Courage in the 1970s

I have very mixed feelings about Courage. Having ended up owning both of my hometown of Newark’s brewers, they owned almost all the pubs. All but one of which sold no cask beer. On the other hand, they brewed Russian Stout.

On the other hand, my first job after school was working in their Newark plant, the former Holes brewery. Filling kegs. It was so much fun. Not really. It was very heavy work. Which my 18-year-old body could cope with. Then there was all that free beer.

In the North and Midlands, Courage produced no cask beer at either their Tadcaster or Newark breweries. Drinkers in the South were luckier, with the London and Bristol plants producing some cask. Though Worton Grange, the replacement for the former Simmonds brewery in Reading, produced only keg beer.


London
Horselydown, the original Courage brewery on the South bank of the Thames opposite the Tower of London, was open all through the 1970s, not closing until 1982.

It produced at least some cask right up until its closure. Though it wasn’t always easy to tell which of their breweries the beer had been brewed in.

Reading
The former Simonds brewery in Reading was one of the constituent parts of the original group, Courage Barclay Simonds.

Having a good reputation for their beer, there was quite a bit of consumer resistance to its closure, orchestrated by CAMRA. Of course, this had no effect on the decision to close it.

Worton Grange
The replacement for Reading was a massive brewery, with a capacity of six million barrels. Designed as a keg beer plant, it never brewed any cask beer. It was never greatly loved and closed in 2010.

It was one of the megakeggeries built in the 1970s when brewers assumed that beer consumption would continue to rise and that extra capacity would be needed. When consumption started to fall in the 1980s, the industry was left with considerable overcapacity.

Bristol
The former George’s plant in Bristol had a long history and a good reputation. After the closure of Reading, it became home of Courage Bitter and Directors.

It was founded in 1781 and had grown to a decent size. When Courage bought it in 1961 it had almost 1,000 tied houses, which would have made it one of the largest independent brewers. It finally closed in 1999.

I’m pretty sure that I drank both Courage Bitter and Directors which had been brewed in Bristol. Perfectly serviceable beers, if not particularly exciting by that date.

Newark
The former Holes plant has a special place in my memories, being the only brewery I’ve ever been employed in.

Bought by Courage in 1967, it continued in much the same way as before. Except that, as the other Newark brewery (Warwick & Richardson) had also ended up in the hands of Courage and been closed, they went from serving half the pubs in Newark to virtually all of them.

It continued to brew the former Holes beers such as AK and Mild. But also brewed one Warwick & Richardson beer, IPA. One thing had changed, however: none of the beer was cask. It was all bright beer, filled into 50 and 100 litre kegs and served by electric diaphragm pump.

The beers weren’t terrible, not being heavily pasteurised. Definitely better than keg beer. But not a patch on decently-kept cask.

Fellow Newark exile John Clarke recalls of Holes AK:

After Holes had been closed I went on a CAMRA trip to Simpkiss whose head brewer at the time was the former head brewer at Holes up to closure. He told us that AK was only very rough filtered, so rough in fact that it was sometimes sold under its own pressure. How true that is, I don't know, but I definitely recall him telling me that.

Tadcaster
The former John Smiths brewery is the only Courage plant still in operation. In the early 1970s they phased out cask beer. And didn’t brew any again until the early 1980s. Which was frustrating, because, in cask form, their beer was pretty decent.

The Bitter was quite dark, dry and reasonably Bitter. Magnet was similar, but stronger. For a while, quite a few Courage pubs in Newark had cask again. And fairly good cask. Then John Smiths Smooth came along and fucked everything up again.

Barnsley
A much-beloved brewery, famous for its Bitter. Which was the first good beer I ever tasted. Having taken over Warwick & Richardson before being gobbled up themselves by John Smith.

A few pubs in Newark still served Barnsley Bitter when I started drinking in the early 1970s. But, as the Barnsley brewery was scheduled for closure, most had swapped over to beer from Newark.

When the brewery closed in 1976, only one pub in Newark, the Wing Tavern, was still selling Barnsley Bitter.

