According to reports on other beer sites it looks like Oakwell have closed the brewery and made everyone redundant.The Sheakspear where we drank on our last meet up closed in April.
oakwell brewery
According to reports on other beer sites it looks like Oakwell have closed the brewery and made everyone redundant.The Sheakspear where we drank on our last meet up closed in April.
I heard this rumour too. I hope the Shakespeare's Head finds someone to take it over - it was one of the more memorable ports of of call on our crawl.
I'm told that these two pubs have also closed, although I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg.
Devonshire Arms
Jolly Miller
It's a great shame to see a brewery closing just short of it's 20th anniversary, but this seems to be an odd one as it apparently has a fairly large tied estate.Originally Posted by london calling
Glancing through the pics of their pubs they seem to have taken on some of the most ghastly looking modern estate pubs I have seen in a long time. I checked out the details of another one in the Telford area which is actually in the middle of nowhere a few miles to the NW of Telford and has some very limited opening hours.
The history of microbreweries is littered with ones that expand into pub ownership in a big way and then fail. This brewery's estate on the face of it may have contributed to that.
My other point is that the brewery portfolio seems to be stuck in a time warp when coal mines and other heavy industries provided a captive audience for mild and bog standard bitters. I will ignore the keg lagers that they brewed.
I can only think of one brewery of any description that has been around for over twenty years totally unchanged and that is the Legend that is Batham's.
Even the other Legend from the area Holden's have added to their portfolio over the years.
You make some very interesting points there, Aqualung. There is tremendous sentimental attachment locally to the Barnsley Bitter brand, as powerful as that with Tetleys in Leeds. It probably does hark back to the time when the mines kept the local economy buoyant. As regards unchanged breweries, I think you've overlooked the dinosaur that is Sam Smiths - so unpopular with (ex) employees it has its own website!
From a West Yorkshire perspective, it's almost as if Oakwell brewery doesn't exist. It would seem they've turned their back on anywhere north of Barnsley. certainly there are no pubs locally, with just The Magpie in Carlisle. Plus, the beers are as rare as hens teeth. I think I've only seen Barnsley Bitter in a pub once, remarkable for a brewery just ten miles away.
'And where he supped the past lived still. And where he sipped the glass brimmed full' John Barleycorn, Carol Ann Duffy.
I knew there would be one I had overlooked, but Sam's doesn't really register with me as their one cask is mediocre rubbish but I assume they still have some nice bottles.
I've a feeling I may have tried their Barnsley Bitter at a CAMRA festival in the nineties, but don't remember much about it (can you tell yet that I don't keep any notes or records?).
Of course another thing is just how many microbreweries are there in Yorkshire now?
If you tot up East, North, South and West Yorkshire, there are around 110 -115. In West Yorkshire alone we have 50, which even allowing for the odd duff one is still pretty impressive.
'And where he supped the past lived still. And where he sipped the glass brimmed full' John Barleycorn, Carol Ann Duffy.
Barnsley bitter and mild were cracking drinks and always very cheap.
The brewery had two pubs in Nottingham,the Moulders Arms set in a quaint area of Radford and the Foresters Arms on huntingdon street,i had heard about a month ago that the Foresters was going to close down so the brewery closure may have been planned a while ago.
[QUOTE=aleandhearty;55245]If you tot up East, North, South and West Yorkshire, there are around 110 -115. In West Yorkshire alone we have 50, which even allowing for the odd duff one is still pretty impressive.[/QUOTE
Even more impressive according to Quaffale Yorkshire currently has 133 brewers.
I have heard that the Shakespeare's Head in Leicester is to re-open as a free house.
Alcohol doesn't solve problems .... but then again, neither does milk.
Excellent news!
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