Ringwood: another one bites the dust

The sale of Ringwood Brewery could mean the end of a beer-maker that played a leading role in creating a new and vibrant small independent sector in the 1970s and 1980s.

Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC), the owner of Ringwood, has put both the brewery and its beers up for sale at a time when both a cost of living crisis and an energy crisis could make finding a new owner difficult.

CMBC was formed in 2022, with Carlsberg controlling 60 per cent of the business. It has already closed Jennings in Cumbria and the Eagle Brewery in Bedford and has now added Ringwood in Hampshire to its tour of destruction.

Paul Davies, chief executive of CMBC, said the decision to close Ringwood was taken as the site is in a residential area and makes expansion difficult.

“Investment is required to bring its capacity up to a level we need to be a viable part of CMBC,” he added.

This poses the key question: if CMBC wants to expand production, why is it selling such popular brands as Boondoggle, Fortyniner and Old Thumper?

Ringwood Brewery was launched in 1978 by Peter Austin  (below), known as “the father of micro-brewing”. He was the former head brewer at the Hull Brewery, retired to Hampshire but felt the urge to make beer again after helping create Penhros Court Brewery on the Hereford-Welsh border with investment from Monty Python celebrity and beer lover Terry Jones.

As a result of the success of Ringwood, he went on to build small breweries in the United States, France, Africa and even China.

Ringwood was based in an old bakery but demand for the beers forced it to move in 1986 to part of the former Tunks Brewery on Christchurch Road, founded in 1876. “Part of” is important as it means Tunks was bigger than Ringwood and there are no known complaints from residents in the area about having a brewery in their midst. The local and county authorities didn’t stand in the way of Ringwood moving to Christchurch Road.

When Peter Austin finally retired, Ringwood was run by David Welsh who put the brewery on the map in 1988 when Old Thumper (5.6%) won CAMRA’s coveted Champion Beer of Britain award. To keep pace with demand, Welsh commissioned a new brewhouse in 1994 and further fermenting vessels were added in 2002, boosting annual production to 30,000 barrels a year.

The company was sold to Marston’s in 2007 and production has steadily grown to 50,000 barrels a year. As well as Old Thumper, the beer range includes Boondoggle (formerly Best Bitter), Razorback and Fortyniner. The ABV of Old Thumper has been decreased twice and now stands at 5.1 per cent.

Some 750 accounts are supplied with Ringwood beers. The size of both the brewery and the number of pubs supplied makes its sale all the more remarkable. But in its short life, CMBC has disposed of three breweries that make ale: Jennings, Ringwood and Eagle in Bedford.

Eagle was bought by Marston’s from Charles Wells in 2017 and brewed both ale and lager but was sold by CMBC in  2022 to the Spanish brewer Estrella Damm and the plant now makes only lager.

It seems clear that Carlsberg, a global brewer and the dominant partner in CMBC, has little or no interest in ale. There must now be real concern for the future of the Wychwood Brewery in Oxfordshire that produces both Hobgoblin and Brakspear ales.