Courage Brewery

Courage is a former British brewery. The brands are now 100 per cent owned and brewed by Wells & Young's Brewery as part of a venture called Courage Brands Ltd.

History

Courage & Co Ltd was started by John Courage at the Anchor Brewhouse in Horsleydown, Bermondsey in 1787. He was a Scottish shipping agent of French Huguenot descent.^[1] It became Courage & Donaldson in 1797. By 1888, it had been registered simply as Courage. In 1955, the company merged with Barclay, Perkins & Co Ltd (who were located at the nearby Anchor Brewery) to become Courage, Barclay & Co Ltd. Only five years later another merger with the Reading based Simonds' Brewery led to the name changing to Courage, Barclay, Simonds & Co Ltd. In the late sixties, the group had assets of approximately £l00m, and operated five breweries in London, Reading, Bristol, Plymouth and Newark-on-Trent. It owned some 5,000 licensed premises spread over the whole of Southern England, a large part of South Wales and an extensive area of the East Midlands and South Yorkshire. It was employing some 15,000 people and producing something like 75 million imperial gallons (340,000,000 L) of beer annually.^[2] It's name was simplified to Courage Ltd in October 1970 and the company was taken over by the Imperial Tobacco Group Ltd two years later.

Their vast Worton Grange (now Berkshire) brewery was opened on the Reading/Shinfield border in 1978. The Anchor Brewery closed in 1981 and all brewing was transferred to Reading. Imperial Tobacco was acquired by the Hanson Trust in 1986 and they sold off Courage to Elders IXL who were renamed the Foster's Brewing Group in 1990. The following year the Courage section of Foster's merged with the breweries of Grand Metropolitan. Its public houses were owned by a joint-company called Inntrepreneur Estates. Scottish & Newcastle purchased Courage from Foster's in 1995, creating Scottish Courage as its brewing arm.

As of January 2007, the rights for the production, marketing and sales of the Courage brands have been sold to Wells & Young’s Brewing Company of Bedford. This is managed by a venture called Courage Brands Ltd^[3] Heineken retained a 17 per cent stake in the venture until 2011, when Wells & Youngs acquired complete control. The Berkshire Brewery closed in April 2010.^[4] Courage Best is currently undergoing a significant decline in sales from almost 600,000 hectolitres in 2001 to under 160,000 hectolitres in 2011.^[5] Courage Director's is faring little better, from 160,000 hectolitres in 2001, to 60,000 hectolitres as of 2011.^[6] Wells & Youngs recently announced that they have reintroduced the famous historic brew, Courage Russian Imperial Stout, which was first brewed in the eighteenth century by Thrale's brewery.^[7]

Brands

Beers bearing the Courage name include:

• Courage Best Bitter (4 per cent ABV in cask and keg, 3.8 per cent in bottles and cans).^[8] It is described as 'pale in colour, fully balanced with a malty flavour and distinctive hop character, [and] makes for an easy drinking session beer'.^[8] Courage Best Bitter sponsors local events within its south west of England heartland.^[8] It remains one of the UK's top ten cask ales.^[9]
• Courage Directors (4.8 per cent ABV). Available in cask, bottles and cans.^[10] Courage Directors was originally brewed exclusively for the Directors of the Alton brewery, but following demand, the beer was made available to the public.^[10] It is described as 'full bodied with a clean, bitter taste, balanced with a sweet burnt, malty and fruity notes with a distinctive dry-hop aroma and flavour'.^[10] It has a strong following in London and the South East, and across the UK as a whole remains in the top ten premium cask ales, and the top twenty bottled ales.^[11][12][13] It is brewed with English Target hops, burnt Pale and Crystal malts.^[11]
• Courage Mild (3 per cent). A mild ale available in keg form only.
• Courage Light Ale (3.2 per cent) 10 fl oz bottles often used to make "light and bitter" with Courage Best Bitter
• John Courage Amber (4.7 per cent). A premium bitter brewed for the export market, especially the USA, since at least 1979.^[14]
• Courage Russian Imperial Stout (10 per cent).

Advertising

The Rockney duo Chas & Dave's single "Gertcha" was used in a series of television commercials for Courage Bitter shown in the South of England during the 1980s.

Sponsorship

The brewery sponsored Reading FC from 1984 until 1990.^[15] Courage sponsored the English Premiership rugby union league for ten years from 1987 until 1997.^[16] Courage Best Bitter is a sponsor of rugby union club the Exeter Chiefs.^[17]

References