Type | Brewery |
---|---|
Industry | Brewing |
Founded | 1849 |
Founder | Joseph Holt |
Headquarters | , England |
Number of locations | 127 pubs (2019) |
Area served | North West England |
Key people | Richard Kershaw (CEO) |
Products | Beer |
Brands | Bitter, Two Hoots, Black Crystal, Diamond, Crystal Gold, Humdinger, Sixex |
Services | Public houses, beer wholesaler |
Parent | Joseph Holt Limited |
Subsidiaries | Touchwood Limited |
Website | Joseph Holt |
Joseph Holt is an English brewer of beer, founded in 1849 and remaining in the same family for six generations. The company is based in Manchester and owns 127 pubs in Greater Manchester and the North West. Its beers are supplied to over 500 locations nationally. [1]
Joseph Holt have brewed on their site in the Cheetham area, to the north of Manchester city centre, since 1860. [2] Ale and lager malts are now delivered in bulk loads and stored in silos while speciality malts continue to be delivered in sacks. Between 15 and 500 barrels (4,500 – 150,000 pints) can be brewed per day, [3] and a hopback is still in use, along with traditional whole leaf hops, to collect and clarify wort after boiling. All ales are top fermented in enclosed square fermenters using the historic Joseph Holt yeast strain, while lagers are fermented and conditioned in modern cylindroconical vessels. Joseph Holt have their own borehole on the brewery site to abstract brewing liquor (water) and are one of only a handful of brewers in the UK still to rack into 36 gallon casks, [4] as well as hogsheads, the largest barrel size, carrying 432 pints (54 imperial gallons; 250 L) and weighing roughly 660 pounds (300 kg) when full. [5]
Joseph Holt, the son of a weaver, [6] was born in 1813 in Unsworth, a textile village near Bury. He worked as a carter at Harrison's Strangeways Brewery. In 1849 he married Catherine Parry, who helped finance a small brewery behind a pub on Oak Street, Manchester. [6]
In 1860, he purchased the brewery site on Empire Street, Cheetham. [6] His reputation in Manchester endures; in 2007, readers of the Manchester Evening News voted him "People's Champion" in the "Greatest ever Business Leaders" awards. [7] In 1882, by which time he had established a chain of 20 public houses, Joseph passed control of the brewery to his son Edward. Edward Holt was later knighted, served as Lord Mayor of Manchester from 1907 to 1909 and was made a baronet in 1916. He died in 1928 and the company passed to his son, Edward; it is still in the hands of the same family. [6]
For more than thirty years, Peter Kershaw, a former rackets and real tennis champion and a notoriously economical man, was chairman of the brewery. [8] His son, Richard Kershaw, the great-grandson of the founder, [6] joined him on the board in 1980 and, since the death of his father in 2000, [8] is the chief executive.
The company has a long-standing relationship with the Christie Hospital and the Holt Radium Institute in Manchester. This dates back to Sir Edward Holt, the great-grandfather of the current Chief Executive who founded the Holt Radium Institute in 1914.
In 2018 Joseph Holt received the British Beer and Pub Association's Heart of the Community award for the third year in a row, following campaigns to raise money for the Christie and Maggie's Centre. [9] In 2017 the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group awarded Joseph Holt the National Pub Aid award for their support to the community. [10]
Beer is one of the oldest types of alcoholic drinks in the world, and the most widely consumed. It is the third most popular drink overall after potable water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from cereal grains—most commonly malted barley, though wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. During the brewing process, fermentation of the starch sugars in the wort produces ethanol and carbonation in the resulting beer. Most modern beer is brewed with hops, which add bitterness and other flavours and act as a natural preservative and stabilising agent. Other flavouring agents such as gruit, herbs, or fruits may be included or used instead of hops. In commercial brewing, the natural carbonation effect is often removed during processing and replaced with forced carbonation.
Mild ale is a type of ale. Modern milds are mostly dark-coloured, with an alcohol by volume (ABV) of 3% to 3.6%, although there are lighter-hued as well as stronger milds, reaching 6% abv and higher. Mild originated in Britain in the 17th century or earlier, and originally meant a young ale, as opposed to a "stale" aged or old ale.