Plymouth
This was one of Courage’s latest acquisitions, happening in December 1970. The brewery soldiered on for a reasonable length of time, not closing until 1983.

I remember coming across their beer at the Great British Beer Festival. They were unusual in using cast iron casks which weighed an absolute ton. Heavy, their Mild, was top class.

The Big Six (part three)

More stuff on the demons of 1970s brewing. How evil they were. The ones who supped at the devils hosepipe. Two more Big Six members.

Courage
I have very mixed feelings about Courage. Having ended up owning both of my hometown of Newark’s brewers, they owned almost all the pubs. All but one of which sold no cask beer. On the other hand, they brewed Russian Stout.

On the other hand, my first job after school was working in their Newark plant, the former Holes brewery. Filling kegs. It was so much fun. Not really. It was very heavy work. Which my 18-iear-old body could cope with. Then there was all that free beer.

In the North and Midlands, Courage produced no cask beer at either their Tadcaster or Newark breweries. Drinkers in the South were luckier, with the London and Bristol plants producing some cask. Though Worton Grange, the replacement for the former Simmonds brewery in Reading, produced only keg beer.

Scottish & Newcastle
Due to the way the pub trade worked in Scotland, where loan ties rather than outright brewery ownership were the norm, Scottish & Newcastle looked by far the smallest of the Big Six.

Many “free houses” had some sort of loan tie to S & N. Often just for draught beer, rather than everything.

With not many more than the maximum number of brewery-owned pubs, S & N was the least affected by the Beer Orders.

Their cask beers offerings were patchy. Younger’s 70/- and 80/- appeared in natural form reasonably frequently. With the latter being called IPA in England. Just to confuse thing up.

The best-known beer of Newcastle Breweries was their Brown Ale, along with Exhibition. There was also an Anber Ale, which one of the two constituent parts of Newcastle Brown.

Looking back: Newark breweries

I was thinking about the questions I wished I'd asked older people when I was younger. Not about anything really important. Just what beer had been like when they were young.

Then I jumped forward. Maybe I should do that. Answer the questions I would have like to have asked. But about my experiences 40 or 50 years ago. Because things have changed a lot.

The former Warwick & Richardson brewery

Let's go back to my childhood.

When my family moved to Newark in the early 1960s, the town boasted two decent-sized regional breweries: Warwick & Richardson and Holes. As well as several substantial maltings. Both breweries owned 200 or so tied houses. Including almost all the pubs in town. We'll be gt5ting back to that later.

In 1962, John Smith bought Warwick & Richardson. After brewing ceased in 1966, the pubs were rebranded as Barnsley, another brewery owned by John Smith. Holes was snapped up by Courage in 1967. But the cataclysmic event was in 1970, when Courage took over John Smith. Leaving Courage owning 30 of the 35 pubs in Newark. And all four of the pubs in Balderton, the village bordering Newark where we lived.

When I started visiting pubs around 1972, most of the pubs in town were supplied by the former Holes brewery. But a couple were still supplied by Barnsley: the King William IV and the Wing Tavern. The latter being the only pub in town with handpumps. Well, working ones. It served one cask beer, the magnificent Barnsley Bitter.

The only other pubs selling cask were the four Home Ales pubs: Newcastle Arms, the Ram Hotel, the Clinton Hotel and the Cardinal's Hat. Though the last named was in the middle of a post-war council estate and, because of the weird street pattern, quite difficult to find. All of their pubs served cask Bitter and Mil through electric pumps.

If you've been paying attention you'll have noticed that I've only got to 34 pubs. The 35th was a former Steward & Patteson pub, the Olde White Hart. Which was in the hands of Watney. Meaning the town had no free houses whatsoever. Every pub was tied.

The vast majority of pubs sold bright Holes beer. That is, rough-filtered, but not pasteurised and served through electric pumps, without extra CO2 pressure. The result was a halfway house between cask and keg. Poorly handled cask beer was often hard to distinguish from bright beer. The confusion being increased by most cask being served through electric pumps.

