Brewery of the Day: Adnams

There can’t be many breweries where you can talk about 14th-century ale wives, Victorian brewing brothers, a yeast rescued from the aftermath of a wartime air raid and one of Britain’s most pioneering sustainable breweries – all without leaving the same little corner of Southwold. Welcome to Adnams, our Brewery of the Day.

Beer has been brewed on this site since at least 1345, with George and Ernest Adnams arriving in Southwold and buying the Sole Bay Brewery in 1872. More than 150 years later, Adnams is still independent, still brewing in the heart of the town and still finding new ways to move forward. Sustainability has become a huge part of that story – from its energy-efficient brewhouse to the extraordinary grass-roofed distribution centre just outside Southwold, which celebrated its 20th birthday this week. And while Adnams has gone on to make everything from gin and whisky to alcohol-free beer, there’s something we particularly like about where its attention is turning right now: cask.

In fact, Adnams says it sees a “great opportunity in cask” and wants to encourage more people to discover it. Its newly refreshed beer range includes rather brilliant cylindrical pump clips designed to stand out at the bar – but perhaps the best evidence of its love for cask is what the brewers have been up to for this year’s Cask Ale Week. They’ve gone back into the archives and revived Extra, the beer crowned Champion Beer of Britain in 1993. Head Brewer Dan Gooderham tracked down former Adnams brewers, talked to the people who remembered it and delved into old records to understand what made the original so special. They even discovered that the Fuggles selected for this year’s brew came from the same Kent grower Adnams used in the 1990s. We love that: more than 150 years of brewing history, but still curious, still innovating and still getting genuinely excited about putting great cask beer on the bar. Happy Brewery of the Day, Adnams!

Discover more: Visit the Adnams website and read more about the remarkable return of Extra for Cask Ale Week in Beer Today.