8 minute read
BREWERIES
For the love of brewing
From the Courage monopoly to rumours of revolution and a flourishing new brew culture, Andrew Swift charts Bristol’s beer history
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One of my earliest memories of Bristol is of walking along the harbourside, when it was undeveloped and still looked like a working port. What I remember being struck by most, though, was a rich, tangy aroma hanging in the air, which came, I discovered, from Courage’s brewery, rearing fortress-like above the river.
When I was eventually able to satisfy my curiosity and sample Courage’s brews in the city’s pubs, I soon found that it was difficult to drink much else. Courage owned over 80% of Bristol’s pubs and stood on a site where a brewery had been established around 1730. In 1788, it was taken over by Philip George, and George’s it remained until it was swallowed up by Courage’s in 1961. By then, it was the largest brewery in the South West and the only one left in Bristol, having seen off or absorbed its competitors.
Even if you found a Bristol pub that wasn’t owned by Courage’s, beer styles had, in most cases, been whittled down to one – bitter. It could have been worse, though. If the Campaign for Real Ale hadn’t taken up the cudgels for cask-conditioned beer back in 1971, carbonated keg beer would have been all that was on offer.
As the demand for real ale grew, a new generation of small brewers sprang up. In Bristol, these included the Fleece & Firkin on Thomas Street, Hardington’s in Bedminster and Smiles in Colston Yard. Sadly, the only survivor from those times is Bath Ales, which has been brewing in South Gloucestershire since 1998.
Courage was still the major player, though. It was hard to imagine a day when, like the docks, it would be part of history. Then, in May 1999, it was announced that production would be transferred to Tadcaster in Yorkshire, and the brewery closed. It was clear that the future of brewing in the city would be very different, but for the time being, things went on much as before.
The first sign of things to come was in 2004, when Zerodegrees opened a brewpub in an old tramshed on Colston Street, brewing such exotic offerings as black lager and mango beer. The conversion of the tramshed into a bar-cum-brewery was the work of the architect (and later mayor) George Ferguson, who was also planning to open his own brewery across the river in Bedminster.
The Bristol Beer Factory (BBF), which he set up with Simon Bartlett, occupied part of the former Ashton Gate Brewery, which had been taken over by George’s and closed in 1933. Here the emphasis was on traditional beer styles – not just golden ales and bitters but those that had fallen out of favour, such as milk stouts and brown ales.
The next brewery to open was in 2007, when Arbor Ales was established at the Old Tavern in Stapleton. Since then, it has moved three times, to larger premises, and since 2015 has occupied a halfacre site in Easton. The following year, Great Western Brewery was set up at Hambrook, where it still operates today, although it is shortly to move to a new Hop Union Brewery in Brislington. Then, in January 2010, Glen Dawkins, the owner of Dawkins Taverns –five traditional Bristol pubs with an emphasis on real ale – took over a brewery at Timsbury, which he later relocated to Easton.
By now, with five breweries based in and around the city, prospects for Bristol’s beer drinkers had never been better. Rumours of a revolution that had long been brewing across the Atlantic, however, were growing ever more insistent. The term ‘craft beer’ had been coined in America to describe beer brewed by small, independent, innovative brewers. It soon assumed an international dimension, with brewers adopting, adapting and assimilating beer styles from around the world, using a seemingly endless array of new hop varieties, and adding the most unlikely ingredients to their brews. Very little of what they produced tasted much like a pint of Courage Best – even worse, for some real-ale aficionados, most of it was technically keg beer, even though its resemblance to old-style keg was even more distant.
Small Bar on King Street and, right, brewing at Bristol’s newest brewery Newtown Park
LHG brew action and, right, George’s Brewery in the 18th century
Bath Ales, despite its continued commitment to cask-conditioned beer, embraced the challenge, opening Bristol’s first craft beer bar –Beerd on St Michael’s Hill – in December 2011, and setting up a microbrewery – also called Beerd – to supply some of its beers. Other pubs also installed craft beer taps, but it was not until the following October that the next craft beer bar – part of the Brewdog chain – opened on Baldwin Street.
