Mahou San Miguel (Spain)   |   Bavaria   |   Cerveceria Centro Americana   |   Southeast Asia Breweries   |   Harboes Brewery   |   Cerveceria Hondurena (SAB Miller)   |   Big City Brewing   |   Oxfordshire Ales  |   Lancaster the Brewery  |   San Miguel Brewery (Philippines)

THE MISSION

Their mission is quite simple - to produce excellent quality beer through diligently sourcing the finest natural ingredients whilst presenting their product in a modern and stylish way.

While Lancaster's methods of brewing are traditional in every aspect, they are also scrupulous in their attention to detail with their ingredients. They assiduously avoid the use of sugars, caramels, chemicals and other modern beer 'improvers' and yet they are purposefully contemporary and maverick with the marketing of their beer.

Cask ale brewing is one of the few quintessentially British manufacturing sectors that is still thriving today. The qualities of Lancaster Brewery combine a number of attributes synonymous with the county of Lancashire - hard work, diligence, innovation and courage.

THE HISTORY

The historic City of Lancaster has had a long tradition in the brewing industry. Once sporting two large and popular breweries, (Mitchell's and Yates and Jacksons of Lancaster) Lancaster became a 'dry' city in 1999.

This was the case for some years until Lancaster Brewery was formed in May 2005 through the combined efforts of Matt Jackson from C2 Investment (a local pub company), MWS Wholesale and Keith Bott, owner and brewer of Titanic Brewery in Stoke.

Housed on the riverside Lansil Industrial Estate on the northern outskirts of Lancaster, the Brewery started brewing in the June of 2005 within the wholesaler's premises with its first two beers Duchy and JSB. Blonde, a third beer was added to the portfolio in the following September after its success as a seasonal summer beer.

The brewery though nearly had a very short life as a fire in the adjoining building on 4th October 2005, threatened the very existence of the company. Thankfully most of the brewery was not compromised and after some reconstruction brewing restarted well in advance of the first Christmas rush.

The New Year started well with Blonde gaining a sliver award in the 2006 SIBA North completion. In 2006 the brewery introduced a seasonal beer calendar consisting of 12 monthly beers.

Effectively the period from May 2005 until November 2007 had for better or worse, been an experimental time for the brewery as it developed recipes, manufacturing processes, marketing ideas and business strategies. Many concepts worked, some failed - lessons were learnt and solutions developed.

In November 2007 C2 Investment Ltd (the aforementioned "local pub company") bought out the other two shareholders and determined to re-launch the brewery whilst drawing together all the lessons learnt during the previous 30 months of operation.

The new Lancaster Brewery was designed to be a vast improvement over the previous incarnation and more than £250,000 was spent reinventing the business.

This "reinvention" included:

• New brewing plant and machinery
• Total redesign of the layout of the brewery
• Creation of a "Sample Room"
• The purchase of thousands of new casks
• Introduction of new brewery software to improve quality control and cask monitoring
• Securing a source of malt and hops from the best national suppliers
• Sourcing a reliable and efficient single strain Lancashire brewing yeast
• Launching a new concept in the marketing of Lancaster Brewery with contemporary & stylish pump clips, signage, bar runners, glasses and clothing.
• Purchase of new Lancaster Brewery delivery vehicles.
• Creation of new office space and staff facilities
• Sourcing of new routes to market with contacts formed with a host of local pub operators and national wholesalers.

Since November 2007 the brewery has gone from strength to strength and is now one of the fastest growing breweries in the United Kingdom. Currently Lancaster Brewery is now brewing to full capacity with their beers being enjoyed across the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. Their beers are available directly via the DDS scheme operated by SIBA (Small Independent Brewers Association).

By the end of February 2008, the refurbished brewery was ready to brew once more. New beers were designed with new corporate logos and pump clips. The four new beers all follow the same theme; Amber, Blonde, Black and Red were created from new recipes using a different yeast strain to that of Lancaster's previous beers.

The brewery Doubles in capacity! The commission and the installation of new vessels is now underway. They are expanding the plant to accommodate the growing demand. They have a new 30 BB (Brewer's Barrels) hot Liquor tank to work in conjunction with the existing one. They also have 2 new FV's enclosed and so large that they are fitted with ladders to get in and out whilst cleaning. The new vessels enable Lancaster to brew their beer in the volumes needed to offer a cost effective price for entry into a new sector - the supermarkets and national accounts! Packaged goods may be a dreaded idea to the purists, maybe, yet with the ever growing decline in the licensed trade, coupled with diminishing free trade available to sell to; Lancaster recognizes that they must move into this sector so that they are one of the stronger breweries to come through this recession. Lancaster has no intention of existing as a brewery. They have the drive to grow their as a legacy for the future.