It’s pleasingly fitting when a new microbrewery sets up home in premises once occupied by a big brewing name from the past – a kind of architectural recycling that maintains a link with history while addressing industrial needs of today.

The best-known examples of such regeneration are provided by Exmoor Ales, housed in the old Hancock’s brewery in Wiveliscombe, and Dorset, part of the old Devenish and Groves complex in Weymouth.

In Lancashire in 1991, the Oak Brewery moved into what used to be Phoenix Brewery in Heywood, and promptly changed its name to Phoenix to reflect this.

In Gloucestershire in 1990, Wickwar Brewery started life in the former cooperage of Arnold, Perrett & Co.’s brewery in Wickwar village, but now occupies the old brewery proper.

Smaller companies following suit include Tower in Burton-on-Trent, which utilises the water tower at Thomas Salt’s once world-famous brewery, and Geltsdale in Brampton, Cumbria, now resident in what was formerly home to Brampton’s Old Brewery.

Of course, being smaller and more versatile than their local ancestors, today’s breweries offer rather a different package.

I discovered another such business recently. I had arranged to visit Lymestone Brewery in Stone, Staffordshire, but I didn’t realise until I arrived that the brewery’s home on an industrial park was constructed back in the late 1800s for Montgomery’s Brewery.

Montgomery was later taken over by rival Bent’s, a company that was always overshadowed by the success and reputation of Stone’s foremost brewer, Joule’s. Bent’s – which also had a site in Liverpool – eventually became part of the Bass empire and closed in the 1970s. The buildings were subsequently leased out to individual businesses.

Life Returns

Today, the development houses businesses such as car mechanics, double glazing manufacturers and makers of exhaust systems – all rather soulless concerns. But at least a little warmth and life has been brought back to the area by the return of brewing.

The aroma of malt and hops certainly brings a touch of humanity to the rather sterile world of factories and workshops.

When Lymestone founder Ian Bradford (pictured above) was first pointed towards the building, even he didn’t know that it had a brewing past. It turns out that what seemed just like another industrial unit used to be Bent’s old racking cellar. It’s now a high-ceiling, open space but was once hidden beneath the old fermenting rooms.

Most people know Ian simply as Brad. After 18 years with Titanic Brewery, seeing that business grow into an award-winning, substantial regional concern, he decided to branch out on his own.

The name of his company, after a certain amount of head scratching, merges those of the two local towns, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Stone itself.

Brad’s custom-made, ten-barrel brewkit looks rather lost in the cavernous old hall, but, on the plus side, this means there’s plenty of room for expansion. The fine reception the beers have received means that this is always likely.

Lymestone beers have featured already in Wetherspoon pubs, and find their way around the country via wholesalers. Direct deliveries extend as far north as Manchester, as far south as Birmingham, as far east as Nottingham and as far west as Shrewsbury, and there’s a crude device employed in the van to ensure Brad doesn’t over-extend his distribution area.

‘If the Radio Stoke signal starts to crackle, we know we’re going too far!,’ he jokes.

Stone Theme

The first beer Brad produced was called Foundation Stone (4.5%). It’s a bit of an enigma in that it includes pale chocolate malt alongside Maris Otter pale malt but shows no hint of darkness in the glass: it’s bright golden. Boadicea and Pilot hops bring a complex fruitiness – flavours of orange and tinned peaches – to a bittersweet taste that ends very dry, herbal and bitter.

Continuing the ‘Stone’ theme, Brad also produces a deep ruby-coloured stout called Stone the Crows (5.4%). Filled with dark crystal and dark chocolate malt, it’s a big toffee-like drink with chocolate and coffee notes, and a dry, bitter, roasted finish.

Offering a Germanic twist on the Stone concept is Brad’s new ‘continental pale ale’ named Ein Stein (5%).

Brewers’ Gold and Hersbrucker hops, more commonly used to season lagers, produce a herbal, lightly citrus hop character in a sweetish beer that is sunshine-golden, courtesy of a grist comprising only low colour Maris Otter malt and wheat malt.

All three beers are also available in bottle, packaged by Holden’s, but they are not bottle-conditioned.

Also on Brad’s beer list are Stone Cutter (pale, floral and citrus) and Stone Faced (copper-coloured, fruity and malty), while another beer to look out for is a proposed honey beer. Brad intends to install some hives on the roof of the brewery and then cream off the honey for use in brewing.

I’m sure there was never a thought of doing anything so radical during the Bent’s days. They may be in the same business and occupy the same premises, but today’s breweries really are different beasts to their bigger, long-gone forebears.