The Courage beers served in most pubs were AK, the main Bitter of Holes, and Mild. I'm sure the Mild had a name, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. A couple of former Warwick's houses sole IPA, which had been the flagship Bitter of Warwick & Richardson.

Other than Skol, then the main Lager of Courage, and Tavern, their premium keg beer, only seven draught beer were available: Courage AK, Mild and IPA; Home Bitter, Mild and whatever their Lager was; Barnsley Bitter. Oh, and whatever shit was on offer in the Watneys pub. Probably Red Barrel. I don't know for sure because I never went in the Olde White Hart. Still never have been.

Not exactly spoilt for choice.Newark was one of many local monopolies, of varying sizes, which were found around the country. Usually where one of the Big Six had bought up all the local breweries. The situation was totally different in many of the towns around Newark.

Nottingham, for example, was dominated by the three local breweries: Home Ales, Shipstone and Hardy & Hanson. The owned the lion's share of pubs in the city. And 99% of then sold cask beer. Though only a handful of pubs retained beer engines. The vast majority of beer was served by metered electric dispense.

I've looked for an image of a typical electric pump, but can't find one. These things used to be so common, but I suppose have totally disappeared. If you have an image, please let me know.

I'll be continuing these reminiscences until, well, I get bored or my memories run out. Which probably won't be long, as I can recall so little.

AK 1877 - 1913

Ten of fifteen years ago - not sure exactly when, but it was ages ago - I did a massive trawl of the internet looking for old brewery price lists. As well as going through all my brewery history books. It took weeks. But well worth it.

I transcribed them all into a spreadsheet. One with over 5,000 entries. That work compiling it was one of the reasons it took so long. Dead handy to have it now. As it enables me to quickly find dozens of examples of AK. 46, to be precise.

They come from a broad swathe of England. From Exeter in the Southwest across the South coast to Maidstone in Kent. Also the rest of London and the South, East Anglia, the Midlands and Yorkshire. Pretty much the whole of England except for the Northeast and the Northwest. (Including my hometown of Newark, obviously.) None come from either Wales or Scotland.

What did Victorians think AK was.? Going by the descriptions that accompany AK in price lists, most thought it was a Bitter. More than half the descriptions (25)  include that word. Light crops almost as many times (21 plus one Crystal). Often in conjunction with Bitter (18). Looks like back in the day drinkers, in general, thought AK was a Light Bitter.

Multiple occurrences of Family and Dinner (there's also one Luncheon) clearly illustrate that AK was considered a beer to be drunk at home with meals.

Put that all together and you have a beer that's light in three senses - colour, body and alcoholic strength - that will slip down nicely with food.

AK descriptions
descriptions	no. examples
Bitter	25
Light	21
Family	8
Pale Ale	5
Dinner	5
Mild	2
AK Bitter Ale	8
AK Light Bitter	3
AK Light Bitter Ale	10

Mild turns up just twice, once in a phrase which sounds an oxymoron to moderns ears: Mild Bitter. Mild here is clearly being used in the sens unaged, rather than to Mild Ale.

The relatively low alcoholic strength of AK is easily demonstrated by its price. One of the wonderful things about studying the period 1880 to 1914 is that beer prices were totally stable. A beer that was 36 shillings a barrel in 1880 was still 36 bob in 1914. So you can directly compare, as I do in my next table, a beer from 1877 and another from 1913.

To put prices into context, here's a full set for one brewery, coincidentally, from Newark.

Brewery	Place	year	beer	price per barrel
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	Light Mild Ale	36
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	X Mild Ale	36
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	XX Mild Ale	42
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	XXX Mild Ale	48
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	XXXX Strong Ale	54
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	XXXXX Strong Ale	60
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	Extra Strong	72
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	AK Bitter Ale	36
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	PA Bitter Ale	42
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	IPA Bitter Ale	54
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	Double Stout	48
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	Extra Stout	54

Not a bad range of beers. 

