Preston Brewpubs

CAMRA CENTRAL LANCS BRANCH AND ... PRESTON BREWPUBS

As many Ale Cry readers will be aware, work is currently in progress for a brewpub to be established in Preston city centre later this year.

This brewpub will be run by Ryan Hayes, and will be located on Clayton’s Gate, one of the old alleyways leading off from Friargate. Ryan is the owner of the CHAIN HOUSE BREWING CO, which was founded in 2017 and which had previously been operating from garage premises in New Longton. Last year Ryan instigated an on-line crowdfunder to help finance the costs involved in setting up the brewpub. Over 200 people came forward to support him, but subsequently progress has been slow to get everything in place so that work on the brewpub could commence. In April a planning application was approved (with conditions) that granted permission for the creation of a public house and microbrewery to go ahead. (for more information on this – see Preston Parade on page 5) This won’t be the first brewpub to have been located in Preston, but it will be a welcome return of an old tradition that was once extremely common in the area. The

CLAYTON’S GATE term brewpub is actually a 1980s invention – a brewpub being a pub that sells beer that has been brewed on the premises. Prior to that time, the landlord of a pub which was selling such beers would advertise the availability of ‘home-brewed ales’.

In the early part of the 20th Century Preston was something of a hotbed for pubs that were producing these home-brewed ales. If you look at pub advertising from this period you will see almost every Preston pub is promoting the availability of their own particular home-brewed ales.

By the 1950s pubs brewing their own beer were becoming more of a rarity. An article in the Lancashire Evening Post from August 27th 1957 titled ‘The pub with its own brewery’ featured the MEADOW ARMS on Meadow Street, then described as being ‘one of four hostelries in the town which still carries on the age-old tradition of brewing their own beer’. In the article the then landlord Sam Baines is quizzed about his brewing methods, saying that ‘at the present time it forms 75 per cent of his trade’, while a couple of his customers are happy to extol the virtues of his beers.

The article goes into great detail and provides a fascinating account of brewing as it was then carried out at the Meadow Arms. We are told ‘Landlord Sam stays up one night every week to brew nine and a half barrels of mild beer for his older customers in his one-man brewery at the rear of the premises. The whole process, carried out in the same way as it has been for centuries, takes about 13 and a half hours, after which the wort as it is known, is allowed to ferment for one week before being sold as beer’.

Apparently the distinctive brewing smell was popular with some people, with it written ‘for at least two hours the maltreeking steam pours out from the brewhouse ventilator, titillating the nostrils of potential customers in the neighbourhood. But neighbours don’t mind that in the least. One told me: I’ve lived here for some years now and have got used to the smell’.

The article reveals something about the beer tastes of his customers. ‘A lot of his customers are old-timers who regularly pop in for their ‘daily’. The younger ones however, prefer a dark beer which, says Mr Baines, is probably a little sweeter, though he did not think there was much difference in the gravity’.

The writer Alan Dawson finishes by giving his verdict on the Meadow Arms beer. ‘I sampled Mr Baines home brew for the first time. My verdict: Delicious. There is much to be said for these home breweries. Ask any old-timer’.

The tone of the article gives the impression that pubs like the Meadow Arms would probably not be around for too much longer. In fact just a few years later the Meadow Arms was to become a Vaux tied house, and in the 1980s it was to have the indignity of being re-named Mister Pickwicks. The pub closed in 1996, and while the building still stands, the premises have now been converted for residential use.

The MOOR PARK on North Road is recognised as being the last of Preston’s original home brew pubs, having been run by ex-Preston North End footballer Jimmy Dougal in the 1960s.

There was no commercial brewing at all in Preston in the 1970s and 1980s, but in June 1992 Preston got its first brewpub for almost 25 years when the Little Avenham Brewery was started up by Dave Murray in the cellar of the GASTONS pub on Avenham Street. The first brew was Clog Dancer, and this was soon followed by beers named Pickled Priest, Torchlight, and Pierrepoint’s Last Drop. For several years Little Avenham Brewery was a thriving business, and the beers became increasingly available in pubs throughout the country. The Gastons pub was sold by the owners in 1995, with the brewery being relocated to the Preston Wine Company premises on Hawkins Street.

In 2010 there was talk of Preston once again having a brewpub, with John Smith looking at a possible re-location of his Hart Brewery business to the Golden Cross on Lancaster Road. This came to nothing, as did a subsequent plan to set up his brewery at Nonno’s on Corporation Street, while a re-location to the longclosed Clover Inn on Meadow Street was also considered a possibility. He was determined to find a home for his brewery in Preston, and eventually was to take possession of a unit on the Oxheys Industrial Estate. A brewpub in Preston in 2022 is likely to be very different to its predecessors. Ryan has gained a good reputation for the quality of his beers in recent years, and although some have been available in cask form, he has concentrated mainly on producing a range of craft kegged beers and canned beers. If all goes to plan you will be reading more about this exciting enterprise in the next few editions of