Products Beer Owner Charles Wells | Founder John Courage Founded 1787 | |
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Real ale of britain courage brewery best bitter 3 8
Courage Brewery was an English brewing company, founded by John Courage in London in 1787. Its beers, Courage Best (4% ABV), Directors (4.8% ABV) and Courage Imperial Russian Stout (10% ABV), are now brewed by Charles Wells Ltd.
Contents
- Real ale of britain courage brewery best bitter 3 8
- Courage best by courage brewery craft beer review
- History
- Beers
- Advertising
- Sponsorship
- References
Courage best by courage brewery craft beer review
History
Courage & Co Ltd was started by John Courage at the Anchor Brewhouse in Horsleydown, Bermondsey in 1787. He was a Scottish shipping agent of French Huguenot descent. It became Courage & Donaldson in 1797. By 1888, it had been registered simply as Courage. In 1955, the company merged with Barclay, Perkins & Co Ltd (who were located at the nearby Anchor Brewery) to become Courage, Barclay & Co Ltd. Only five years later another merger with the Reading based Simonds Brewery led to the name changing to Courage, Barclay, Simonds & Co Ltd. In the late 1960s, the group had assets of approximately £100m, and operated five breweries in London, Reading, Bristol, Plymouth and Newark-on-Trent. It owned some 5,000 licensed premises spread over the whole of Southern England, a large part of South Wales and an extensive area of the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. It was employing some 15,000 people and producing something like 75 million imperial gallons (340,000,000 L) of beer annually. Its name was simplified to Courage Ltd in October 1970 and the company was taken over by the Imperial Tobacco Group Ltd two years later.
Its vast Worton Grange (later the Berkshire) brewery was opened on the Reading/Shinfield border in 1978. The Anchor Brewery closed in 1981 and all brewing was transferred to Reading. Imperial Tobacco was acquired by the Hanson Trust in 1986 and it sold off Courage to Elders IXL who were renamed the Foster's Brewing Group in 1990. The following year the Courage section of Foster's merged with the breweries of Grand Metropolitan. Its public houses were owned by a joint-company called Inntrepreneur Estates. Scottish & Newcastle purchased Courage from Foster's in 1995, creating Scottish Courage as its brewing arm.
In January 2007, the rights for the production, marketing and sales of the Courage brands were sold to Wells & Young’s Brewing Company of Bedford which reverted to Charles Wells once Wells bought out Young's shares in the venture. This is managed by a venture called Courage Brands Ltd Heineken retained a 17 per cent stake in the venture until 2011, when Wells & Young's acquired complete control. The Berkshire Brewery closed in April 2010. Courage Best has undergone a significant decline in sales from almost 421,000 hectolitres in 2003 to under 142,000 hectolitres in 2012. The decline of Courage Directors has levelled off at around 60,000 hectolitres, which is down from 140,000 hl in 2003. Wells & Young's reintroduced the historic brew, Courage Imperial Russian Stout, which was first brewed in the 18th century by Thrale's brewery.but it has mainly proved to be produced for distribution in the U.S.A. with limited amounts available in the UK.
Beers
Beers bearing the Courage name include:
Advertising
The Rockney duo Chas & Dave's single "Gertcha" was used in a series of television commercials for Courage Bitter shown in the South of England in the 1980s. Also, the Director's Bitter is a favourite of the British television character Alan Partridge. He shares this passion during his short-lived friendship with Dan, who states that he has it 'coming out of his taps' in the episode "Brave Alan".
Sponsorship
The brewery sponsored Reading FC from 1984 until 1990. Courage sponsored the English Premiership rugby union league for ten years from 1987 until 1997. Courage Best Bitter is a sponsor of rugby union club the Exeter Chiefs.