36 shillings a barrel was the cheapest beer at most breweries.You can see that they go up in increments of six shillings, which is 2d per gallon, or a farthing (a quarter of a penny) per pint. AA farthing being the smallest coin. Most didn't go as high as a 72 shilling beer. A beer that expensive would have been well North of 1100º.

Despite costing the same, AK and X Mild Ale most likely weren't the same strength. Pale Ales sold at a premium compared to Mild Ale or Porter. Usually around 2d per pint, though that was eroded over time. As I showed in an earlier post, AK had a gravity in the range 1045º-1050º. X Mild Ale was more likely 1050º-1055º.

Two-thirds  of the AKs I'm rummaging around in cost 36 shillings a barrel, 31 out of 46 examples. Eight were cheaper and seven more expensive. Six were in one price class up - 42 shillings - which implies to me a slightly stronger beer, 1050º-1055º. While the five that were one class weaker, at 30 shillings a barrel, were likely just 1040-1045º. Though there were always regional variations in the relation between gravity and price.

Here's yet another table:

Price of AK
Price	no. examples	%
30	5	11%
32	2	4%
34	1	2%
36	31	67%
38	1	2%
42	6	13%
total	46

And to end, the full table.

AK 1877 - 1913
Brewery	Place	year	beer	price per barrel	Source
A. Stannard	Portsmouth	1880	AK Light Family Bitter	36	Hampshire Telegraph - Saturday 18 December 1880, page 7
A.E. Keyes (Isherwood, Foster & Stacey Ltd.)	Maidstone	1890	AK Family Tonic Ale	36	Maidenhead Advertiser - Wednesday 17 December 1890 page 3.
Adey and White	St. Albans	1884	AK Bitter Beer	36	Gibbs' illustrated handbook to St. Albans, 1884
Arnol, Perret & Co	Wickwar, Gloucs	1895	AK Bitter Ale	36
Aylesbury Brewery	Aylesbury	1900	AK	30	Bucks Herald - Saturday 03 November 1900, page 1.
Baddow Brewery	Great Baddow	1905	AK Light Dinner Ale	36	Essex Newsman - Saturday 19 August 1905, page 1.
Byles & Co	Henley	1876	AK Light Pale Ale	36	Harrod & Co.'s Directory of Beds, Bucks ..., 1876
C. & J. Attlee	Tooting	1885	AK Bitter Ale	32
Charrington Nicholl & Co	Colchester	1885	AK Bitter Ale	36
Crowley & Co.	Alton	1905	AK Family Ale	36	Hants and Berks Gazette and Middlesex and Surrey Journal - Saturday 09 December 1905, page 1.
Daniell & Son	Colchester	1894	AK Pale Ale	36	Kelly's Directory of Essex, Herts & Middx, 1894
Dunnell	Banbury	1890	AK Light Bitter	30	Banbury Guardian - Thursday 30 January 1890, page 1.
E. Greene & Son	Bury St Edmonds	1887	AK Light Bitter Ale
Eldridge Pope	Dorchester	1890	AK Bitter Ale	36	Hampshire Chronicle - Saturday 25 January 1890, page 2.
Epping Brewery	Epping	1898	AK Light Bitter	36
F.R. Sutton	Brigg	1894	AK Light Bitter Ale	42	Lincolnshire Chronicle - Friday 03 August 1894, page 4.
Flower & Sons	Stratford-on-Avon	1890	AK Family Ale	30
Frank Higgens	Buckingham	1890	AK Specially recommended	42	Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press - Saturday 04 January 1890, page 6.
Fullers	Chiswick	1893	AK Light Bitter Ale	36	Kelly's Directory for Ealing, Acton, 1893-94
Gardner	near Sandwich	1882	AK Mild Beer	30	Hastings and St Leonards Observer - Saturday 25 November 1882, page 1
Godsell & Sons	Stroud, Gloucs	1902	AK Light Dinner Ale	36	Kelly's Directory of Somerset, 1902
Goodwin Bros.	Newark	1885	AK Bitter Ale	36
Henry Lovibond	Fulham	1889	AK Mild Bitter	38
Hodges and Ritchie	Brighton	1884	AK Bitter Ale	42	Pike's Weald of Kent & Romney Marsh Directory, 1884-85
Holes	Newark	1901	AK Luncheon Ale	36	Derbyshire Times and Chesterfield Herald - Saturday 11 May 1901
