Wear, near the fish quay. A pub on the other side of High Street East would send two chosen customers for a new barrel when the beer went off.
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