Visited with clebby
A short drive up to Walsall with a hungover clebby to an old brewery on a sunny afternoon. Wasn't expecting much from this place but I was pleasantly surprised. Anticipating this would be a short visit, all photos are handheld except for the first few, prior to setting the alarm off whilst trying to avoid it in comical fashion. We had a good half an hour to look around, the place is quite a bit smaller than it looks once you're in but we saw the vast majority. Upon exit the alarm had stopped and soon enough a man and his unthreatening dog turned up, who gave us the standard 'the police are on their way' and 'you're in serious trouble' spiel but was fine once he could see we weren't thieving.
History
The Highgate Brewery was built for J. A. Fletcher and became operational in 1898 as a small brewing concern; producing a single, mild ale, and employing only three or four people. The tower brewery building is shown on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map of 1903
At its peak, Highgate produced 100,000 barrels a year and owned 400 pubs. In 1914 a woman head brewer, Agnes Mountfield, was appointed and she remained in office until 1939. In the same year, Highgate was bought by the large Mitchells & Butlers brewery in Birmingham, which in turn was taken over Bass of Burton-on-Trent in 1961. Bass made much of the fact that Highgate was the only brewery in its group to make only dark beers but it nevertheless decided to close the plant in 1995. It was rescued by a management buy-out led by Steve Nuttall and head brewer Neil Bain, who raised £600,000 to buy the brewery.
Stripped of its pubs, Highgate struggled and it was eventually sold to the Aston Manor brewing company, which made keg beer and cider. In 2007 Aston Manor sold Highgate to the Global Star company, now Empire Star, which sold it on to property developers.
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