Humby & Baillie	Stafford	1896	AK Light Dinner Ale	36	Kelly's Directory of Warwickshire 1896
Ind Coope	Romford	1890	AK Light Bitter	42	Eyre's Post Office Plymouth & District Directory, 1890
Ind Coope	Romford	1890	AK Light Bitter Beer	36	East Anglian Daily Times - Monday 31 March 1890, page 4.
Kidd & Co.	Donnington (near Newbury, Berks)	1877	AK Light Bitter Ale	36	Newbury Weekly News and General Advertiser - Thursday 27 September 1877, page 7.
Kirkstall Brewery	Leeds	1888	AK Light Bitter Ale	36	Yorkshire Gazette - Saturday 30 June 1888, page 3
Leney	Wateringbury	1884	AK Pale Ale	42	Pike's Weald of Kent & Romney Marsh Directory, 1884-85
Major Lucas	Northampton	1893	AK Light Amber Ale	36	Northampton Directory, 1893-94
Northampton Brewery	Northampton	1880	AK Family Pale Ale, a sparkling and agreeable Tonic	36	Spencers' Illustrated Leicester Almanac, 1880
Reffell's Brewery	Bexley, Kent	1888	AK Light Bitter	36
Rigden	Faversham	1913	AK Light Bitter Ale	34	William Whiteley General Price List October, 1913, Volume 2, page 1197.
Roger's	Bristol	1889	AK Bitter Ale	36
Stansfeld & Co.	Fulham	1903	AK Crystal Ale	36	Sussex Agricultural Express - Saturday 24 January 1903, page 9.
Thomas Gundry	Redhill, Surrey	1878	AK Family Ale	42	Post Office Directory of Sussex, 1878
Tomson & Wotton	Ramsgate	1899	AK Light Bitter Ale	30	Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald - Saturday 07 October 1899, page 4
Tomson & Wotton	Ramsgate	1899	AK Light Bitter Ale	36	Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald - Saturday 07 October 1899, page 4
Vincent & Co.	Bracknell	1883	AK Family Pale Ale	36	Reading Mercury - Saturday 03 November 1883, page 7.
W.E. & J. Rigden	Faversham	1902	AK Light Bitter Ale	36	Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald - Saturday 06 December 1902, page 1
Walcot Brewery	Bath	1884	AK Bitter Ale	36	Post Office Bath Directory, 1884-85
Waltham Abbey Brewery	Waltham Abbey	1882	AK Stock Bitter Ale	36	Kelly's Directory of Essex, 1882
Waltham Bros.	London	1898	AK Light Biitter Ale	36
Watney, Combe, Reid	London	1913	AK Ale, Bitter Ale (Dinner Bitter)	36	William Whiteley General Price List October, 1913, Volume 2, page 1197.
Wimbeldon Brewery	Wimbledon	1889	AK Dinner Ale	32	advertisement in Surrey Independent

 

Allowance beer

British breweries all used to be “wet”. Meaning that beer was drunk during the working day.

This beer was provided free by the employer. Various systems were employed. Sometimes it was: there’s a barrel, help yourself. At other breweries it was more regulated. With workers getting a certain allowance per day. Hence the term Allowance Beer.

“The cellar was an important department for all those who worked in the brewery, for it was here that the beer allowance was issued. Men came down at the allotted time and filled their glasses, jugs, cans or whatever from a tap in the wall. Some drank it there and then, sitting on the benches provided. Others took it back to be enjoyed in the warmth of their own departments. It is all supervised by the cellar foreman. A few men did not take any allowance; they preferred a can of tea, while others somehow managed to scrounge an extra pint. I took the view that a man doing heavy physical work would soon assimilate a few pints. During my time in the Sheffield brewery, there was quite a turnover of cellar foremen. Some people became superstitious about it, particularly as they all had names beginning with the letter 'H' - Arthur Hunter, Eddie Hardy, Bill Hopkinson and Brian Helliwell.
"The Brewer's Tale" by Frank Priestley, 2010, page 39.

