European Breweries History: Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing
Tetley's was created in 1822 by a very smooth thinker called
Joshua Tetley. This was at a time just after the Napoleonic Wars,
when doing business was anything but plain sailing, and brewing was
amongst the riskier businesses to get into.
When his father died in 1834, Joshua inherited the family malting
business. Tetley and Son was created in 1839 when Joshua made his son
Francis a partner. The brewing and malting business was doing so well
that it caused Joshua to stop and think. How could he make the most
of this success? His solution was smooth. He stopped being a wine and
spirit merchant, to concentrate on his first love - beer. When Joshua
Tetley died in 1859 at the grand old age of 81, Francis inherited the
family business.
In 1874, and 52 years after it was first created, Tetley's was
selling over 160,000 barrels a year and had to open a new office to cope
with its phenomenal growth. Sixteen years later in 1890, Tetley's bought
its first pub. Tetley's built one of the first bottling plants ever in
1892, a considerable innovation for the time. Then, over-subscribed
several times, Tetley's went public in 1897. Even two world wars and
four recessions couldn't hold back Tetley's - the demand for their
smooth pint meant that they continued to grow regardless!
1950, and Tetley's owned 500 pubs. Not long after that, in 1954,
Duncan Gilmour's of Sheffield merged with Tetley's, bringing 350 more pubs.
Just shy of the sixties, and pubs were queuing up to join in - William
Whittakers of Bradford, the Melbourne Brewery of Leeds, Walker Cain of
Lancashire, Thomas Ramsden's of Halifax and Chas Rose of Malton, all
became part of the growing Tetley's Brewery, adding hundreds more pubs
to the list of places to enjoy a perfect pint of Tetley's.
In 1961, Tetley's entered a new partnership with Ind Coope of
Burton and Ansell's of Birmingham to make up Allied Breweries. Allied
Breweries pooled their resources to work out more ways that they could
delight their drinkers, but still operated as separate companies. Allied
Breweries then acquired J. Lyons in 1978, and changed its name to Allied
Lyons three years later.
The latest generation of the brewery was opened in May 1989 only
yards from the original brew house. While the equipment was new, the
methods and ingredients remained the same and so did the motto from
all those years ago - 'Quality pays'. Carlsberg-Tetley formed in January
1993, a 50-50 owned company formed by Allied-Lyons and Carlsberg A/S.
In 1998 Carlsberg A/S took over the sole ownership of the company.
Today this makes Tetley's part of the 6th biggest brewer in the world.
|
