Batemans Brewery is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 brewer of beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

 and ale

Ale

Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...

s based at Salem Bridge Brewery in Wainfleet, Lincolnshire

Wainfleet, Lincolnshire

Wainfleet All Saints is an ancient port and market town on the east coast of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the B1195 between Spilsby and Boston. The town stands on the small rivers Steeping and Limb that form Wainfleet Haven. The town is close to Skegness, Boston, Spilsby, the Lincolnshire...

. The company's full name is George Bateman and Son Ltd. Their slogan is "Good Honest Ales".

Early history

Batemans was founded in 1874 by George Bateman, a local farmer who sold his farm in nearby Friskney

Friskney

Friskney is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It lies west of the A52, north-east from Boston and south-west from Skegness....

 in order to rent a brewery in Wainfleet, situated by the railway. He bought the brewery equipment for £

Pound sterling

The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...

505 10s

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

 (roughly equivalent to £30,000 today); a year later he bought the lease for £800. Before he retired, Edwin Crowe, from whom Bateman had bought his equipment, passed on his knowledge of the craft to George and his wife Suzanna (who had had a little experience of home brewing). Crowe's expert brewer stayed on with Bateman for some years, despite his blindness.

In 1880 Bateman had earned enough from the business to buy Salem House, a Georgian building some 200 yards from the original brewery, and a new brewery was built in its coach houses. In addition to the brewing, Bateman bottled spirits, and his wife baked bread for sale.

"On Fair Day, which was held twice a year, the farmers would come to Salem House to pay for the beer their workers had consumed the previous six months. It was very common for this payment to not be paid in cash, but with meat and potatoes. Once payment had been made, we would invite the farmers into our kitchen for a massive feast. This tradition continued until 1930."

Bateman's son, Harry, went into the business, which he inherited in 1921 on the death of his father. The 1920s and 1930s proved to be a very lean time for the industry, partly because of severe restrictions on brewing that had come in during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, partly because of higher taxes, and a consequent decrease in sales. At one point Bateman had to lay off his entire workforce, but their resulting plight made him take them back; in order to find work for them, he expanded the business into building opposite Salem House — including a derelict windmill

Windmill

A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...

 which was to become the brewery's trademark.

From 1970 until 1992 the brewery ran a line for the production of keg beers.

The pub business

On his twenty-first birthday, Harry Bateman had been given a pub

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 by his father; in the 1920s he began to expand upon that beginning, and bought a group of pubs generally thought to be worthless. This chain was expanded in 1927 by the purchase of the Vine Hotel in Skegness

Skegness

Skegness is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. Located on the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, east of the city of Lincoln it has a total resident population of 18,910....

, and in 1935 by the building of the County Hotel in the same town. In 1957, when Batemans already owned a chain of seventy pubs, they bought another twenty-nine, mostly run-down pubs to the north of Boston

Boston, Lincolnshire

Boston is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district and had a total population of 55,750 at the 2001 census...

, as well as some in the town itself. It took eight years to renovate and obtain licences for them (at the time, a pub could not have a license unless it had at least two rooms).

Batemans beers are now available from pubs throughout the UK, but especially within Lincolnshire and neighbouring counties.

Batemans beers

• Best Bitter (XB)
• Triple XB (XXXB)
• GHA
• Combined Harvest (Bottled)
• Dark Lord (Bottled)
• Spring Breeze (Bottled)
• Dark Mild (DM)
• Salem Porter
• England Expects (2010 special)
• Spring Goddess (2010 special)
• Summer Swallow (2010 special)
• Rosey Nosey (2010 special)
• Eggs 'B' (2010 special)
• Hooker (2010 special)
• Autumn Fall (2010 special)
• Victory Ale (2010 special)

Product information

The labels on Triple XB, Victory and Dark Lord state they are approved by the Vegan Society

Vegan Society

The Vegan Society is a registered charity and the oldest vegan society in the world, founded on November 1, 1944, in England by Donald Watson, Elsie "Sally" Shrigley, and 23 others....

.

External links

• Official Batemans Brewery Website
  • History of Batemans — leaflet [PDF]
• batemans — Wainfleet's Home page (includes photo of the Batemans windmill)
• Video of Batemans Brewery Visitors Centre in action
• Batemans beers — The Oxford Bottled-Beer Database