01/08/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

The ABBC have kindly invited BHS members to join them at their forthcoming AGM -

Hi Jeff we are trying to attract members of other organisations connected with similar interests to ours to join us at meetings.
Our AGM is taking place at Windsor and Eton brewery on Saturday 24th September from 11am and we would like to invite members of BHS to join us.
cheers David Taylor

If you would like to go I would suggest dropping David a line at - david.deraled@talktalk.net

Posted in Visits & walks, Breweriana | No Comments »

01/08/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

Following the recent quite exceptional visits and walks to parts of London, Burton, the West Midlands, Dublin and Nottingham, I attach details below from Chris Marchbanks on the next two BHS days out.
My thanks to Chris, Colin Bridgeland and George Crutcher for all their work preparing these trips.

1 )   September  Friday 16/9/2011-    A walking visit of the Newark Malting & Brewery Sites planned

03/07/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

We have had the following query. Can anyone help please?

Hi Hope you can help

I remember both the Lion and Dutton breweries in Blackburn, as I went to school in Blackburn

I (think) I can also remember a pint of Lion bitter costing less than one shilling, (12 old pennies, not pence)

Would you have any printed matter to that effect ?

60’s prices from any Lancashire brewery would do at a pinch, or would you know how to get this information?

Ronnie Hayes

Posted in Lancashire | 1 Comment »

22/04/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

BHS member and well known historian, Simon Fowler, is giving a talk on researching brewery and publican ancestors –

21st May at 12.30pm - Essex FHS, Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford
Their website is as follows, but this was still to be updated the last time I looked http://www.esfh.org.uk/Branches/tutorials.htm

I just missed a presentation of this talk at my local West Surrey FHS a few days ago, but Simon is giving it again later in the year at The National Archives on 13 October (2pm-3pm)

Posted in Archives, Talks | 1 Comment »

20/04/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

The British Beer & Pub Association presents the UK’s biggest pub photography competition and exhibition – Pub Life.

Entries must be in by 8pm on 30^th April, so time is short.

See the BBPA web site for further information:http://www.beerandpub.com/newsList_detail.aspx?newsId=403

They say:

Regulars, amateurs and professionals are invited to enter photographs of their local pub across six distinct categories in the hope of winning an Olympus camera and for their image to be exhibited at an exclusive exhibition from the 16th -23rd May 2011 at The Old Truman Brewery in East London.

Posted in Pubs | 1 Comment »

08/04/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

BHS members will have read this in the Newsletter, but for those readers of the Blog who have not yet joined the Society, or members who still have it in their reading queue (surely not!), I thought I would outline the visits that Chris has arranged for us, starting with a very special visit to DUBLIN with a rare opportunity to visit the St. James’s Gate Brewery of Guinness.

See http://www.breweryhistory.com/diary.htm for full details

Contact Chris (Visits@BreweryHistory.com) to book places.

Wednesday 22^nd Thursday 23^rd June 2011 2 day visit (Wed /Thurs) to Dublin, Ireland

Wednesday Old Jameson Distillery Bow St Museum, Dublin followed by a guided visit to some Dublin historical hostelries in the evening

Thursday (all day)  - Guinness Brewery, historic buildings, Storehouse museum and Archives (meet Guinness Archivist), Lunch and Guinness tasting

Posted in Guinness, Talks | No Comments »

08/04/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

We have had the following query from Dave Thomas <beersleuth@earthlink.net>, one of our members in the United States:
 

Jeff,
I am writing a brewing history of Gilpin County, Colorado where I live. It is the smallest county in Colorado with only 5,000 residents today, whilst there were an estimated 15,000 gold and silver miners in the late 1850s and early 1860s.
Gold and silver mining began here in 1859 and brewing started in 1862, lasting until 1898.
One fact that I need to cover is what the thirsty miners drank from 1859 till 1862?
I presume it was mostly distilled spirits but wonder if Guinness made it this far west at that time?
Do you know where (or from whom) I might find out when Guinness first came to the U.S. and where it was distributed?
Thanks very much
Dave Thomas

As Diageo are Corporate members I forwarded Dave’s query to the ever helpful Christine in the Archives. She in, turn, forwarded it to Eibhlin in the Guinness Archive in Dublin (Don’t forget, we are due to visit this as part of our forthcoming day at St James’s Gate in June) and she has sent the following fascinating information:

Dear Jeff and Dave,

My colleague Christine in the Diageo Archive has forwarded your mail to the Guinness Archive in Dublin.

