The New Custodians....

News has just broken that Kirkstall Brewery will soon be taking on the lease of The Tetley, the former head office building of the famous Leeds brewery in their latest act of support for the city's brewing heritage....

There is something quite fitting about Kirkstall Brewery getting involved with The Tetley. The contemporary arts venue and restaurant had been fashioned from the former head offices of the brewery that for years provided the beer that slaked the thirsts of many of the city's residents as well as those from further afield. Fast forward to now and we see the increasingly confident, relative upstarts coming to the rescue of a building that once symbolised the former brewery's domination and standing the city in their latest rescue act as would-be custodians of the local brewing heritage.

Tetley's brewery was a proper landmark for years in Leeds, part of the local furniture, dominating its site on Hunslet Road beside the River Aire and the area around, with the steam rising into the city's air above where thousands of barrels of beer were produced every day a regular sight. I remember when I worked in nearby Holbeck when I would arrive at work, park up, and regularly get out of the car to be greeted by lovely malty aromas emanating from the brewery, provided the wind was in the right direction; the place was hard to miss.

The old Tetley's brewery in Leeds

The original Tetley brewery had been founded in 1822. At first they were brewing mainly porter and mild, styles that were appreciated by the local drinkers of that time, and by 1860 they were the biggest brewer in the North of England, with production continuing to grow over subsequent years. Surprisingly, but in keeping with the way that beer was sold back then it wasn't until 1890 that they acquired their first pubs. By 1914, when they were also selling a lot of pale ale, they had acquired a large tied estate of pubs in and around Leeds and across Yorkshire.

The art deco building that ultimately became The Tetley had been opened in 1931, and was used as the expanding brewery's offices. Over the years its occupiers oversaw the acquisition of breweries such as Gilmours of Sheffield and local rivals Melbournes, thus boosting the tied estate further as Tetley Bitter became the brewery's most popular beer. The company later took over Walkers of Warrington, and then merged with Ansells and Ind Coope breweries to form Allied Breweries in the 1970's, by which time Tetley Bitter was the best-selling cask ale brand in the country. In the 1990's Danish brewery Carlsberg acquired a 50% stake in Allied, and in 1998 they acquired the full 100%, the new company being named Carlsberg-Tetley. Over the subsequent years Tetley's fortunes took a dive, the Danish lager brewers having then as now no respect for cask ale and the traditions of the British pub, and after the Tetley brand had been unceremoniously dumped from the company's name, the Leeds brewery was closed in 2008, and production of the flagship Tetley Bitter contracted out to Banks's Park Brewery in Wolverhampton. That old art deco office building, which had been opened in the 1930's in a wave of confidence, had become redundant like the many workers that had been displaced or lost their jobs in an act that shook the city.

However, with much of the site by now cleared, the old headquarters took on a new lease of life in 2013, when it was re-opened as The Tetley, new tenants having been granted a free 10 year lease by Carlsberg, and with the help of Arts Council funding, the 1930s building was transformed to include a contemporary art gallery, studios, learning spaces, offices, a bar, restaurant, and function rooms for meetings and events. The restored building still contained many original features from the days when it had working offices, including the ubiquitous wooden panelling, the boardroom, original staircase, and lift, along with a war memorial which commemorates the Tetley employees that served in the First World War. Sadly last year as the lease expired, and the owners announced they couldn't afford to continue, unable to agree on a rental price, and so the Tetley closed. I'd only been once: I enjoyed their take on the traditional English breakfast in the restaurant a few years ago, but it did sadly seem to operate under the radar, certainly in later years.

And then as the previous incumbents continued to search for a new location in the city, the news broke that Kirkstall Brewery were to take on the iconic building and transform it into a bar showcasing some of the best beers brewed in the city. 

Steve Holt and John Kelly set up their brewery in 2011, but in choosing to call it Kirkstall they were harking back to the city's brewing heritage by reviving an old name. The original Kirkstall Brewery had been a contemporary of Tetleys, and was based in the Leeds suburb of that name. Its beers had a strong local following and by 1898 the brewery was producing 72,000 barrels a year. It was acquired by Duttons of Blackburn in 1936 who in turn sold it to Whitbread in 1957. The new owners invested in the brewery, and at one point it was producing 250,000 barrels a year, but brewing ceased here when Whitbread pulled the plug in 1983, and production transferred elsewhere, citing the usual arguments about economies of scale. 

