Still Young's despite the years

The London brewer Young’s is a fine mix of the old and the new. Lewis Eckett plots its history

It’s Christmas at the Young’s Brewery in Wandsworth, South London, and a journalist has just arrived for a day’s pub visits in support of the brewery’s nomination as regional pub chain of the year.

He’s met by a delegation of senior Young’s personnel, who have a car ready to drive him round the capital. Before they set out, however, the journalist asks if he might just pop and say hello to the chairman.

“I’m afraid you can’t,” is the reply. “He’s out delivering Christmas cards to the managers of the pub estate.” And this is true. Each year the chairman of Young’s sets aside two or three days so he can travel around London delivering handwritten Christmas cards to his staff, each one containing their Christmas bonus.

Quaint and old-fashioned? Yes, but only in this regard. For Young’s, which went on to win the award that year, was one of the first regional brewers to embrace the changes that were sweeping through Britain in the late 90s and open a young persons’ style bar.

It’s this mix of the traditional and the modern that has kept the famous ram emblem and its long-established brewery firmly at the forefront of British brewing.

Like so many success stories of its type, there isn’t one single iconic figure behind the success story. But you can draw a long and continuous line through history, as far back as the 16th century and the reign of Elizabeth I, from the day beer was first brewed at the Wandsworth site to today’s premises.

The Ram Brewery is the oldest site where.....

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By Lewis Eckett

Section : Beer Legends

Page number : 48