Ushers of Trowbridge was a

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of be ...

Trowbridge Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England, on the River Biss in the west of the county. It is near the border with Somerset and lies southeast of Bath, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of Swindon and 20 miles (32 km) southe ...

, Wiltshire, England, between 1824 and 2000.

History

In 1824, Thomas Usher and his wife Hannah acquired a small brewery in Back Street, Trowbridge, renaming it Usher's Wiltshire Brewery. In 1844, the couple's three sons joined the partnership, allowing the parents to retire in 1869. After this, the beers and brand developed a loyal following, facilitating a quick expansion of the company through the 19th century. In 1887, the partnership took over Fanshaw & Palmer of

Donnington, Berkshire Donnington is an English suburban village in the civil parish of Shaw-cum-Donnington, just north of the town of Newbury, Berkshire. It contains a ruined medieval castle and a Strawberry Hill Gothic mansion. Notable buildings Castle Donnington ...

. This resulted in the registration in 1889 of Usher's Wiltshire Brewery Ltd to combine the two organisations. From its date of formation until the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the company acquired some fifteen independent breweries and their associated

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

premises. After 1945, the company acquired Conigre House and gardens in Trowbridge, then the home of the local Liberal Club, enabling it to double the scale of its brewery and bottling plant. Having dropped the apostrophe from its registered name in 1951, in 1960 the company agreed to a takeover bid from the acquisitive

Watney Mann Watney Combe & Reid was a leading brewery in London. At its peak in the 1930s it was a constituent of the FT 30 index of leading companies on the London Stock Exchange. It produced Watney's Red Barrel. History The Watney family were the mai ...

. The joint assets included the brewery sites in both London (soon closed) and Trowbridge, together with 900 pubs. In 1964, the company changed its registered name to Ushers Brewers Ltd. Watney Mann merged with

Grand Metropolitan Grand Metropolitan plc was a leisure, manufacturing and property conglomerate headquartered in England. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index until it merged with Guinness plc to form ...

Hotels in 1972. In 1991 Roger North, the MD of Grand Met Brewing led a

management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...

creating a reconstituted Ushers Brewers Ltd, with an estate of smaller pubs deemed by Grand Metropolitan to be too small or not capable of redevelopment. The new company began acquiring pubs to provide a distribution network, under a holding company called Innspired Pubs. By March 1997 the company owned 541 pubs and floated on the London Stock Exchange after a previous float had been aborted in 1995. Following a profit warning, North took the company private again in December 1998 with the backing of

Alchemy Partners Alchemy Partners is a British private equity firm, which specialises in investing in distressed and undervalued or underperforming businesses and other special situations through debt and equity throughout Europe. Alchemy was founded in 1997 by ...

. The accounts to 31 October 1998 showed the brewery making operating profit of £6.3m on sales of £45.8m whilst the tenanted pubs had an operating profit of £11.7m on turnover of £27.9m. However, North fell out with Alchemy because they "wanted to take Ushers down a route with less emphasis on brewing and brands". Alchemy merged Ushers with 250 pubs in the Alehouse chain that they had acquired in June 1997, and replaced North with Robert Breare who came from a hotel background and proclaimed himself "a devotee of a major separation between brewing and retail". Breare claimed that the brewery was "big enough to make serious money. When it is close to capacity it is very, very profitable" but it was running at 70% of its 600,000 barrels-per-year capacity and was closed in 2000. The residual pub operator company, renamed Innspired Pubs plc, was bought by

Punch Taverns Punch Pubs & Co is a pub and bar operator in the United Kingdom, with around 1,300 leased pubs. It is headquartered in the traditional brewing centre of Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange as a constitu ...

in September 2004. Today, beers are brewed under the Usher name by the

Wychwood Brewery Wychwood Brewery is a brewery in Witney, Oxfordshire, England, owned by Marston's. The company's flagship brand is Hobgoblin, a 5.2% abv brown ale. Wychwood Brewery produces around 50,000 barrels () of cask ale each year, and is the United Ki ...

for

Refresh UK Wychwood Brewery is a brewery in Witney, Oxfordshire, England, owned by Marston's. The company's flagship brand is Hobgoblin, a 5.2% abv brown ale. Wychwood Brewery produces around 50,000 barrels () of cask ale each year, and is the United K ...

Legacy

The brewery equipment was sold for £1.5M to

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

via German broker Uwe Oehms. It now forms the core of the

Taedonggang Taedonggang is a brand of North Korean beer brewed by the state-owned Taedonggang Brewing Company based in Pyongyang. There are four brands of beer marketed as Taedonggang, though the brand known simply as "Taedonggang Beer" is that described ...

brewery, located just outside

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populatio ...

. In 2009, its new brew "Taedong River Beer" made international headlines after featuring in what is thought to be North Korean television's first beer advert. The main Trowbridge site was redeveloped into housing (including the Ushers Apartments) and a

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...

supermarket.

References

{{Authority control Companies based in Wiltshire Defunct breweries of the United Kingdom British companies established in 1824 Companies disestablished in 2004 Trowbridge 1824 establishments in England Food and drink companies established in 1824 Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange