A Victorian Lager Brewery That Never Was

While doing some research on long-defunct breweries of South Cumbria (or North Lancashire as it was before 1974) I stumbled across a prospectus for a plan to build a German-style lager brewery at Backbarrow (click here for location). 

In the archive I also found a letter from a German correspondent (last picture) that seems to confirm my suspicion that this brewery never got off the ground. Scroll to the bottom for my transcript of the letter. 

None of the documents carried a date so I'm going to have re-read Boak and Bailey's fascinating ebook "Gambrinus Waltz: German Lager Beer in Victorian and Edwardian London" to attempt to make a guess at the year. 

 

_{Max Grumbach}

_{5 Bohnenstrasse}

_Hamburg

_••• Letter to •••••••

From the ?

Max Grumbach, Esq

c/o Grambach & Co

Hamburg

Being without your news about the projected Backbarrow brewery at seems that the transactions about this have come to a dead stop, which we should much regret for the sake of the interested persons.

We know from a good source that the brewery in London, which is at most about 9 •••••• does a very good trade and we are told that their beer is much liked by the public and that the price, which they fetch is so high that a big advance may be the result.

This success and the certainty that an increased demand of German Lagerbeer will follow, will have the consequence of starting more such breweries during the next few years and it is evident that those breweries which will be first established, will be the most prosperous ones, not having to meet a great competition at the beginning and it certainly will not be difficult for them to find a sufficient market.

With regard to the Backbarrow brewery, we feel almost sure that the net advance, as it was stated in our estimates, will become much larger still, because the selling price  which we have named is the price for beer in barrels which will be much raised if, as it was intended, they will take up the trade of beer in bottles at the same time we request you to point this out to your friends and should be glad if they would soon come to a definite conclusion.

We beg also to mention, that our engineer[?] is at present occupied with fitting up the Wrexham brewery for us and will have finished his work in about 3 months when that brewery will ••••••.

This had been delayed through the failure of the builder, which also stopped this work for a while.

Awaiting your good news & c & c

x The Wrexham Brewery has no connection with •••••••••

A Bit of Brewing History.

I was in the Stagger Inn, Stainton a few days ago for a family do, making use of Monday's happy hour and two-for-one deals.

The food is remarkably good given the low prices. Coniston Bluebird could have been a little fresher and cooler. The coloured lightbulbs add nothing to the place except to make it look a bit of a tart's boudoir. Nonetheless, it should be on your radar for a reasonable pub feed if you're visiting South Cumbria. It's a couple of miles from Cumbria's biggest tourist attraction – the South Lakes Wildlife Park – where the food offering is abysmal, so it's worth making a note of.

Hidden away on the wall of the gents' toilets are two old photographs. They aren't dated but in the corner of each is the inscription "Bass, Burton."

I managed to get a snap of one of the pics, but loitering in toilets with a camera isn't my preferred occupation, so I left the second one.

I might be mistaken, but these pictures looked like very old, possibly original, prints. Does anyone know if this picture has appeared anywhere else? Have I discovered a significant snapshot of Britain's brewing heritage, or did they pick it up at Athena?

Beer On The Telly Again

A few evenings ago my TIVO picked up this sympathetic piece from the formerly-nasty Michael Portillo:




Pleasing though it is that our beer history is getting some mass-media, my heart sank a little at one point.

Where?

2 mins 47 seconds.

Why the old-fashioned van? I'm no expert but that van looks 1930s to me. Just what has that got to do with brewing in 2010? OK, the thirties were in Burton's glory years but the brewery concerned is contemporary. I can see that they want to suggest "we revere the tradition we are part of", but isn't it an awkward and unnecessary way of saying it? I might be imagining it, but I think Portillo's laughter is disguising a cringe. I certainly cringed.

It bothers me that the world of cask ale is perennially keen to promote itself to more people yet it doesn't listen to those it wishes to convert. The perception "cask ale is for old men" is still inhibits the unconverted yet brewers still trot out the very "ye olde" cliches that created it.