Young's Brewery
Encyclopedia
Young's is a British pub chain
Pub chain
A pub chain is a group of pubs or bars with a brand image. The brand may be owned outright by one company, or there may be multiple financiers; the chain may be a division within a larger company, or may be a single operation. Examples include Chef & Brewer, Wetherspoons, Walkabout, Taylor Walker...

 operating nearly 220 pubs.

The company was founded as a brewery
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....

 in 1831 by Charles Young and Anthony Bainbridge when they purchased the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth
Wandsworth
Wandsworth is a district of south London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is situated southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-Toponymy:...

. The company closed the Ram Brewery in 2006, and the brewing operation was transferred to a new company, Wells & Young's Brewing Company Ltd
Wells & Young's Brewery
Wells & Young's Brewery was formed in October 2006 from the merger of the brewing operations of Charles Wells Ltd and Young's Brewery. Charles Wells have a 60% stake and Young's 40%. Wells & Young's is now responsible for brewing, distributing and marketing Charles Wells' and Young & Co's brands...

, which was a joint brewing venture with Charles Wells Brewery. Young's held 40% of the shares in the new company until the sale of their stake to Charles Wells was announced in August 2011.
There is a rolling contract for Young's to take beers produced by Wells & Young's.

Until its closure in 2006, the company's Ram Brewery in Wandsworth was claimed to be Britain's oldest brewing site in continuous operation, with a history dating back to the 1550s when a Humphrey Langridge, "beer-brewer at Wandsworth", leased the Ram pub.

History

A Ram pub on Young's brewery site was recorded from a survey around 1550 which details the owner as Elizabeth Ridon, who leased out the premises. The first indication of brewing at the Ram are from 1576 when a Humphrey Langridge, "beer-brewer at Wandsworth" (then a village in Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

), had his house broken into, and the thief was tried at the local assize court; this Humphrey Langridge is also recorded as being landlord of "the Rame" in 1581, and so it is surmised by Young's historian that Langridge would have been brewing at the Ram in 1576. The site of this inn is today the Brewery Tap. Records from 1675 show that the brewery was run by the Draper family, and in the 18th century, the Trittons purchased the brewery. It was purchased by Charles Allen Young and Anthony Fothergill Bainbridge in 1831. Since then it has been associated with the Young family, and until 2006 the last chairman of Young & Co belonging to the Young's family was John Young, the great-great-grandson of the founder.

The brewery
Brewery
A brewery is a dedicated building for the making of beer, though beer can be made at home, and has been for much of beer's history. A company which makes beer is called either a brewery or a brewing company....

 supplied Young's public houses, in London and the area to the south-west, which still number over 200. It also sold to many other pubs and supermarkets. 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...

 was also exported to many European countries, Canada, the United States and Japan. The company produced three regular and a series of seasonal and occasional cask ale
Cask ale
Cask ale or cask-conditioned beer is the term for unfiltered and unpasteurised beer which is conditioned and served from a cask without additional nitrogen or carbon dioxide pressure...

s, keg lagers, and several filtered and pasteurised bottled beers. Young's also contract-brewed several beers for InBev, such as Courage Best and Mackeson Stout.

On 23 May 2006, the company issued a press release announcing that the Ram Brewery was to close and brewing was to be moved to the Eagle Brewery in Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

, then owned by Charles Wells. Wells & Young's Brewing, with Charles Wells having a 60% stake, and Young & Co 40%, went into operation on 2 October 2006. Wells & Young's were then responsible for brewing, distributing and marketing Charles Wells' and Young & Co's brands at the jointly owned Eagle Brewery in Bedford. The company was operated at arms length from both Young's and Charles Wells. However a combination of directors from both companies sat on the Wells & Young's Board.

Chairman John Young died on 17 September 2006, days before the closure of the brewery, whilst the final brew was being run at the Ram brewery Wandsworth. Beer from the last brew was served at his funeral on 29 September 2006.

Young & Co are still based in Wandsworth. Until June 2007 they were based at the offices at the Ram Brewery, however after that they moved into their new Head Office, around the corner from the former brewery site.

On 9 August 2011, the company issued a press release announcing the sale of their stake in Wells & Young's Brewing Company Ltd
Wells & Young's Brewery
Wells & Young's Brewery was formed in October 2006 from the merger of the brewing operations of Charles Wells Ltd and Young's Brewery. Charles Wells have a 60% stake and Young's 40%. Wells & Young's is now responsible for brewing, distributing and marketing Charles Wells' and Young & Co's brands...

 to Charles Wells.

Ram Brewery

Young's claimed that the Ram Brewery was the oldest British brewery in continuous operation. At the time of its closure in 2006, the brewery was a mix of ancient and ultra-modern plant, including a steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

 which had been installed in 1835 and had been in regular use until the 1980s.

A number of animals were resident in the brewery, including a ram, a number of geese and about a dozen working draught horses
Draft horse
A draft horse , draught horse or dray horse , less often called a work horse or heavy horse, is a large horse bred for hard, heavy tasks such as ploughing and farm labour...

, usually a shire horse
Shire horse
The Shire horse is a breed of draught horse or draft horse . The breed comes in many colours, including black, bay and grey. They are a tall breed, with mares standing and over and stallions standing and over. The breed has an enormous capacity for weight pulling, and Shires have held the world...

. Until the closure of the brewery in 2006, the horses and dray
Wagon
A wagon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals; it was formerly often called a wain, and if low and sideless may be called a dray, trolley or float....

s were still used for local deliveries of beer to locations within a mile or two of the brewery.

The Ram Brewery officially closed at the end of the business day on Monday, 25 September 2006. The brewery closing story was carried by BBC London news and as of 4 December 2008, the old Ram Brewery has been approved for redevelopment into a new shopping / business centre.

The new owner of the site, property company Minerva plc, has hired one of the former Young's brewers, John Hatch, as site manager. One of his jobs is to keep brewing going on the site via a 'nanobrewery' set up in the old Young's laboratory. Hatch's new Ram Brewery brews at least once a week in order to maintain the "oldest British brewery" claim..

Wells & Young's

Wells & Young's Brewing, with Charles Wells having a 60% stake and Young & Co 40%, went into operation on 2 October 2006. Wells & Young's are now responsible for brewing, distributing and marketing Charles Wells' and Young & Co's brands at the Eagle Brewery in Bedford. In August 2011, Charles Wells purchased Young's stake in Wells and Young's.

External links

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