It doesn’t say, annoyingly, how much the allowance was. It sounds like more than one pint. If you remember earlier quotes from Frank Priestley, there was loads of illicit Gold Label being drunk in the brewery, as well as the allowance.

I can vouch for hard physical labour working off pints quickly. Especially the watery Mild they’d have been given as their allowance. I once had 5 pints of Fuller’s Hock at lunchtime. After 2 hours back at work, I couldn’t feel it at all.

The only brewery I’ve worked in, the former Hols brewery in Newark. It was the take as much as you like from these barrels approach. The old hands could knock back 5 pints in a 15-minute “tea” break. It was pretty bleak. A dingy cellar with a barrel each of Mild and AK in one corner.

The next bit relates to the bottling stores of Ind Coope & Allsopp in Burton-on-Trent.

“On the other side of the Upper Hall are the canteen and mess rooms together with the women's cloakroom and locker room; the men have the same facilities nearby. On wet days, employees' outer clothing is dried by means of steam-pipes beneath the lockers. Each male employee over 18 years of age is given two numbered checks or metal dues every morning as he commences work; these he may exchange at the "allowance bar" for two pints of draught beer during the course of the day. There is no stipulated time—the bar is open during all normal working hours—and a man may take his allowance beer home if he brings his own clean bottle or other container.
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 57, Issue 6, November-December 1951, page 434

Note that only the men got free beer. Despite the fact that, this being a bottling operation, there were quite a few women working at the site. And that, although the allowance was only two pints, the bar was open all day. Sounds like a dream job, in some ways. Especially if you saved some tokens for Friday.

I’ve only worked one place with its own bar: Legal & General in Surrey. It was very civilised. You could have a pint of cask Bitter with your lunch. And a few more at the bridge club after work.

The distribution of James Hole tied houses

Having the addresses of all the Holes tied houses in 1968 means I can do all sorts of exciting things. Like see where they clustered geographically.



For those of you not conversant with English geography, Newark is in Nottinghamshire. But it's very close to the border with Lincolnshire. Go a few miles South or East and you're in a different county. It did have its advantages in the dark days of fixed closing times. Because pubs in Lincolnshire closed half an hour later at the weekend than those in Nottinghamshire. So many made a quick dash into Lincolnshire at 22:30 that they decided it was safer to have Newark adopt Lincolnshire's opening times.

James Hole tied houses per county
County	No. of tied houses	% of total
Derbyshire	7	3.38%
Leicestershire	26	12.56%
Lincolnshire	94	45.41%
Northamptonshire	10	4.83%
Nottinghamshire	59	28.50%
Rutland	7	3.38%
Warwickshire	1	0.48%
Yorkshire	3	1.45%
Total	207
Source:
Document ACC/2305/41/1 held at the London Metropolitan Archives

Which explains why Holes had more tied houses in Lincolnshire than Nottinghamshire: getting on for half the total. Nottinghamshire is quite a way behind with just over a quarter, followed by Leicestershire. Those three counties contained around 85% of Holes tied houses. In all, they had pubs in eight counties.

James Hole tied houses per town
Town	No. of tied houses	% of total
Boston	5	2.42%
Chesterfield	3	1.45%
Grantham (town)	3	1.45%
Grantham and surrounding villages	13	6.28%
Leicester	8	3.86%
Lincoln (town)	14	6.76%
Lincoln and surrounding villages	24	11.59%
Loughborough	5	2.42%
Mansfield	4	1.93%
Market Rasen	6	2.90%
Melton Mowbray	4	1.93%
Newark (town)	16	7.73%
Newark and surrounding villages	32	15.46%
Nottingham	5	2.42%
Oakham	5	2.42%
Peterborough	6	2.90%
Spalding	12	5.80%
Stamford	3	1.45%
Sutton-in-Ashfield	3	1.45%
Worksop	4	1.93%
Source:
Document ACC/2305/41/1 held at the London Metropolitan Archives

In terms of towns, Newark and Lincoln had the most Holes pubs, but there was a surprisingly large concentration around Spalding. Also quite a few pubs around Oakham in Rutland. Most surprising is how few there were in Nottingham itself, just 5. The only explanation I can think of for that is that the three Nottingham breweries (Home Ales, Shipstone and Hardy & Hansons) had the town sewn up between them.

