century. This water was used to produce clear, pale Burton Ales which became fashionable. With the growth of the railways in the mid 19th century beer could be transported from Burton to London in a few hours and this made Burton a brewing powerhouse. While breweries in large cities such as Burton and Manchester grew quickly, the smaller local breweries struggled to survive.
In 2002 progressive beer duty was introduced, which allowed smaller breweries to pay less tax on the beer produced. This gave the small brewery the ability to compete with the economies of scale of the large breweries. Coupled with dedicated campaigning by CAMRA this allowed the rise of the local small brewery to begin again.
In the mid 20th century the large breweries turned to keg, rather than the traditional casks, to give their beer a longer shelf life and make transportation easier. This gave a further commercial advantage to the big regional and national breweries, all the while smaller breweries were going out of business or being bought up by the bigger concerns.
Doncaster has seen many breweries come and go over the centuries. Most country house estates featured a brewery, Hickleton Hall and Cusworth Hall among them. The brewhouse at Cusworth still exists and you can see where the brewing vessels used to stand. The current Marketplace Alehouse and Deli is situated in the building of the old Don Castle Brewery. Stocks bitter was brewed in a small brewhouse behind the Hallcross Pub.
As the big breweries increased production, the quality of the beer decreased. At the beginning of the 1970’s The Campaign for Real Ale - CAMRA (www.camra.org) was formed to combat this decline in quality. Since then CAMRA has grown to become one of the biggest consumer organisations in the world.
Photography ©Kevin Bagshaw, 2014
and has a popular core range of beers and regular specials. In 2012 Doncaster Brewery opened in Clay Lane, then in 2014 made the welcome decision to move the whole brewery into Doncaster proper, and Doncaster gained it’s own town centre brewery again. With other plans afoot, such as my own small scale brewery Latitude Brewery, and with Doncaster, Glentworth and Imperial breweries going from strength to strength, Doncaster has a great local beery future.
End
Progressive beer duty, CAMRA and the drinkers thirst for locally produced quality beer has helped brewing thrive again in Doncaster. The Glentworth Brewery has been producing beer in Skellow since 1996, Toad Brewery opened in 2010 and brewed for a year. The Imperial Brewery of Mexborough also formed in 2010,
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