| Type | Brewery |
|---|---|
| Industry | Alcoholic beverage |
| Founded | 1758 |
| Founder(s) | John Smith |
| Headquarters | Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England |
| Area served | United Kingdom |
| Products | Beer |
| Production output | 4 million hectolitre (1.8 million hl of John Smith's)[1] |
| Owner(s) | Heineken UK |
| Parent | Heineken International |
John Smith's is a brewery founded in 1758 by Backhouse & Hartley at Tadcaster in North Yorkshire, England. John Smith bought the brewery in 1847.[2] John Smith's is the sixth highest selling beer brand in the United Kingdom, and the highest selling ale brand. The brewery is currently owned by Heineken.
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John Smith was born in 1824. He was baptized on 14 April 1824 at St Peter's Church, Leeds, Yorkshire, the eldest of the five children of Samuel Smith, variously described as butcher and tanner, and his wife, Sarah Naylor, who had married at St Peter's seven years earlier.[3] In 1847 the 23 year old John Smith bought a small, run-down brewery in Tadcaster from the widow of the grandson of Hartley of Backhouse & Hartley. He saw the opportunity to supply the burgeoning demand for sharper, lighter beers which were becoming popular.[4] Smith died childless in 1879, and his interests were jointly inherited by his two brothers, William Smith and Samuel Smith. William Smith bought Samuel's share of his brother's personal estate, but since the brewery was destined to pass to Samuel's sons (who continued to brew at The Old Brewery) he took the bold step of building a state-of-the-art new brewery for his nephews in 1883–4 at the enormous cost of £130,000.[3] After William Smith's death in 1886, the firm continued to expand under the direction of his two young Riley nephews, henceforth known as Riley-Smith under the terms of his will.
The brewery won six gold medals in open competitions in Europe at exhibitions in Amsterdam (1883), Paris (1884), Antwerp and two in London (1885) and Paris (1887).[5] In 1892 the brewery became a limited company.[6] The famous Magnet trademark was first registered in 1911.[5] The company was incredibly forward-thinking in its approach, and was one of the first companies in the United Kingdom to have its own laboratory.[7] From 1948 the company exported beer to Belgium where it was bottled and distributed by Tilkens brewery, and by a jointly run venture from 1964 onwards.[8]
In 1953 the company went public.[6] Trading profit in 1955 was £1.1 million, or £24 million in 2010 prices.[9] In 1958 the company began to bottle Alken lager at Tadcaster, in response to growing customer demand for lager.[10]
In 1961 the company took over the Barnsley Brewery Company, adding 250 licensed properties to their growing estate.[6] Although production was initially expanded at Barnsley, it was eventually closed in 1976 with the loss of 200 jobs.[11][12] By 1967, after a series of acquisitions, John Smith's was the largest regional brewer in the country after Scottish & Newcastle, with a market capitalization of £29.4 million, or £415 million in 2010 prices.[13][14] Family interests still held around 10 per cent of the company at this time.[14]
At the time of the £40 million (£480mn in 2010 prices) takeover by Courage in October 1970, John Smith's owned some 1800 pubs, hotels and freehold clubs spread over Yorkshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, County Durham, Cheshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and parts of Cambridgeshire and Shropshire.[6] From 1970 until 1984, John Smith's produced entirely keg beer, and no cask conditioned beer.[15] Open slate Yorkshire squares were used from 1913 until 1975; stainless steel Yorkshire squares were removed in the 1980s.[16] By 1982, John Smith's was Courage's best selling brand.[17]
John Smith's was originally brewed at the Old Brewery Tadcaster. However in 1884 William Smith, the brother of John, built a new, bigger brewery next door. Due to John's will the Old Brewery passed to Samuel, his nephew, who founded Samuel Smith Brewery there.