The first record we hold in the Guinness Archive of exports to the US, is a shipment to South Carolina in 1817. The next reference to GUINNESS stout in the US, is a shipment to New York in 1842. I don’t have a record of when GUINNESS stout first arrived in Colorado, I’m afraid.

Kind regards

Eibhlin

Thanks very much Eibhlin and Jeff. That is helpful to me,

Do you know what style of beer would have been shipped to South Carolina in 1817? As I understand it Guinness Stout was introduced in 1840.

It can possibly be surmised that a few hogsheads of Guinness Stout made their way west during the gold rushes of 1849 (California) and 1859 (Colorado).

Cheers

Dave

Hi Dave,

The early export records that we hold in the Guinness Archive are in a ledger entitled ‘Brewery Annals’ which cites the year of export to particular countries/ destinations in the 19^th century.

The entry for 1817 reads ‘South Carolina 8 Hhds of Porter sent to one John Heavy, 16th Oct’, therefore the style of beer exported was Porter. (Guinness Extra Stout has its origins in 1821 when Arthur Guinness II laid down a recipe for ‘Extra Superior Porter’).

I have not come across any specific mentions of GUINNESS Porter/ stout being shipped west during the Gold Rush period; however, it is quite probable that GUINNESS stout was consumed out west during this period. The reason it is so hard to be definitive from the Guinness Archive records, is that the Guinness Company sold hogshead of beer to 3^rd party bottling companies, mainly based in the UK, who in turn bottled, shipped and distributed the beer in overseas countries. Therefore any specific evidence of GUINNESS in particular parts of the US would lie in the records of the bottling companies who distributed the beer, and not with the Guinness brewery.

Kind regards

Eibhlin

Posted in Guinness, Brewery Queries | 1 Comment »

18/03/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

In Journal 52  (Jan 1988) we featured the Royal Navy Amenity Ship, Menestheus, which included the ‘Davy Jones brewery’. We also had a talk on this at one of our meetings many years ago at Gales, I recall. This was by Ken Morrison, who had been a brewer on board during its brief life

We are keen to find out more and would welcome contact from anyone with anything to add to the story of this, or similar, ventures.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

17/03/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

What a fantastic day, in fact couple of days, it turned out to be!

I must confess to some trepidation building up the the conference, but I thought it went very well and was extremely informative and worthwhile - all in all a thoroughly enjoyable event. I had a lot of feedback from audience members, all of which was very positive

I have a lot of thank you letters to write to so many people who made it all work so well, and who have contributed so much over such a long time, but I just wanted to circulate an immediate note of my appreciation, as an attendee, to everyone involved

I thought the mix of speakers and presentations was spot on and the very diverse audience added to the event - which had got off to such a good start with Ray’s walk and Chris’s attention to detail in his arrangements with the venue

We have lots of food for thought for going forward and need to keep up momentum. I would like to think we have a number of new contacts and relationships to develop for our mutual benefit as well.
We now need to think how to follow this up and do full justiceto our forthcoming 40th anniversary year

Thanks to everyone
Jeff

Posted in Talks, architecture | 1 Comment »

17/03/2011 by Jeff Sechiari.

Our editor, Tim Holt, recently had the idea of a special edition of the Journal to celebrate the life and work of Michael Jackson. He invited the award winning author (and BHS member) Pete Brown to edit this, and found a stunning list of contributors.

The result will be launched at the Rake in Borough Market at 6pm on Sunday 27th March. We hope to meet many of you there.

For more details see the BHS web site at:

http://bit.ly/evctNa

where there is an overview, list of contents and the opportunity to read the introduction

There is also a nice piece by Pete Brown on his Blog at:

http://petebrown.blogspot.com/2011/03/celebrating-beer-hunter.html

Do please circulate to anyone who may be interested.

I hope to see you there
Cheers
Jeff

Posted in Talks, Books | No Comments »