The oldest brewery in England is set to smash the £1 million sales barrier for the first time in its 372-year history – a decade after it almost folded.
The Three Tuns Brewery – which was saved from closure ten years ago by a former Wall Street broker from Wolverhampton – was granted a licence by King Charles I in 1642.
The Shropshire brewery has seen demand soar for its range of beers taken from a secret recipe book, including XXX, 1642 Bitter and Cleric’s Cure, on the back of soaring demand for real ale, and has now broken the seven-figure barrier for the first time.
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But it could all have been a different story, as the brewery was once due to be sold and turned into a block of flats.
More than 500 pubs are now stocking the company’s cask ales after owners John Russell and Bill Bainbridge targeted a greater share of the market in the West Midlands.
Mr Russell, who previously worked as a futures trader and was made a divisional director of NatWest at the age of 29, said the pair still had more ambitions, including opening the brewery’s first pub.
He said: “We’re now up to 100 brewer’s barrels per week and have set our sights on increasing the number of pubs we supply.
“The Black Country is a big growth area for us and you can already find Three Tuns beers in the The Barley Mow at Penn Common, The Crown at Pattingham and occasionally in the Horse and Jockey in Woodsetton.”
The pair have invested nearly £900,000 into creating a new brewing system at their base in Bishops Castle.
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This involved a major operation to install new water tanks, fermenting vessels and a state-of-the-art brewery kettle.
While facilities needed upgrading to cope with the volume of beer being produced, there has been a commitment to retain a lot of the original brewery features including a copper fermenting tank from 1880 and liquor tank and pulley system, still in everyday use.
The Victorian tower houses the new updated and ultra modern gravity brewing system, whereas the original 16th century brewhouse is now used exclusively for fermentation.
It is also home to the famous Three Tuns yeast, a strain that is 120 years old and crucial to the distinctive taste of the brewery’s beers.
It all represents a major career turn for Mr Russell, who worked on the Chicago, London, New York and Singapore stock exchanges in a career that saw him head up top Wall Street brokerage Yamaichi Futures Options.
Mr Bainbridge said it had taken the pair more than a decade to develop the business, but said it was now one of the most respected craft breweries in the world.