Jennings Visit August 2026

Jennings Brewery Ltd, Cockermouth.

By kind invite from Buster Grant and his team around 19 BHS members and guests gathered outside The Castle Brewery of Jennings on the 4th August 2026.

After a few late arrivals due to transport difficulties we were given a brief history of the brewery which in its later days was one of the four breweries that Carlsberg Marston's had owned and had closed recently. The other three were Ringwood Brewery, Banks's Brewery (Wolverhampton) and Wychwood Brewery Ltd.

October 1922 saw the last brew with the main brewery kit at the Castle brewery. Lancaster Bomber being the final brew. The brewery and Workington depot was then closed down. Beers previously brewed were then transferred to the Old Banks Brewery and later Marston at Burton on Trent.

Our tour started in the well house where we were shown the 80 foot deep well predating the brewery and going back to Norman times which had been enlarged in 1884 after the company had moved from Lorton. We the moved onto the old hop loft which in latter days had been used to store malt, dating back to around 1700. It was the oldest part of the brewery and was built using old ships timbers. Here samples of the malt and hops were shown before we moved onto the Malt Mill dating from around 1990 it had previously been at Ward & Co. Ltd, Sheffield and had the date of 26/11/1965 marked upon it. This had replaced an older one dating from the 1920's. The next part of the tour was the Cast Iron Mash tun dating from 1937 and then onto 15 stainless steel fermenting vessels all made by Briggs and all dating from between 1977 and the 1980's, fully enclosed with cleaning in place facilities.

Up until Jennings were taken over by Carlsberg the production had been falling steadily to around 20,000 barrels per year but some of this was contracted brewing. Indeed on my last visit to Jennings some 18 or so years ago they were brewing Wards Bitter for the Vaux estate in Cumbria and producing around 50,000 barrels a year. After the Carlsberg take over Tenterden hops used, mostly from one farm were dropped in favour of cheaper ones. The Malt was also replaced by cheaper products. Quality suffered and sales fell more.

Next door to the brewhouse was a building labelled "Bulk Malt store" indicating that at one time in production history malt had arrived in bulk form but in latter days it was in bag form again.

We were then shown a brew taking place in a yard building which previously was probably the old racking area. This was a new 10 barrel plant obtained second hand and used since the company recommenced brewing on the 10th June 2025 with a dark beer called "Black Yam" following the site's purchase by locals, Kurt and Rebecca Canfield. Work was also being carried out on a second plant in a building nearby which will increase the yearly production to 5,000 barrels a year, cask keg and bottled. This should be ready soon. A private bottling plant exists also in one of the old buildings next door where Jennings beers are now bottled as well as other local beers so costs of transportation are kept to the minimum.

After a very comprehensive tour of the old brewery we were taken to the bar area and were given complimentary one third glasses of Jennings beer to try. The bar area is open to all customers, is dog friendly and well worth a visit if you are in North Cumbria.

There are several suggested plans for the old brewery one of which involves the main brewhouse being kept as a museum next to the sample room. Let us all hope that this option can be achieved so in the all future customers visiting the tap room can appreciate how beer was produced in the past. Surprisingly Jennings had only taken over one brewery in the whole of its life and that was Faulder's Brewery Co. Ltd of Keswick in 1926 and closed soon after. The policy had been to acquired a tied estate of pubs piecemeal. This estate passed eventually to Carlsberg on the takeover.

Geoff Dye August 2026

Photographs courtesy Mick Connors

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