My Best Job with Allied: Paul Ambler

An aerial view from 1972

Fermenting Room

Conditioning Tank Corridor

Malt wagons incurring a daily demurrage charge

My best job with Allied

Paul Ambler: Second brewer at Ind Coope Alloa Brewery 1977-79

Ind Coope Alloa Brewery Ltd

Paul Ambler joined Ind Coope in 1968. He first received the classic graduate training as an operative at Burton and Wrexham followed by shift brewing at Wrexham then a year at Birmingham Brewing School. There he was awarded the William Waters Butler Award for the best student. This was followed by two positions at Allied Breweries (Production) Burton Headquarters - five years dedicated to continuous brewing and fermenting, first running a pilot plant, then commissioning and finally running a larger plant. Then he was appointed as Production Resources Planner, which involved allocating five year sales forecasts to seven Allied plants and suggesting which breweries should grow and which should not. This planning role was a bit of a farce as the sales forecasts indicated ever growing sales of Draught Double Diamond, hardly any growth in lagers and no new products! So it was a great relief in 1977 to be offered a "proper job" as Brewing and Technical Manager (effectively Second Brewer) at Alloa.

Apart from being 300 miles from Burton HQ, Alloa was an excellent medium-sized brewery. A very tidy brewery with a beautiful 1950s copper brewhouse - so beautiful that Professor Ludwig Narziss described it as a "Sunday Brewhouse". It was manufactured in Denmark by Christian Berner AB and was reputed to be the final large cargo into Alloa Docks. Like its cousin in Wrexham, it was built to brew lager in the late 1950s / early 1960s. By the time he arrived, decoction mashing had been abandoned and the traditional lagering process had been replaced by shorter ageing as AB140, a lager yeast from Dominion Breweries in New Zealand which produced no perceptible diacetyl in primary fermentation. He was no stranger to AB140: Dominion used it in stirred tank continuous fermentation. Dr Ron Hall brought a sample back to Burton. Bob Anderson cleaned it up and grew up a culture. Then it was introduced it to the pilot scale stirred tanks in Burton HQ. in the late 1970s, a small pub estate had been bought by Ind Coope (Scotland). So a new ale, Diamond Heavy (strap line, "It's brewed in Scotland so you can nay complain!") was brewed in addition to lager at Alloa. So AB80 (Ansell's yeast) shared the yeast room with AB140.

Paul's first task at Alloa involved producing the annual budget. The brewing department budget included a massive cost for demurrage, a term unknown in Burton. The brewery was served by a spur off the local railway line, which used to be used for filling rail tanks with beer and was still used for delivering British Railways malt wagons. Lager malt came exclusively by rail, from Pauls at Gainsborough and Moray Firth Maltings in Inverness. No matter how the malt was ordered, British Rail delivered the wagons at random in small groups and at a time that suited them. The conveyor system at the brewery served not only malt intake but also weighed quantities for mashing each brew. Consequently, only one wagon load of malt could be unloaded per day. So British Rail were making a fortune from demurrage while the brewery hung on to the wagons. He decided to call hauliers Russells of Bathgate to see if their bulk tankers could reverse along the rails and sleepers in the yard and deliver malt. A site visit resulted in a definite "yes" and both maltsters agreed to abandon rail transport. Not only did the malt man at the brewery have an easier job, as Russells delivered to a specified time but there was no more demurrage. Paul was pleased to make this saving which closely matched his annual salary and he rather hoped that this change was appreciated by his seniors.

His boss was Ronnie Ormiston, Head Brewer. Ronnie was close to retirement and therefore quite happy to put his No.2 on a very long and loose lead. Of course, Ronnie was kept advised but never dictated. His attitude and that of many others were the main source of the pleasure of working at Alloa Brewery.

Whilst at Burton, Paul had come to admire the management style of Roy Moss, Brewery Director and former Chief Engineer at Tetley Leeds. On arriving at work, Roy made a point of walking round the brewery and talking to staff, first to introduce himself and then to gauge the mood in the plant. So at Alloa, this style was adopted. It worked well, but did gain him the reputation amongst managers of refusing to agree to meetings scheduled at the start of their working day!

