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Birmingham Brewery Company

Heartland

Heartland

master brummie
The last part of the Old Birmingham Brewery to survive is the Brewmaster House beside the canal facing Brindley Place.

The Birmingham Brewery Company with a shareholding base was created in 1814 with the brewery opening in the year 1816. The offices were located in St Peters Place and in addition to the brewery the site came to include 2 malthouses and a canal basin. That basin is also still there next to the Malthouse Public House. The Birmingham Brewery Company became the Birmingham and District Brewery Company in 1876 but was in receivership in 1881, when it seems yet another company was created. The Original Brewery ceased brewing , but the malthouses remained. Butlers established the Crown Brewery nearby.

The brewery trade was restricted, it seems to the family trade when they sold their various brews in 9 and 18 gallon casks. Although not the first of the Birmingham Breweries it had a relatively long life and it occupied a large strip of land near the Birmingham Canal, which is now covered by the ICC.
 
The Birmingham Brewery became a Company around 1835. The earliest mention in the Press is in 1815 at Birmingham Brewery’s General Meeting at the new Brewery in The Crescent. The meeting was to determine upon the propriety of renting and taking of Theodore Price Esq. an additional quantity of ground adjoining the Brewery, and the buildings thereon, for other special purposes.
 
Yes, the Brewery Company articles of association (1817) refer to the indenture of 1814.

ARTICLES.​

This Indenture, made the Twenty second day of March, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Fourteen, between the several persons whose names are hereunto written, and seals affixed, of the one part ; and Theodore Price, esquire, Samuel Lloyd, banker, Sampson Tomlinson, merchant, Joseph Cottrell, gentleman, and John Simcox, gentleman, all of Birmingham, in the county of Warwick, of the other part-Whereas, the town of Birmingham is very large, and the neighbourhood thereof very populous ; and it is conceived that it would tend greatly to the convenience of the inhabitants if a public Brewery was erected to supply them with pure and wholesome Ale, Porter, and Beer of a genuine quality, and at a moderate price ; and it has been proposed, and the parties whose names and seals are hereunto subscribed and set, have agreed to form themselves into a Company, Society, or Co-partnership for the purposes aforesaid, under the firm of the Birmingham Brewery Company, upon the terms and conditions, and subject to the restrictions and agreements hereinafter expressed, declared, and contained, of and concerning the same


Whilst the Malthouse structures survived until demolition for the ICC construction, the brewery element ended, on site, as stated in 1881. I note from the rate map (c 1870) that there was a boiler house on site then and no doubt coal was received at the adjacent Brewery Basin.
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Yes the brewery element ended, on site, as stated in 1881. It seems the site was then probably rented by Messrs B. N. Smith and Son builders and Contractors, and in 1885 put up again for auction by the liquidators of the Birmingham and District Brewery company.

At the auction it was described…St Peter's Place extensive property, workshops, storerooms, yard, stabbing, canal basin, offices and Manager's House. The whole extending more than half an acre recently in occupation of Messrs B. N. Smith and Son builders and Contractors.
 
The Birmingham Brewery seems to have remained essentially intact into the 1950's and later. The 1955 ordnance survey shows the buildings split into four business units.
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No 7 St Peters Place is now called the Brewmasters House, possibly in recognition of Brewing days. It was also mentioned in advertisements when the Brewery was in operation as the Offices and perhaps that title is better applied now to this survivor.

In fact, is the building listed? and should it be ?
 
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