# Everards Brewery – Leicester – Oct 2017



## mockney reject (Oct 23, 2017)

_The History_

The company began as Hull and Everard in 1849 when William Everard, a farmer from Narborough Wood House and brewer Thomas Hull leased the Southgate Street Brewery of Wilmot and Co from the retiring proprietors. Although Hull continued as a maltster, Everard was the driving force behind the business which he managed until his death in 1892.

The business expanded as the company progressively acquired outlets, with over 100 pubs by the late 1880s. In 1875, the company moved to a new state of the art tower brewery designed by William's nephew architect John Breedon Everard. The brewery, on the corner of Southgate St and Castle St extracted very pure water from wells 300 feet deep beneath the premises and steam engines played a significant part in the mechanisation.
After the death of William, control passed to his son Thomas. The historic centre of the UK brewing industry remained some 40 miles away at Burton-upon-Trent, which by the 1890s produced one tenth of Britain's beer. 

Everards leased the Bridge Brewery on Umplett Green Island in 1895 but its 10,000 barrels per year capacity proved insufficient. It was replaced with the newer Trent brewery in Dale St which became available after going into liquidation in 1898. The Southgate brewery remained the distribution centre to the Leicestershire pubs with beer arriving by rail from Burton. The Trent brewery was purchased outright in 1901. It was renamed the Tiger Brewery around 1970.

Beer production was seriously affected by World War I, both due to recruitment and the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 which required beer to be diluted, restricted opening times and rationed raw materials.
Around 1920 Everards bought wine and spirit merchants John Sarsons & Son of Hotel St, Leicester, a major supplier to wealthy homes.

Thomas moved his family from Narborough Wood House to Nanpantan Hall. In 1909 he opened a cattle trough in Groby on behalf of the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association and in 1921, a year which saw beer production peak at 55,000 barrels, the company acquired the Stamford Arms in Groby, the former home of both Thomas's grandfather, Richard Everard a yeoman tenant farmer of the Grey estate and his great grandfather.

In 1924, the company completed its move away from rail transport to steam powered drays which continued in use until replaced by petrol lorries in 1946.

Thomas died in 1925 and was succeeded by his son William Lindsay Everard who lived in Ratcliffe Hall.
The Great Depression saw a penny tax on beer. Production fell by a fifth and took five years to recover and all brewing ceased at Southgate in 1931.
Everards became a public company, Everards Brewery Ltd. in October 1936.
Following the outbreak of World War II, the Government increased excise duty tripling the price of a pint by the end of the war. A combination of conscription and a shortage of hops reduced the Leicester operation at times to 3 men.

Following Sir Lindsay's death in 1949, his son Tony Everard, who had been wounded in Normandy in 1944, took over. In the 1950s he developed the concept of "Everards Friendly Inns" designed to "look like your front room" which succeeded in attracting women into what was traditionally a male preserve. In November 1950 the first long service awards were made at a dinner to found the Quarter Century club. Although pubs rarely came onto the market, the demolition of a number of older ones during construction of the Leicester inner ring road in the sixties allowed the company to build new ones such as the Shakespeare in Braunstone and the Firs at Wigston. In 1967 the company employed almost 700 staff and operated 125 pubs.

Like his father Tony had a keen interest in aviation and in 1966 he founded the Helicopter Club of Great Britain and opened a heliport at Ratcliffe. The Airman's Rest hotel in Leicester Forest East was designed to welcome fliers and equipped with a heliport.

In 1979 the company bought 54 hectares at Grove Farm triangle and phase I of the new brewery -named Castle acres after the Castle street premises – was opened on 29 March 1985 by local MP Nigel Lawson. It had a capacity of 125 barrels of Old Original per year. The Tiger brewery in Burton became a museum though it continued to produce Tiger under contract. By 1990, Castle Acres was producing nearly 70,000 barrels, the contract with the museum ended and for the first time since 1892, all Everards beer was brewed in Leicester. 

In 1988 Richard Everard, nephew of Tony, became chairman. He confirmed that Everards would remain an independent family business and in 1997 it repurchased its remaining preference shares to become a private business again. The company also invested in budget hotels, named 'Original Inns' based around existing pubs. 

In February 1999, the company celebrated its first 150 years with a visit from Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Celebrations, perhaps as befitting a brewery, "continued throughout the year," and included the pubs. The 'Founders day' saw Richard Everard presented with a bronze figure of a tiger sculpted by Mark Coreth. 
In 2002, the company decided to switch its portfolio from a mixture of tenancies and managed houses to tenancies only. This led to new pubs replacing hotels and the estate achieved its highest total of 165 by 2005.


In February 2017 Everards, Next Plc and The Crown Estate (with Ginko Tree Investment Ltd – The Crown’s Chinese joint venture partner) secured detailed planning consent for 300,000 sq.ft of retail development on our current 
office and brewery site.

Since then negotiations with The Crown Estate have continued but, to date, they have not reached an agreement on price and terms. As a Board, they have decided that, with or without a land sale, Everards will leave the Castle Acres site this summer and provide vacant possession of the site for the purchaser of the land. Vacant possession essentially means leaving the site in a condition where the existing buildings remain, but all contents, fixtures and fittings will have been removed prior to 30 October. 

Everards continued brewing and packaging Everards beers, at Castle Acres, up to Friday 28 July. 

_The Explore_

After popping to Leicester to catch up with @slayaaaa myself and @Jonesy got stuck in traffic heading back to Brum and happened to glance over at this. After a quick “google” we couldn’t quite decide if it was empty or not. The external signs had gone but conflicting reports could be found online. 

Once back in Brum we grabbed a spot of lunch and started looking for stuff to do in the area. But this place was on my mind still. So I had a bit of a better search and decided to message Slayaaaa and see what he thought. Needless to say we finished lunch and headed back to pick up slayaaaa and check this place out.