The majority of pubs were in a radius of about 25 miles around the brewery. The most distant was in Rugby, about 60 miles away. It's a nice compact estate. However, it includes a lot of village pubs. Many in pretty small Lincolnshire villages. There are relatively few in large cities. There are no pubs on the coast at all, the closest being in Wainfleet.

Cromwell Brewery tied houses

I sometimes I take a step back, pull in a deep breath and look hard at what I'm up to. Is it totally crazy? If the answer is yes, then I carry on. I had such a moment when researching this post.

I you remember, the Cromwell Brewery traded as Howe & Alexander for a few years in the 1880's, before Mr. Alexander went crazy and attacked his wife. An act that ultimately led to the demise of the brewery. It finally fell into the hands of Warwick & Richardson in 1892, though I'm fairly sure brewing had ceased a couple of years earlier.

I'm looking at the tied houses of a brewery that hasn't existed for more than 120 years. Is that crazy? I think you know the answer to that, so I'll continue.

I've managed to identify seven pubs in Newark which were once Cromwell Brewery tied houses. I won't claim that it's a complete list. I've taken most of the information from "Newark's Inns & Public Houses" by Rodney Cousins the revised edition published in 1991. He'd missed the Royal Oak in Stodman Street, a pub I definitely know was owned by the Cromwell Brewery, because that's where Mr. and Mrs. Alexander lived.

Of the seven, only the Queen's Head is still open. It's now a Wychwood pub. Not sure that tells us anything.

It's a shame that the Royal Oak has disappeared. The original building was from the 17th century, though it was rebuilt in the 1930's before being demolished in 1962. I think it was next door to Marks & Spencer, where there's now a pretty dismal 1960's thing. According to Cousins (page 18) it was sold for £2,450 in 1888. Was that part of the fallout of Alexander's attack on his wife? That happened in March 1888 and the brewery was sold in May that year. It sounds as if the two were sold separately as the brewery went for just £948 (Nottingham Evening Post - Friday 07 March 1890, page 4.).

Here are the Cromwell Brewery's pubs on a map:



And here's a table of their pubs:

Cromwell Brewery tied houses
Name	location	date opened	date closed
BLACK BOY	Chatham Street	1841	1911
BLACK HORSE	Bamby Gate	1842	1895
OLD CASTLE (Newark Castle)	Mill Gate	1792	1966
OLIVER CROMWELL TAVERN	Barnby Gate	1865	1931
QUEEN'S HEAD	Market Place	1560
ROYAL OAK	Stodman Street	1780	1962
TEN BELLS (Royal Dragoons)	Carter Gate	1851	1906
Sources:
"Newark's Inns & Public Houses" by Rodney Cousins, 1991, pages 27 - 29.
Some stuff I know from growing up in the town.

Just did a bit of digging. It turns out that the freehold of the Royal Oak was held by the Duke of Newcastle, who owned big chunks of Newark. It was only leased by Mr. Howe (misspelled Hoe in the article) for £70 a year. (Grantham Journal - Saturday 30 June 1888, page 6.) The sale had nothing to do with Alexander's attack on his wife. The Duke flogged off a variety of properties at one auction, including several pubs.

The same article tells me that this is when the Queen's Hotel came into the ownership of the Cromwell Brewery. Mr. Bastow, the new owner of the brewery, snapped it up for £1,000. Most of the pubs were either bought by Joseph Richardson or James Hole. The former buying the Royal Oak in Stodman Street for £2,450. Only the Saracen's Head and the Clinton Arms, two big coaching inns on the Market Place, sent for more.

