Visit Ed's Beer Site

I started feeling sad as soon as I got to Dorchester South station. Ornate tiles on the wall proudly proclaim "Dorchester Home of Eldridge Pope brewery". "Not any more it isn't" I thought.


Though Eldridge Pope are now best remembered for their bottled barley wine Thomas Hardy's Ale, I can remember enjoying their cask beers too.


I was in Dorchester for a pre-Brewery History Society AGM event. We were taken on a tour round the brewery buildings, which still dominate the town centre, by Adrian Woods, an ex-Eldridge Pope brewer.






The brewery produced 80,000 barrels a year.


Brewery offices



The brewery

They made ales and lagers (both own brand and brewed under licence). Thomas Hardy's Ale had an Original Gravity of 1.125 and had a primary fermentation with ale yeast before being pitched with Carlsberg lager yeast and left in a conditioning tank for six months.






Various plans have been put forward over the years for what to do with the brewery site but it's finally being turned into flats.







They had two coppers (150 and 75 bbl) which they used to parti-gyle four different beers.





Thomas Hardy's Ale was all malt made from strong wort, the rest of the weaker wort going to make a rather indifferent bitter. The maltings building is still next door to the brewery site, though they hadn't done their own malting for years.









The owning family weren't particularly involved in the company and managed to make some poor business decisions that lead to them selling the brewery and then later the site which caused its closure. The company continued as a pub company for a few years before they were also sold.




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