Pale ale is a golden to amber coloured beer style brewed with pale malt. The term first appeared in England around 1703 for beers made from malts dried with high-carbon coke, which resulted in a lighter colour than other beers popular at that time. Different brewing practices and hop quantities have resulted in a range of tastes and strengths within the pale ale family.
Pale lager is a very pale-to-golden-colored lager beer with a well-attenuated body and a varying degree of noble hop bitterness.
Smoked beer is a type of beer with a distinctive smoke flavour imparted by using malted barley dried over an open flame.
India pale ale (IPA) is a hoppy beer style within the broader category of pale ale.
Bitter is an English style of pale ale that varies in colour from gold to dark amber, and in strength typically from 3% to 5.5% alcohol by volume.
Fuller's Brewery in Chiswick, west London, England, is the former brewing division of Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC. It was a family-run business from its foundation in 1845 until 2019, when it was sold to the Japanese international beverage giant Asahi.
Beer has been brewed in England for thousands of years. As a beer brewing country, it is known for top fermented cask beer which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery and is served with only natural carbonation.
Beer arrived in Australia at the beginning of British colonisation. In 2004 Australia was ranked fourth internationally in per capita beer consumption, at around 110 litres per year; although, the nation ranked considerably lower in a World Health Organization report of alcohol consumption per capita of 12.2 litres. Lager is by far the most popular type of beer consumed in Australia.
Beer, called maekju in Korean, was first introduced to Korea in the early 20th century. Seoul's first brewery opened in 1908. Two current major breweries date back to the 1930s. The third brewery established in Korea, Jinro Coors Brewery, was founded in the 1990s. It was later acquired by Oriental Breweries (OB). Hite Breweries's former name was Chosun Breweries, which was established in 1933. The company changed its name to Hite Breweries in 1998. OB Breweries established as Showa Kirin Breweries in 1933. The company changed its name to OB Breweries in 1995.
Beer styles differentiate and categorise beers by colour, flavour, strength, ingredients, production method, recipe, history, or origin.
Mountain Goat Beer is a brewery in Richmond, Victoria, Australia. The brewery was founded in 1997 by Cam Hines and Dave Bonighton. The company's first commercial brew, 'Hightale Ale' amber ale, was released in October 1997. Mountain Goat Beer was purchased by Asahi in September 2015.
McMullen's, known locally as Mac's, is a regional brewery founded in 1827 in Hertford, England. The brewery expanded during the second half of the 19th century by purchasing other breweries and their associated pubs. In 1902 it was the second largest brewery in Hertfordshire. The brewery has occupied several different sites in Hertford and moved to its current location in 1891. There have been several breweries on this site and the current one opened in 2006. As of 2021, members of the 6th generation of the McMullen family are still involved with the business.
The Marble Brewery is a microbrewery in Manchester, England which makes cask ale from organic and vegetarian ingredients.
Sharp's Brewery is a British brewery founded in 1994 in St Minver Lowlands, Rock, Cornwall, by Bill Sharp. Since 2011, the brewery has been owned by Molson Coors. It is best known for its flagship ale Doom Bar, named after the notoriously perilous Doom Bar sandbank in north Cornwall.
The Malt Shovel Brewery is an Australian brewery owned by Lion, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Kirin. It is located in Camperdown, New South Wales. Malt Shovel is best known for its James Squire range of beers. The beer is named after the convict turned Australia's first brewer James Squire, who also went on to grow Australia's first hops and is said to have created Australia's first commercial brewery.
Lager is beer which has been brewed and conditioned at low temperature. Lagers can be pale, amber, or dark. Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially available style of beer. The term "lager" comes from the German for "storage", as the beer was stored before drinking, traditionally in the same cool caves in which it was fermented.
Camerons Brewery is an English brewery established by John William Cameron in Stranton, Hartlepool, County Durham, in 1865. It is the largest independent brewer in the North East of England, with a brewery capacity of 1.5 million hectolitres and a tied estate of 75 houses. It is one of the oldest industrial concerns in Hartlepool, and has historically been one of the largest employers.
Most beer sold in France is pilsner lager, mass-produced by major breweries which control over 90% of the market, although there are also traditional beer styles, such as top-fermented Bière de Garde, and a number of microbreweries.