It was in 2013 though, that craft beer really took off. In July, a craft beer bar called Crofter’s Rights opened on Stokes Croft. Over the next five months, three more – the Beer Emporium, the Royal Navy Volunteer and Small Bar – opened on King Street.
New breweries were opening as well, such as Wiper & True, whose founder, Michael Wiper, had a long-standing interest in the fermentation and ageing of beers in the Lambic tradition. Then there was the New Bristol Brewery, whose recognisable logo (gorilla in a spacesuit) neatly encapsulated their commitment to exploring the further reaches of the beer universe.
In 2014, one of the South West’s best-known breweries, Moor, relocated from the Somerset Levels to a purpose-built brewery behind Temple Meads. Justin Hawke, its owner, hailed from California and was a driving force behind breaking one of the British beer industry’s most entrenched taboos – serving a hazy pint. At one time, a hazy pint almost invariably meant that yeast or other unwelcome substances were swirling around in your beer; in the case of Moor, it means that finings (made from dried fish swim bladders) haven’t been used to make it crystal clear and, by doing so, reducing the flavour. Vindication for his stance came in 2017 from the British Guild of Beer Writers, who named Moor brewery of the year, and today most craft beer is unfined.
In 2015, Good Chemistry Brewery opened in St Philips. The following year, Annie Clements and Alex Troncoso from Australia opened Lost & Grounded in Brislington, specialising in lagers and Belgian-inspired ales.
By now the tide seemed unstoppable. Between 2017 and 2019 no fewer than eight breweries opened in Bristol, and Tim Webb, one of the world’s leading beer writers, hailed Bristol as ‘the top city in the country for beer culture’ – not just because of the number of breweries, but because they were ‘all making different types of beer which cover the whole spectrum of craft beer and traditional beer’.
One thing these breweries had in common was a spirit of cooperation, sharing production facilities and collaborating on new brews. Many of those involved also started off as home brewers –such as Richard Poole, who in 2013 started a nanobrewery (with a half-gallon production capacity) called Rocket Science in his garage at Yate. Despite supplies being limited, his beers were soon gaining rave reviews, and, when he dropped into Small Bar on King Street and asked if they wanted to stock them, they asked him if he fancied being involved in a brewery they were planning to set up in the pub.
The rest, as they say, is history. He was appointed head brewer and in 2017 the brewery – Left Handed Giant (LHG) – moved to a site in St Philips. Two years later, a new brewery, along with a brewpub, opened in the compressor room of the former Courage brewery. Needless to say, the significance of the location was not lost on them, and they declared themselves ‘very honoured to be breathing life back into a space with such brewing significance, after the smell of sweet wort has been absent in this site for 20 years.’
Such was the momentum of the Bristol brewery scene that, when the pandemic struck, the brewers found new ways to get beer to their customers, and their customers were only too happy to support them. There can be no more eloquent testament to the vitality and viability of craft beer in the city than the decision of Michael McKelvaney and Lara Light-McKelvaney to open a new brewery –Newtown Park – at the height of the pandemic. Occupying the former LHG brewery in St Philips, they launched, with their Italian head brewer, Virginia Casadio, a range of beers that, at a time when much of the hospitality industry was in the doldrums, was soon winning glowing reviews. Now, as restrictions ease, their brewery and taproom are firmly established as part of the Bristol beer scene.
Brewing is one of Bristol’s oldest industries, but it’s probably changed more in the last 25 years than at any time in its history. Whether your preference is for the traditional or cutting edge, there has never been a better time to discover the wealth of what Bristol’s brewers have to offer. All the breweries mentioned have websites and many have tap rooms. The best place to keep up with them is Pints West magazine, via camrabristol.org.uk ■
