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| The name Burton-on-Trent
is synonymous with the production of beer throughout the world with a brewing heritage stretching back to
the middle ages. Once regarded as the brewing capital of the world and to many of its residents it still is. Burton now plays host to a number of very successful Micro Breweries as well as a growing number of Craft Brewers.
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The monks of Burton Abbey, established circa 1002 AD, were the first
to discover how peculiarly well-suited the local water was for the brewing of ales. Although
it wasn't until centuries later that the chemical reasons for this suitablity were properly
understood, the quality of the water drawn from Burton wells was to inspire an industry which
would transform a sleepy Staffordshire backwater into the hub of an industry which would carry
the name of the town to the four corners of the globe.
Many inns had been established to accomodate travellers to the Abbey,
which housed a shrine to St Modwen, an Irish nun who founded a church on an Island in the River
Trent at Burton in the 7th Century, and after the dissolution of the Monastries in 1539, these
local inns carried on the production of beer on a small scale.
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Bass's old floor maltings at Shobnall, long
since replaced by 197ft tower maltings
Pic © :
Bass Museum
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Brewing as a commercial enterprise didn't begin until the 18th
Century, with Benjamin Printon the first recorded common, or commercial, brewer in the town, founding
a brewery close to Burton Bridge in 1708.
Burton's fledgling brewing industry was boosted by the Trent
Navigation Act of 1712, which made the river navigable for trade as far as Gainsborough in Lincolnshire,
and later the arrival of the canals, and it was overseas where Burton ales first began to make a name
for themselves, as local companies began to exploit a lucrative trade route to the Baltic ports and
Russia, via Hull.
The likes of John Worthington (1774) and William Bass (1777)
soon followed, opening breweries producing beers which would become household names, and with the
arrival of the railways (the main Derby-Birmingham line passing through Burton opened in 1839) Burton's
brewing industry, and the town along with it, began to expand at a rapid rate.
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The 'Goat Maltings' in Clarence Street used to be part of
Walker's Brewery, and now lies unused, one of the many old brewery buildings still standing throughout
Burton |
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Bass's brewery alone, a single small brewery off Burton's High Street
when William Bass inherited it in 1777, had in the space of one century been transformed into
the largest ale brewery in the world, with three breweries in the town, a workforce of more than
2,500, and an output of nearly a million barrels a year by the late 1880's.
That company's expansion owed much to the success of a new kind of ale,
pale, sparkling and bitter, which became known as India Pale Ale because of it's popularity for
export to India and other British colonies.
So renowned was Burton's superior quality water that brewers from around
the UK began to set up operations in the town. Ind Coope & Co, a Romford-based brewery, arrived
in the town in 1856, and had soon become the town's third largest brewer, later merging with it's
neighbour, Allsopp's, the first Burton brewer to export pale ale to India in 1822.
To improve transport links, the larger brewers in Burton began to set up
their own railway systems which carried the raw materials for the brewing process in and the finished
product, in barrels and bottles, out.
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'Working' the beer - in Bass Middle Brewery's
store - to ensure the beer reached customers in prime condition it was conditioned while in storage in the cask.
A small amount of sugar was added to bring about a secondary fermentation which improved the flavour.
Pic © : Bass Museum
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Bass owned the largest private railway network in the country, with 16
miles of track for it's sole use, and the brewery railways which, with the help of a series of level crossings,
criss-crossed the town, were a unique and distinctive part of the townscape until the late 1960's.
This was the golden age of brewing in Burton. More than 30 breweries
operated in the town, producing between them a staggering 3 million barrels of beer at the height of production
in 1888. But this was to be the high-water mark of brewing activity in the town, as one by one breweries merged
or closed down.
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Worthington's old brewery and locomotives - this scene
is taken from a postcard, part of a series entitled 'Famous Breweries of Burton'
Pic © : Bass Museum
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Bass merged with Worthington in 1927, Ind Coope and Allsopp became one seven
years later. Marston's had merged with John Thompson & Son in 1898, and moved to the Albion brewery
in Shobnall, where to this day it carries on some of the traditional brewing practices upon which
Burton's reputation for high quality ale was built, it's renowned Pedigree bitter still brewed using
the famous Burton Union system which was once widely used in the town but was discarded by Bass in the
1960's.
With Truman's brewery in Derby Street yet another casualty of the 60's,
for many years the twin goliaths of Bass and Ind Coope existed cheek by jowl, before the latter,
after becoming part of Allied Breweries and later Carlsberg Tetley, sold it's plant to Bass, thus
creating a new 'super-brewery' in the heart of the town.
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Breweries still dominate the
skyline of Burton today - like these huge fermentation vessels at Bass's Brewery in Station Street
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With the dawn of a new century, what would have seemed unthinkable to
William Bass and his ancestors, happened, and Bass plc announced it was to sell off all it's interests in brewing
to concentrate on it's hotel and leisure interests.
The future of the industry to which Burton owes it's very existence has
never been more uncertain. A proposed takeover of Bass by Belgian firm Interbrew was blocked by the Monopolies
and Mergers Commission, and it's destiny remains unresolved at time of writing. The future of Marston's, now
owned by Wolverhampton & Dudley, remains equally cloudy.
The failure of Pubmaster's takeover bid for W&DB was widely seen as
good news, although no-one at Marston's will be celebrating, with a new round of job cuts which have become
increasingly common in recent times announced, along with the closure of the distribution centre in Burton.
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Amidst all this corporate manoeuvering which has more to do with share
prices than the production of beer, the flame of real ale brewing is kept alive by an emerging independent
brewing scene in the town.
Bass's Museum Brewery - The White Shield Brewery is one, The Tower and Cottage Breweries are another
two with the most recent addition of the Black Hole Brewery, but the best established of them all is the Burton Bridge Brewery. Founded in 1982
at the former Fox & Goose public house, the Bridge has earned deserved praise for the quality of it's ales,
and the traditional ambience and hospitality of it's premises near the Burton Bridge.
The Burton Bridge Brewery also now own four other pubs in Burton - The Devonshire Arms
on Station Street, The Alfred on Derby Street, The Great Northern on Wetmore Road and the most recent addition being The Plough Inn on Ford Street Stapenhill ensuring that whatever
fate the vagaries of the stock market and the cut-throat world of modern business may inflict on it's chief
industry, traditional, high quality ale will continue to be produced in the town which, whether accurate or not,
will continue to think of itself as 'Brewing Capital of Britain'.
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Burton Bridge Brewery - keeping the flame of real ale brewing alive
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We'd like to acknowledge the help of the Bass Museum,
Burton-on-Trent, for their help in compiling this feature, and for the use of some of the pictures used here - visit
their website...
Since this page was first published, Bass PLC has been sold to Coors Brewers
and the Bass Museum has changed it's name, now being known as Coors Visitor Centre and The Museum of Brewing.
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