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Founded
in 1875 the Daybrook Brewery, famous for its gated frontage
and ‘beer mat’ trademark bearing local legend Robin
Hood firing his arrow, remained independent until sold by the
family owners to Scottish & Newcastle (S&N), one of
the National Brewers, in 1986.
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| Home
Brewery trademark |
Initially
staunch ‘Home’ drinkers detected small changes in
bitter production, apparently to bring the beer type more into
line with the general taste of other bitters produced by S&N.
New Home Bitter pump clips appeared retaining the link to Robin
Hood and with Home Mild being linked to Will Scarlet.
Home Bitter became sponsors of Notts County FC but like the
lager logos on the earlier Forest shirts, County's were eventually
replaced by adverts for McEwans Lager – S&N Lager.
Now S&N
had breweries in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Masham (once home of
the famous Theakstons Old Peculiar strong ale), Carlisle and
Nottingham.
The company
was always known as Home Ales but on the take-over called itself
Home Brewery. In 1991 it was noticed that it was now trading
under the name ‘Younger’, a division of S&N, and
re-signing of some pubs took place, mainly away from Nottingham.
Then, on
1 December 1992 the Commercial Director of Youngers confirmed
that the change was only cosmetic:
"Candidly,
the vast majority of publicans outside Nottingham hadn’t
heard of Home Brewery".
"Home
Brewery will continue to be closely involved with the community
through sponsorships such as Notts County and the Nottingham
Playhouse."
During 1993
Nottingham CAMRA expressed concerns over the desire to only
promote Theakston beers. Home Mild also contracted out to local
rivals Mansfield Brewery and Home products were reduced to being
effectively only available to the East Midlands.
Most of
the ‘local’ management seemed to have been replaced
by people brought in from Scotland and all decisions appeared
to be made from offices in Edinburgh.
Suddenly the Nottingham Playhouse was sponsored by Youngers
not Home and a marketing promotion in France at the time featured
Youngers beers of Nottingham, but there was no mention of Home.
Following this it wasn’t too long before the Home Brewery
at Daybrook was laid to rest along side Shipstones Basford brewery.
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