There are many pleasant recollections - Paul and Quality Control Brewer, Harvey Milne were charged with solving the problem of wild yeast infection in keg beer. He had to get absolute authority to stop the keg line and/or stop the distribution of suspect kegs containing infected beer. Allan Hardie accepted this statement but did comment that only Ambler and the Pope were known to have absolute authority! At first the investigators observed that flexible hoses on the keg fillers were very worn and cracked. So these were all replaced with new hose but sadly this did not solve the problem. So the pair took turns to observe the night shift cleaning and sterilising the plant. Hey presto - the wild yeast problem disappeared! The cleaning and sterilising process was monitored by time and temperature recorded by an ink trace on a circular paper graph. Some bright spark realised that you could turn the graph by hand thus giving the crew an opportunity to shorten the process and spend extra time in the mess room. So the Packaging Manager had to have strong words with senior staff on the night shift. This did the trick; if not, Harvey suggested that an overhead railway should be set up on which coat hangers holding white coats should appear at random intervals!

At the time Central Scotland, like Northern Ireland, has its fair share of religious bigotry. So Paul, the unenlightened Englishman was invited to solve a problem at a customer's pub, the Clelland Bar in Hospital Street in what remained of the Gorbals. Draymen from Coatbridge had refused to deliver to the Clelland because there was an 'open sewer' in the cellar. Apparently the owner had recently fallen from the roof of the establishment, so, thinking that such an accident on Hospital Street was a fortunate chance, he was ushered to the cellar by the bar manager. There was running water across the cellar floor, but it was clear and odour free, so it was decided it was ground water, not unknown in cellars. The beer was from delivered from cellar tanks, filled by a hose from transportable tanks on the dray, so the chance of the water mixing with the lager was minimal. A cup of coffee and a potato scone were politely accepted and then everything became clear. There was a massive photograph of Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker on the bar wall. The Coatbridge draymen must be Protestants and the real reason for the problem was passed to the Transport Manager.

During the 1978 'Winter of Discontent' there was a strike at Alloa Brewery. This started when an operator 'working to rule' shut down his filter for a meal break. He was dismissed. There was a rumour that the Labour Government thought big breweries were making excessive profits and encouraged leaders of the T&GWU to organise strikes over pay. This could be true, as during the strike the relationship between management and union members was remarkably cordial. Paul remembers having to run up regularly the main boiler and check refrigerator compressors and cold room temperatures. There was no trouble with pickets, for the brewery was being kept in good order for their return. Other members of the brewing staff were manning the security gatehouse around the clock reported that they had the company of pickets inside the heated gatehouse every night. Soon the strike ended. A pay rise had been agreed on the basis of improved flexible working and the filter man was re-employed.

Later in 1979 Ambler was offered a post at McMullens in Hertford, a good job outside Allied Breweries. Ronnie Ormiston congratulated him on such a promotion and the supervisors invited him to a haggis and neaps lunch in the Brewhouse supervisors' 'bothy' and colleagues treated him to a spoof 'This Is Your Life' farewell in the Lager Tavern. Paul stayed at McMullens for twelve years and then spent another 17 at Black Sheep but that is another story.

Paul says "I make no apology that this report is more about people than technical brewing. My strongest memory of Alloa Brewery is certainly the camaraderie".

Paul Ambler

Ivor Reid at the Scottish Brewery Archive Association provided this potted history of the brewery.

The Alloa brewery closed in 1998 and can trace its history back to the Alloa Brewery Company established in the town in 1810 by William Foote, Ebenezer Thompson and Andrew Roy. By 1825, Andrew Roy had bought out his partners and the company was trading under the name of Andrew Roy & Co. Sometime after 1837, Roy bought the neighbouring Hutton Park Brewery of John H Syme.

In 1848 Andrew's eldest son Robert M Roy became a partner in the business, but after Andrew's death in 1855 the Alloa and Hutton Park breweries were conveyed to trustees by way of Deed of Settlement. The trustees ran the business until 1860 when it was acquired once more by Robert Roy.

In 1866 the Alloa Brewery was bought by Archibald Arrol of Glasgow, previously the west coast agent for Roy's Alloa Ales. After his death in 1881 the business eventually passed to two of his sons, Walter and Archibald, in 1888. From 1921 the company produced lager for Samuel Allsopp, having moved its unused lager plant from Burton on Trent to Alloa. The brewery developed Graham's Golden Lager in 1927 and Graham's Continental which was eventually renamed Skol Lager in the 1950s.

John J Calder became Allsopps MD in 1913 and also joined the Arrol Board in 1919 and eventually Allsopps took a controlling interest in Archibald Arrol & Sons Ltd in 1930. In 1951 the company went into voluntary liquidation and the business, which included 29 licensed houses, was acquired by Ind Coope & Allsopp Ltd.