James Hole beers 1932 - 1959

I can remember my excitement the first time I spotted a Newark beer in the Whitbread Gravity book. I jumped around like an eight year old on Christmas morning. Finally I had some real data.

That joy was tempered by disappointment when I'd gone right through the Gravity Book and realised that there was no analysis for the beer I would most liked to have found: Holes AK. Which leaves me still wondering about its strength. If only they'd brewed a cask version. Then its gravity would have been recorded in past Good Beer Guides.

Someone I know in Newark did speak to a former Holes employee who told him the gravity. I'm sure I noted it somewhere but can't find it. From memory it was 1041º or 1042º before the Courage takeover but fell to 1037º after. That sounds about right from my memory of how it drank. Like an Ordinary Bitter. Despite Courage billing it as Best Bitter.

There are only 5 analyses for Holes beers, one from the 1930's and four from the 1950's. All are bottled, which is another disappointment. The types of beer analysed betray Whitbread's preoccupations. As owner of the biggest Milk Stout/Sweet Stout brand (Mackeson) they displayed a keen interest in its competitors. And the Strong Ale is there because they seem to have gone all around the country collecting Strong Ales in 1953. The date isn't random. Queen Elizabeth's coronation that year saw many breweries releasing their first really strong beer since WW II.

Another reason for Whitbread's lack of interest in Holes is that they weren't strong in the East Midlands. Outside of a couple of pubs in Nottingham, I can't remember them having any tied houses close to Newark. They tended to analyse the beers of competitors in areas where they were active or, so it appears given how often breweries they later gobbled up appear, ones that were takeover targets.

Right, let's take a look at the beers.

The Ale from the 1930's is the bastard son of WW I Government Ale. After the war ended Mild gravities bounced back up to the low 1040's, but many breweries continued to make low-gravity Milds, presumably because there was a demand for something cheap. It usually sold for 4d a pint when a full-strength Mild cost 5d or 6d. It's unusual to see this type of beer in bottled form. Being bottled explains the seemingly exorbitant price of 6d for a pint.

I know from the Whitbread Gravity Book that in the 1950's Mackeson had an OG of around 1046, quite a bit more than Castle Stout. But it also sold for a penny or two more for a half pint bottle. You can see that between 1953 and 1959 Castle Stout became distinctly lower in ABV, the result of a lowering in both the gravity and degree of attenuation. By the 1960's many Sweet Stouts contained pathetic levels of alcohol, sometimes below 2% ABV.

Whitbread often noted in the Gravity Book if a Sweet Stout contained lactose or not. Unfortunately in this case they didn't. But Holes themselves have solved the mystery for me: the Castle Stout label says: "contains milk sugar".

For the period the Strong Ale is actually pretty strong. There were few beers with an ABV over 5% in the early 1950's. Because it's fairly well attenuated, it's a beer with real poke. Probably what I've had ordered to mix with my Mild, had I been in Newark back then. Those colour numbers indicate that it was dark brown in colour.

Next we'll be looking at the beers of Warwicks & Richardsons.

James Hole beers 1932 - 1959
Year	Beer	Style	Price	size	package	Acidity	FG	OG	colour	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1932	Ale	Mild	6d	pint	bottled	0.05	1007.7	1029		2.76	73.45%
1953	Castle Stout	Stout	1/-	half pint	bottled	0.06	1015	1041	1R + 17B	3.36	63.41%
1953	Strong Ale	Strong Ale	1/3d	nip	bottled	0.05	1016.9	1074.5	8 + 40	7.53	77.32%
1953	Strong Ale	Strong Ale	1/2d	nip	bottled	0.06	1021.5	1080.7	9 + 40	7.73	73.36%
1959	Sweet Castle Stout	Stout	14d	halfpint	bottled		1018.7	1038.7	350	2.57	51.68%
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity Book document LMA/4453/D/02/001 held at the London Metropolitan Archives
Whitbread Gravity Book document LMA/4453/D/02/002 held at the London Metropolitan Archives