Peter Austin and the Ringwood Brewery
Peter Austin and the Ringwood Brewery from 1978 to 2024
By
Geoff Dye
The longest living microbrewery in Great Britain.
The story of Ringwood Brewery starts in the early part of the 1970s, a different time from now when the market in beer and pubs was heavily dominated by a few very large breweries and getting on for a hundred smaller regional and local breweries that had been operating over the early part of the 20th Century. Microbreweries had not been invented and pub breweries consisted of a few home brew pubs, leftovers from a once vast local publican brewing industry. The founder of Ringwood, Peter Austen was previously Head Brewer at Hull Brewery and when Northern Foods took over in 1975. He decided that he did not like the way the new company was going and decided to ‘retire’. He moved to Hampshire to open a sea fishing business which was also a hobby of his. This business was not successful but in 1977 he heard that Terry Jones of Monty Python fame and Richard Boston who was a beer writer for The Guardian newspaper were looking for help in setting up the first new microbrewery near Kingston in Herefordshire at a medieval manor called Penrhos Court, he jumped at the opportunity to assist.
Inspired by the initial success in 1978 he decided to set up his own 15 barrel brewery near his home in Minty’s Yard on New Street in Ringwood, Hampshire originally part of an old bakery. The basic plant was a scaled down version of a traditional brewery. A hot liquor back, a mill, mash tun, copper and a few small fermenting vessels. The location and time were excellent. Surrounded by the New Forest and a brewery nearby at Romsey that had been taken over by Whitbread some nine years earlier (Strongs of Romsey) that was selling off small pubs that were unprofitable as free houses. This gave Peter an ideal opportunity to sell his beer in the small pubs which often sold beer from stillages behind the bar. Whitbread had at the time dropped all the old Strongs beers and only produced a cask Trophy and a cask dark Mild both of rather bland quality. The yeast he used was brought down from Hull brewery and was an original Yorkshire strain from Ramsden Brewery in Halifax that was used to Yorkshire Squares and hence needed constant rousing in traditional vessels. He started his new brewery with business partner David Welsh. Peter did most of the brewing whilst David concentrated on sales. Peter also became interested in helping other people throughout Great Britain set up small breweries and later the rest of the world and was also responsible for writing to the Government price secretary suggesting that a sliding scale of duty should be implemented. When David Bruce contacted him regarding setting up miniature basement brewing kits for his Firkin Pubs it was Austin who vetted the design. In 1980 he was the driving force of the setting up of The Small Independent Brewers Association (SIBA) to rival the existing Brewers Society who tended to represent mainly the family and regional breweries of which there were still quite a few. Within a space of ten years, he had also set up a consultancy business and had helped some 40 small new breweries establish themselves. These included Butcombe which is still brewing today.
Originally only one beer was produced, Ringwood Bitter at 1040o but within three years he was producing Blackjack Porter, Fortyniner and Old Thumper, the latter at 1060o and was dealing with some 40 free trade accounts in the south of England. By 1985 this had increased to 90 accounts and the company had three tied houses. The existing premises were becoming too small for the needs of the company. His consultancy company was also taking off when in 1986 he established a 500-barrel plant at the Mopa brewery in Nigeria as well as several local breweries in China. He also established over 75 breweries in the USA using ‘the Original Peter Austin Brick Kettle Brewing System’. In 1988 he decided to retire at the age of 67 and left the brewery selling his shares in 1990 to partners David and his brother landscape architect Nigel Welsh who had joined in 1980.
At this time the brewery gained one of the most prestigious awards possible when Old Thumper was voted Champion Beer of Great Britain in 1988. The following year was the time of the beer orders in 1989 and the company gained a great deal of trade from the success of Old Thumper the year before as large breweries took the ale as a guest beer, it was even supplied to the Channel Islands. By that time the brewery had some 40 plus work force. The company also sponsored the New Forest Show and even had their own horses and dray for publicity purposes. Extra public houses were acquired making six pubs all close to the brewery.
In 1994 the new brewhouse of 120 barrel length, some Peter Austin at his Ringwood 350/400 barrels per week opened on a site 200 yards Brewery in 199924down the road formerly part of Stephen Tunks brewery which had closed in 1824. It had sufficient capacity to increase that to 700 barrels a week. Production of Best Bitter was 70% of the total produced. It had cost around £250.000 with further spends over the next few years on a new boiler, yeast tanks and a cleaning in place system purchased from Johnson and Johnson the baby products company as well as an adaption to the racking plant. The new brewery was a traditional brewhouse consisting of mash tun, copper and whirlpool enabling a very flexible plant that could push through short runs of 40 barrel for Old Thumper without any partigyling and used floor malted Maris Otter barley supplied by Tuckers and by Simpsons. The company was able to use pelleted hops which were separated in the whirlpool and had been lucky in purchasing four second hand enclosed stainless steel fermenting vessels and four open vessels from the old Julia Hanson brewery that had closed in Dudley. The Blackjack/Porter mild was not a success so four seasonal brews were brought in to replace it with the XXXX Porter available during the winter months proving very popular. In 1997 Rod Williams was appointed as Head Brewer and later in the year the Fayolle vineyard in Bergerac Southwest France was purchased to supply quality wines to their houses and customers. Some 3,000 cases of wine were sold annually and exported to a company in America which Peter Austin had helped set up in 1994 owned by Alan Pugsley called D. L. Geary Brewing Company in Portland, Maine. He had also given permission for them to brew Old Thumper under licence. By 2003 which was the 25th anniversary of the company they supplied some 600 accounts in the UK. The brewery shop on site doubled as a visitor centre and sold a considerable amount of beer a year straight from the cask as well as full casks and bottles. A major new development took place in 2005/6 which saw the addition of seven new conditioning tanks.
Suddenly in 2007 Ringwood brewery was purchased by Marston’s PLC for £19.2 million at the height of production around 42,000 barrels per year, but with plans to increase to 50,000 barrels by 2010. Some 750 outlets were supplied, and seven pubs owned. After purchase, production of bottled beers moved to Burton whilst the seasonal ales were discontinued. Peter Austin died on the 1st January 2014 at the age of 92. The brewery was now only small cog in a large operation and when in May 2020 the whole of Marston’s brewing empire was sold to Carlsberg an even smaller cog!
The new company sold its Bedford brewery, previously Wells and Youngs, and both Jennings brewery and Wychwood brewery closed. Then the inevitable happened, after a massive fall in sales of 75% at Ringwood following the Covid, the brewery was put up for sale on the 7th June 2023. This appeared to be something of a lifeline for the brewery as a consortium led by Anthony Swift was interested in taking over the brands and brewery saving 14 jobs and was planning to employ a further 21 persons. They approached Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Co but their offer and plans were apparently not even discussed. By late 2023 the distribution of beers had now moved to depots elsewhere and there were only eight staff left in the brewery. The very popular brewery tours had been discontinued and it was obvious that the brewery and brands did not fit in with the new company’s operation. As at the end of December 2023 the brewery awaits the same fate as the others closed by Carlsberg Marston’s. Hopefully some of the equipment will find homes in other medium size breweries in the UK rather than go for scrap.
A very sad end to a great company.
References:
- Ringwood 25. Roger Protz
- Beer, Summer 2014. David Bruce
- Beer, Summer 2014 *Peter Austin
- What’s Brewing June 1999.
- The Brewer September 2000.
- Promotion leaflets issued by Ringwood and internet