Harvey's Brewery is 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 bee ...

in Lewes, East Sussex, England. Harvey's estate includes 45

tied house In the United Kingdom, a tied house is a public house required to buy at least some of its beer from a particular brewery or pub company. That is in contrast to a free house, which is able to choose the beers it stocks freely. A report for th ...

s, mostly in Sussex, and three in London: Royal Oak,

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

, The Cat's Back,

Wandsworth Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Toponymy Wandsworth takes its name ...

and The Phoenix, Stockwell. It sells and distributes its main product, Sussex Best

Bitter Bitter may refer to: Common uses * Resentment, negative emotion or attitude, similar to being jaded, cynical or otherwise negatively affected by experience * Bitter (taste), one of the five basic tastes Books * ''Bitter (novel)'', a 2022 novel ...

, to other pubs, off-licences and social clubs in

south east England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...

. John Harvey established the Bridge Wharf Brewery on its present site by the River Ouse, overlooking Cliffe Bridge.

History

In 1880, part of the original Georgian brewery was rebuilt: the

tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specifi ...

and brew house visible for example from Cliffe Bridge. This is an example of a country brewery with a facade in a

rustic Rustic may refer to: *Rural area *Pastoral Architecture * Rustication (architecture), a masonry technique mainly employed in Renaissance architecture * Rustic architecture, an informal architectural style in the United States and Canada with sever ...

neo-Gothic design of the

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edward ...

, a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

at Grade II*. Behind it stands another half: the Georgian fermenting room, cellars and vat house. The fermenting room, brew house and cellars have not changed in layout and dimensions, although reinforced and their contents have evolved. The vat house was converted and expanded into the modern bottling process. The current yeast strain was introduced in 1957 from Tadcaster Brewery, now John Smith's Brewery.https://www.businessinbrighton.org.uk/blog/2013/11/08/harveys-let-us-some-brewing-secrets In 1984, a second brewing line was completed doubling production capacity from 25,000 to 50,000 barrels a year. The building for this plant has been added in front of the tower in a similar

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style, such as an arched ironwork window. In 2016, after many years of keg beers being absent from the brewery's portfolio, a limited range of them was introduced. Also in 2016 the company made its first entry into the canned beer market with a range that included its flagship Sussex Best Bitter. Harvey's is an independent family company: Harvey & Son (Lewes) Ltd. The seventh generation of John Harvey's descendants are among directors.

Orthography

Although Harvey's Brewery had traditionally omitted an apostrophe from its name and products, the newly designed pump badge (since 2010) for its Sussex Best Bitter included one. Subsequently, individual beer badging omitted or included the apostrophe seemingly randomly. In August 2016 Harvey's launched new branding across the whole company. It was launched at the CAMRA Great British Beer Festival in that month and specifically ensured that an apostrophe was always included in every instance of the brewery's name on point of sale material, websites, glassware, advertising copy and paperwork. At the same time a company strapline was introduced ‘ We wunt be druv’ meaning 'we won't be driven'.

Beers

Harvey's produces cask-conditioned, kegged, canned and bottled ales. In the case of cask-conditioned and bottled ales there is a range which is always available ("all-year"), and then a selection of "seasonal" ales.

Awards

In 2005 and 2006, Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter won the Best Bitter category at the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Great British Beer Festival.

References

External links