Kirkstall Land Award

....Just a quick note to let you all know that Kirkstall Brewery's Black Band Porter was crowned 'Beer of The Festival' at the Skipton Beer Festival last weekend. Rightly so; it's a fantastic beer, well balanced and massively tasty. Well done.

I'm sure this will be a regular occurrence for Dave Sanders and his crew, and a sign of things to come for such a new brewery to win an accolade so soon after their inception. You can get Kirkstall's beers at Mr Foley's and North if in Leeds. Let me know if I've missed any other outlets out.

Skipton Beer Festival and Kirkstall Brewery

The weekend of the 19th of May sees the Skipton Beer Festival, one of my favourites. Why? Well, it's small, but perfectly formed; and when you're done tasting and ticking (if that's your thing), you can grab a pork pie or 4 and head down to The Narrow Boat, my favourite Market Town Tavern. The Beer list is here, and I'll take a moment to point out what I'd be looking for (assuming you're interested, which you must be, otherwise you wouldn't be reading, right?). Durham's Magic IPA is one of my beers of the year, so that's on the list. As is Dark Horse's Hetton Pale; a fantastically balanced-yet-rich pale ale. Five Towns are also always worth a looky.

But the main Brewery I'll point out is Kirkstall Brewery, Dave Sanders' (Elland) new venture. I paid a flying visit to the brewery this week, and Dave has high hopes for Kirkstall. Their Porter is one to try - wonderfully balanced, swirling with milk chocolate and drying coffee, and stupidly drinkable. Kirkstall's beers are filtering through this week, and Foley's and North will be serving them this week at some point.

Kirkstall Brewery Remembered

Although many Loiners are still mourning the loss of Tetley’s to the city, it’s easy to overlook the fact that we actually had another major brewery operating in Leeds up until 1983. There’s not much info out there about Kirkstall Brewery, and I in fact had to glean what little info I could about it the old-fashioned way: going to the library and reading.

The brewery started life in 1793 when two enterprising young men, Henry Cooper and Joseph Musgrave bought some land by the canal to start independent malting operations. In 1833, Musgrave’s business was bought by Hunslet-born Thomas Walker, who stopped malting and turned the two buildings into one brewery. He didn’t do a very good job of it, and died bankrupt. On his death, the brewery fell into the hands of Simeon Musgrave (Joseph’s eldest son), who promptly sold it to a chap called Benjamin Dawson. Dawson & Co obviously saw potential, and bought Cooper’s malting as well. A period of expansion followed; the land became the site for the brewery as it stands today.

Kirkstall Brewery Co bought the brewery when Dawson died. I’m not sure where they came from, or who was involved, but according to Dyson & Grady’s excellent Blue Plaques of Leeds, they churned out around 26,000 barrels of beer per year. It would seem that ales of all types – from Milds to Stouts to Pales – were brewed and exported in a healthy fashion; using the waterways. In my picture you can see the arched doorways by the waterline; this would be where the hogsheads would be rolled onto barges, and then transported up the Leeds-Liverpool Canal onto Goole. Here – and this is my favourite part of the story – they were loaded onto the SS Kirkstall and SS Charante and sailed around the world. Not much information exists about either boat, but according to Dyson and Grady they sailed as far as Australia and New Zealand - quite a feat!

In 1936 Dutton’s of Blackburn took over, but sold up to Whitbread’s of London in 1954. Whitbread’s overhauled the plant, increasing capacity to 62,000 – but I believe their main line was Mackeson’s Stout by this time. Another overhaul increased capacity again to 250,000 barrels per year, but the brewery closed for good in 1983. The brewery is now a Halls of Residence for Leeds Met University – although the trained eye, it’s clear what the building once was. At least the conversion has preserved the building - I wonder how many students get the irony of being housed within a brewery? If you want to see it, the brewery sits on the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, straddling the border of Kirkstall and Bramley.

The excellent Leodis website has a number of pictures of wagons, and suggests the the nearby Bridge Inn was at one time a Kirsktall Brewery Pub. Please do head over there for some wonderful archive pictures to support this post.

I’d love to know more about Kirkstall Brewery. Sure, it has a blue plaque, but it’s hidden from view, about ten feet up in the air and off the main road outside it. Who were the Kirkstall Brewing Co? What did they brew - what beer, brewed here, ended up in Australia? If anyone can add to this story, please contact me.