Well the externals looked promising, especially the glass fronted boiler room….










































After a stealthy wander around the outside, bearing in mind this place is overlooked on every side, we eventually found a way in. Although in the process of finding a way in I did manage to do my best impression of superman and ended up lying on my back with my arms and legs flailing in the air much to the enjoyment and entertainment of my accomplices. 

Once inside we quickly realised that the place was mid-decommission and that we may not get to see much. 

Oh how that changed as we walked out onto the floors with the vats in….

















































































After the vats we made our way around the rest of the site including the very very stripped office block

























































Now on to the really special stuff we found, this place has some absolutely ace signage and posters, all sadly going in the bin….

Shaaaamoneee!!

























































Now it’s these ones that really caught our eyes, hand painted and quite informative about what would have been going on in the various areas


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## HughieD (Oct 23, 2017)

Wow. You struck Gold there. Always sad when a brewery closes but beautifully captured...


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## Snailsford (Oct 23, 2017)

Awesome little explore! Keep up the good work


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## Brewtal (Oct 23, 2017)

Aw mate! That's amazing! Both because I am a brewer and I fucking despise Everards with a passion! They issued a cease and desist against another brewer I know back home, because his brewery name was the same as a one off special they did like 5/6 years ago when he registered his company name. Absolute shower of bastards. 100's of us trolled the hell out of them on social media and bombarded them with emails, power to the people - they dropped it. They are a horrible lot, not just for that reason.

Man I would give my left one as well as my right to do this place. I'd probably piss in one of their fermenters though. Their beer is shite. Looks like they are pretty far into dismantling it though.

Nice work matey, loved that one it bits!


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## mockney reject (Oct 23, 2017)

Brewtal said:


> Aw mate! That's amazing! Both because I am a brewer and I fucking despise Everards with a passion! They issued a cease and desist against another brewer I know back home, because his brewery name was the same as a one off special they did like 5/6 years ago when he registered his company name. Absolute shower of bastards. 100's of us trolled the hell out of them on social media and bombarded them with emails, power to the people - they dropped it. They are a horrible lot, not just for that reason.
> 
> Man I would give my left one as well as my right to do this place. I'd probably piss in one of their fermenters though. Their beer is shite. Looks like they are pretty far into dismantling it though.
> 
> Nice work matey, loved that one it bits!



I think we caught it just in time

The signage being chucked is criminal


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## Sam Haltin (Oct 24, 2017)

That's a very detailed report. It looks like as soon as the workers left you popped in. All the equipment is still there and the copper thieves haven't paid a visit. I liked the signs as well and the old photographs particularly the big one showing the steam lorries. It's a shame that it's gone that way, reading the comment from Brewtal it looks like the cause was bad management.


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## mockney reject (Oct 24, 2017)

Hugh Jorgan said:


> That's a very detailed report. It looks like as soon as the workers left you popped in. All the equipment is still there and the copper thieves haven't paid a visit. I liked the signs as well and the old photographs particularly the big one showing the steam lorries. It's a shame that it's gone that way, reading the comment from Brewtal it looks like the cause was bad management.




it hasn't closed, just moved to a new location


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## smiler (Oct 24, 2017)

Comprehensively covered, Proper Job, Thanks


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## krela (Oct 24, 2017)

Looks like you made it just in time.


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## Rubex (Oct 25, 2017)

Wow, another excellent find! Great write up and pics


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## The Wombat (Oct 26, 2017)

Awesome
Great to see the inside of this place


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## Malenis (Nov 3, 2017)

Great report <3


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## Priority 7 (Nov 4, 2017)

Great set fella, popped my head in today it's now complete decomissioned not a piece os Stainless Steel in sight :-(


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## prettyvacant71 (Nov 29, 2017)

Crackin explore Mockney! Nicely captured too[emoji106]


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## john2017 (Dec 20, 2017)

It closed down that plant and has moved all of its production to its other location. Meanwhile, its selling its old site to retail for a lot of money, and building a much more larger and extensive site on a large field on the opposite side including visitor centre, shop, etc


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## Brewtal (Dec 20, 2017)

john2017 said:


> It closed down that plant and has moved all of its production to its other location. Meanwhile, its selling its old site to retail for a lot of money, and building a much more larger and extensive site on a large field on the opposite side including visitor centre, shop, etc



Bollocks to everards. They are an utter shower of dog-wanking, leaving-horses-to-die "beer" bastards. Their product sucks and they are a joke of a company. I was so excited when I saw this post because I thought they had finally folded. Ah well, Shep Neame are next if their business strategy is anything to go by. Claw back the successful tenant pubs, kick out the guest ales so you can punt the house's own unsuccessful muck. A struggling brewery with a decent pub estate. Great business model. I'm surprised Everarse didn't take more of a hit with all the PR shit storm they went through. Wish they did. Monumental turdcunts!

And I think they were moved off site, hence the contract brewing elsewhere to fill the stop gap in production.


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## Eastmidsboy (Jan 26, 2021)

Brewtal said:


> Aw mate! That's amazing! Both because I am a brewer and I fucking despise Everards with a passion! They issued a cease and desist against another brewer I know back home, because his brewery name was the same as a one off special they did like 5/6 years ago when he registered his company name. Absolute shower of bastards. 100's of us trolled the hell out of them on social media and bombarded them with emails, power to the people - they dropped it. They are a horrible lot, not just for that reason.
> 
> Man I would give my left one as well as my right to do this place. I'd probably piss in one of their fermenters though. Their beer is shite. Looks like they are pretty far into dismantling it though.
> 
> Nice work matey, loved that one it bits!


Look. Do you like Everards or not?


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