Everards
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| Privately held company | |
| Industry | Brewery |
| Founded | 1849 |
| Headquarters | Leicester, England, UK |
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Production output
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c.50,000 barrels a year |
| Website | www.everards.co.uk |
Everards is a regional brewery based in Leicester and founded in 1849 by William Everard and Thomas Hull. It produces cask ales and owns over 170 tenanted pubs, mainly around the Leicestershire area. Its chairman is fifth generation Richard Everard.
The company began as Hull and Everard in 1849 when William Everard, a farmer from Narborough Wood House and brewer Thomas Hull leased the Southgate Street Brewery of Wilmot and Co from the retiring proprietors. Although Hull continued as a maltster, Everard was the driving force behind the business which he managed until his death in 1892.
The business expanded as the company progressively acquired outlets, with over 100 pubs by the late 1880s. In 1875, the company moved to a new state of the art tower brewery designed by William's nephew architect John Breedon Everard. The brewery, on the corner of Southgate St and Castle St extracted very pure water from wells 300 feet deep beneath the premises and steam engines played a significant part in the mechanisation.
After the death of William, control passed to his son Thomas. The historic centre of the UK brewing industry remained some 40 miles away at Burton-upon-Trent, which by the 1890s produced one tenth of Britain's beer. Everard's leased the Bridge Brewery on Umplett Green island in 1895 but its 10,000 barrels per year capacity proved insufficient. It was replaced with the newer Trent brewery in Dale St which became available after going into liquidation in 1898. The Southgate brewery remained the distribution centre to the Leicestershire pubs with beer arriving by rail from Burton. The Trent brewery was purchased outright in 1901.(sources differ) It was renamed the Tiger Brewery around 1970.
Beer production was seriously affected by World War I, both due to recruitment and the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 which required beer to be diluted, restricted opening times and rationed raw materials.
Around 1920 Everards bought wine and spirit merchants John Sarsons & Son of Hotel St, Leicester, a major supplier to wealthy homes.
Thomas moved his family from Narborough Wood House to Nanpantan Hall. In 1909 he opened a cattle trough in Groby on behalf of the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. and in 1921, a year which saw beer production peak at 55,000 barrels, the company acquired the Stamford Arms in Groby, the former home of both Thomas's grandfather, Richard Everard a yeoman tenant farmer of the Grey estate and his great grandfather.
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Wikipedia