Ossett Brewery; How It All Began

The story of the Ossett Brewery starts with Bob Lawson; a brewer for over 40 years who began his career working for Beverley Bros. Brewery in Wakefield.  From there he moved on to Matthew Brown’s in Blackburn and then in 1969 on to Joshua Tetley & Son in Leeds where he spent almost 25 years before moving to the Kelham Island Brewery in Sheffield for a further 3 years.

After all this time spent brewing beer for other people, Bob and a partner decided to start their own business and in 1997 a small micro brewery was built at the rear of the Brewers Pride public house in Ossett. The first beer aptly named Bobby Dazzler was brewed in August 1998 and was an instant success.  Brewing was carried out on a 5-barrel brew length plant and for several months all of the beer produced was sold through the Brewers Pride pub.  It wasn't long before several local freehouse’s were demanding Ossett beers and sales started to increase week by week.

As the beers were sold further afield, Ossett Brewery began to win awards at festivals up and down the country; and as the reputation of the business grew so did its customer base.  Within three years further expansion took place raising its brewing capacity to 40 barrels per week. Ossett beers continued to win awards with Silver King proving a real favourite at beer festivals across the country. Perhaps our greatest achievement to date was in 2003 when Excelsior was voted National Champion Beer at the prestigious Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) Beer Awards.

With the departure of his partner early in 2001, Bob became sole owner of the Ossett Brewing Co., and in late 2002 Bob’s son Jamie who was a successful investment banker in Japan decided on a career change and joined Bob, turning Ossett Brewery into a family business.

Ossett Brewery Pubs

After a short time working in the brewery, Jamie took on the responsibility of finding suitable pubs as tied houses for Ossett beers. The Black Bull in Liversedge having been a 'local' for over 300 years, was bought, refurbished and reopened in May 2003. Following the success of the first pub, 12 more pubs have opened in the West Yorkshire region. All Ossett Brewery Pubs serve a wide range of cask ales including an ever changing range of guest beers, premium lagers and bottled beers.

New Brewery

By 2004 the original brewhouse was producing almost 40 barrels a week and was operating at a level way beyond its initial design specification. Bob made the decision to look for bigger premises to allow the company to expand. Amazingly a suitable property less than 80 metres away was available and so, late in 2004 work began on building a new brewery.
The first beers were brewed on the new site in April 2005 and then finally in August all production moved to the new brewery.

Since that date a programme of steady expansion has occured adding new vessels and brewery equipment; brewing output currently stands at around 160 brewer’s barrels per week.