The Northgate Brewery was founded in 1760 at the Golden Falcon Inn. A new brewery complex was built on the site in the 1850s and the Chester Northgate Brewery Co Ltd was registered in March 1885 as a limited liability company to acquire the business of the same name at the purchase price of £50,000.
The company acquired Salmon & Co, wine and spirit merchants, Chester in 1890 and the Kelsterton Brewery Co Ltd, Kelsterton, Clwyd with 93 licenced houses, in 1899.
By 1891 the company owned 21 tied houses in Chester and numerous others within a radius of 15 miles from the city. It was the only Chester brewery to survive beyond 1914. In its turn, it was acquired by Greenall Whitley & Co Ltd in 1949 with about 140 tied houses. Brewing ceased in 1969 and it was demolished in 1971.
An unsympathetic office block, Centurion House, now occupies the site in an otherwise unspoiled Northgate Street.

"The Northgate Brewery was a good company to work for... I remember being told to go up to the brewer's office with my best friend Winnie for a spoon full of yeast to get rid of our pimples... it never worked!" May Williams who worked at the brewery during the war years.

You can learn more about the history of the Northgate Brewery here...

The Northgate Brewery may have closed forty years ago but Northgate Ale is back, thanks to local brewer John Murray! "Although I am slightly too young to have sampled Northgate, I know of it well and many more senior friends and neighbours speak very fondly of it. I discovered that many of the brewery records had been lodged with Cheshire Archives and Local Studies. 

One item of particular interest was the 1902 brewery day book, detailing the malt, hops, water treatment, temperatures and gravities. I spent a couple of days there, transcribing these records and converting them into metric units. I decided to have a go.  One problem that I needed to overcome was how to replicate the malts which were no longer available such as Burton Strong and Smyrna.  After some searching, I found detailed analysis of both of these and attempted to replicate them using a blend of modern grains.

During a chance conversation with one of the Falcon regulars, I learned that he had worked at the brewery from 1958 to 1969. He gave me some useful information and also offered to help with the testing. I also discussed the idea with well known local historian Len Morgan, a big fan of the original brew, who gave me some other useful information. All in all I managed to recruit over 40 volunteers, all who drank the original brews, and gave them each a 500ml bottle and a questionnaire.  The feedback was that I had got it nearly right, so some minor adjustments were made to the blend and another test carried out.  Feedback from that was that it was probably as close as we could get, based on people’s recollections.

For interest, at that time, in an average week, the brewery did 4 brews of 40 x 36 gallon barrels.  Beside the Draught Northgate Ale, other beers in the log are Mild, Harvest Ale, the bottled version of Northgate Ale (slightly stronger than the draught), and Old Chester Strong.
It was really your site that inspired the original search for information. The next step may be to try it in a few pubs and see how it goes down."

Northgate Ale goes down very well indeed with this writer and is most definitely his favourite tipple. At ABV 4.9 it kicks like a horse too! It is made at the Spitting Feathers Brewery in the nearby village of Waverton (hit the 'Heritage Ales' link when you visit). Contact John directly if you're interested in stocking his brew or want to know more:john@heritageales.com

Do you have any photographs or reminisciences of Chester's Northgate Brewery? We'd love to hear from you- Email us!