Despite a £40mn takeover by Courage in 1970 and its subsequent takeover by Scottish & Newcastle, who were themselves taken over by Heineken in 2008, the Tadcaster brewery is still where John Smith's beers are brewed, mainly due to the advantages of its site. Although the hard well water of Tadcaster (naturally rich in sulphate of lime, arguably better than the water of Burton on Trent), makes it ideal for brewing, it is no longer important due to technological advances. However, Tadcaster is a small town which provides plenty of land for expansion (the brewery has expanded significantly since 1884), and it is well situated near to the cities of Leeds and York and the M1 motorway.[18] Around 300 people are currently employed at the brewery.[19]
The brewery brews roughly 4 million hectolitres of beer per year. It has two keg lines, two bottle lines and one canning line.[20] As well as John Smith's Original and John Smith's Extra Smooth it brews Newcastle Brown Ale, McEwan's Export and Murphy's Irish Stout, as well as lager brands Foster's and Kronenbourg 1664.[21]
Tours of the brewery are available.
John Smith's is the fifth largest beer brand in the United Kingdom.[22] The nitrogenated John Smith's Extra Smooth constitutes the majority of sales of the brand. It was introduced in cans in 1993 and in kegs in 1995. It is the leading brand of bitter in the United Kingdom.[23] An "Extra Cold" variant was launched on draught in 2004.[24] John Smith's Original is the same beer but is not nitrogenated. The cask conditioned John Smith's Cask is popular in Yorkshire and available nationally. The recipe of all of the aforementioned varieties is the same, and only the mode of storage and dispense differ. They are all brewed to 3.8 per cent ABV.
John Smith's Magnet is brewed at Camerons Brewery in Hartlepool, although the cask version introduced in 1989 was discontinued in 2007.[25] It is brewed to the same recipe as the other John Smith's, although it brewed to the slightly higher strength of 4 per cent ABV.[26] It is typically only found throughout the North East of England and Yorkshire.
It was marketed in the South of England as John Smith's Yorkshire Bitter from the 1970s until the early 1990s.
In the ale category, its principal competitors are Tetley's Bitter and Worthington.[1]
The beer partly owes its success to its "No Nonsense" marketing campaigns, initially starring then up and coming comedian Jack Dee from the 1992 until 1998, and currently starring the popular comedian Peter Kay since 2002.[27] The Dee campaign was widely credited with catapulting John Smith's from number 16 to number 4 in the UK beer market, and toppling arch rival Tetley's Bitter as the top ale brand.[28]
Throughout the 1980s, Gordon Rollings played the dour Yorkshireman "Arkwright" with his Jack Russell Terrier called Tonto in a series of commercials for the beer.[29][30] The adverts were only ever shown in the South of England, due to their view of Yorkshire which was regarded as "patronising nonsense".[30] Sales of John Smith's Bitter doubled in 1981 due to more free trade outlets in the South of England stocking the beer, and this can be at least partly attributed to the Rollings advertisements.[17] Ironically, the most successful of the John Smith's advertising campaigns was the low budget 'No Nonsense Man'.[31]
Since 2005, John Smith's has sponsored the Grand National, and introduced the John Smith's People's Race in 2007.[32] John Smith's is the biggest commercial sponsor of horse racing in the UK. One of the first races they sponsored was the John Smith's Cup (originally the Magnet Cup) at York in 1960. At over 50 years, it is the country's oldest continually commercially sponsored flat race.[33]
From Brighton on the south coast of England to Perth, there are a total of 90 John Smith's No Nonsense races spread across 27 courses throughout the UK.
In mid 2007, Scottish & Newcastle moved production of John Smith's Cask from Tadcaster to Burtonwood near Warrington. However the beer brewed in Warrington was reported as having a differing taste and to be going flat too easily.[34] Production was quickly moved back to Tadcaster until the problems were resolved.[35]
Heineken provoked the ire of lovers of cask conditioned John Smith's Magnet when it discontinued the beer. Heineken gave the fact that it was sold in only 100 outlets as its reason for discontinuing the beer. Journalist Roger Protz remarked that "I can think of many brewers who would love to have a beer that was sold in 100 outlets."[26]