Photo 1998

John Smiths Brewery, Tadcaster

A shot from Katharine today, with this view of John Smiths Brewery. Tadcaster is home to not just one brewery, but three - John Smiths, Samuel Smiths and Coors, and brewing is believed to have taken place since the 14th century, due to high quality and easily accessible local water supplies.

John Smith acquired an earlier brewery in 1852. The timing was to prove fortuitous; pale ales were displacing porter as the beer of choice, and Tadcaster's hard water proved to be well-suited for brewing the new style. The prosperity of the 1850s and 1860s, together with the arrival of the railways, realised greater opportunities for brewers, and John Smith employed eight men in his brewing and malting enterprise by 1861.

John Smith died in 1879, at a time when the business was growing rapidly. A new modern brewery was built in 1883-4 at the cost of £130,000 (£9.7 million in 2013 prices), and it is that building shown in this shot, with its beautiful stonework and decoration.

By the beginning of the 20th century the brewery was considered to be one of the best-run in Britain, and was described as 'a byword for first-class management'.

The company continued to grow during the 20th century, often through acquisitions of other breweries, which in many cases were then closed and production transferred to Tadcaster. In 1953 the firm became a public company, with fixed assets of around £5 million, 1,000 licensed premises and around 1,100 employees. As a result of continued acquisitions, by 1967 John Smith's was the third largest regional brewer in the country after Courage and Scottish & Newcastle, with fixed assets of £30 million.

The company was taken over by Courage in 1970 and they extended distribution of the brewery's products into the South of England. Courage was acquired by Scottish & Newcastle in 1995, and the operations were purchased by Heineken in 2008.

The brewery continues to be a major employer in Tadcaster.

Ian

25th November 2021 25th Nov 21