When the new brewery was opened, their initial site was close to the where the original brewery had been located near Kirkstall Bridge. When they outgrew their original 8 barrel capacity, they moved to the current site down the Kirkstall Road towards the city centre in 2016. The brewery, which is based in a former dairy, comprises a state of the art 50 hectolitre brewhouse, whose gleaming vessels can be seen as you enter the building on the way to their popular and welcoming taproom, which they opened in 2020. And as you would expect from a company that cares about the city's brewing history, the taproom is chock-full of breweriana. 

Here you can enjoy a good selection of their popular beers including on cask their Pale Ale, a 4% hoppy beer, Three Swords, a 4.5% extra pale featuring three varieties of American hops, Dissolution, a 5% intensely hopped IPA, and Black Band Porter, a 5.5% full-flavoured dark beer, which along with other Kirkstall beers find themselves on the bars of many Yorkshire pubs as well as further afield. The brewery also produces a popular range of keg beers including Virtuous, a 4.5% aromatic pale ale, Judicious, a 4.8% juicy pale ale, and Providence, a 5.2% New England IPA. Many of the names of the Kirkstall beers reference the history of the historic abbey which was established in the area by Cistercian Monks in the 12th century.

The Cardigan Arms, revived by Kirkstall Brewery

The brewery demonstrated their commitment to tradition when they acquired a couple of nearby pubs, the Kirkstall Bridge Inn, just across the river Aire from the original brewery, and the magnificent Cardigan Arms. The latter is a Grade ll-listed pub which was designed by Thomas Winn and opened in 1896. It became a Tetleys pub when they acquired local rivals Melbourne in 1960. It is quite simply a stunner, with a beautiful curving central bar with a brass rail which serves a tap room immediately to the left as you go in and a large drinking lobby if you go straight on through a pair of heavy wooden doors with glazed windows. A further three rooms lead off from here, all of which continue the theme with dark woodwork, etched glass, ornamental ceilings, and decorative tiling, with a number of large brewery mirrors, breweriana, and period furnishings. The pub had become a shadow of its former self following the demise of the Tetley brewery and had been closed for a time following damage in the Boxing Day floods of 2015. It was acquired and re-opened in 2017 by Kirkstall Brewery after a major refurbishment which restored the pub to its splendid former glory.

Snug at the Cardigan Arms

It isn't just pubs that have been rescued by Kirkstall. When Leeds Brewery ceased operating at the end of 2022, their small estate of pubs was sold to Camerons, whilst Kirkstall bought the beer brands which are now brewed in-house and they continue to be supplied to their old pubs and into the free trade. The Leeds brewery had only started in 2007, not long before Tetleys closed, and occupied a site in the Beeston area of the city. And whilst their beers were generally unremarkable save for the 4.8% dark mild, Midnight Bell, which won several awards over the years, they occupy a place in the city's brewing history as for a short time after Tetleys' demise they were the only brewery operating in Leeds.

Earlier this year, an arguably more significant event occurred when local craft brewers North announced that they were entering administration due to the impact of rising costs, and the long-term effects of the pandemic and Brexit. The market was shocked; North had been at the forefront of the growth of the craft beer market with their original bar on New Briggate in the city centre opening way back in 1997. It became a must-visit for any serious beer afficionado with its cutting edge offer of cask ales and imported craft beers which influenced the growth of the UK craft beer industry. It wasn't until 2015 that they started to brew their own beers though, and whilst they did brew some cask, it was for keg beers such as Sputnik and Transmission that they became known. They embraced the arrival of canning, which enabled them to sell into supermarkets and other retailers. Outgrowing their original brewery, they moved into an old tannery in the Sheepscar district of the city where they created a state-of-the-art production facility and taproom. They increased the number of the bars they ran, but it came to the point where they needed extra funding. And so Kirkstall stepped in to save the brewery and all its bars in Leeds and Manchester, with brewing continuing at the Springwell site.

North Bar, New Briggate, Leeds

And with a recent and rare foray out of Leeds to take on the Narrow Boat in Skipton, which had been disposed of by the previous owners (an earlier one to take over the much-loved Sparrow in Bradford having not worked out), back in Leeds there is much to look forward to in Kirkstall taking on the Tetley. The basis of a great pub is already there in this historic building, and with their track-record of restoring pubs and now with a large range of varied, locally-brewed beers at their disposal, it will surely become a must-visit destination when these custodians of the city's beer heritage re-open its doors later this spring....

Follow me on twitter/X: @realalemusic