News Archive 2017
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Supporting the Lord Mayor's Appeal
18 December 2017
The December Court Luncheon was a jolly occasion this year, attended by a large number of our Liverymen who came along to network, catch up with old friends and hear about the Company's work over the last year.
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Master and Wardens' Tour 2017
12 December 2017
The Master and Wardens went on their annual tour last week, visiting key locations linked to Brewers’ Company charities. This year, these included the estate in Islington managed by the Company on behalf of the Dame Alice Owen Foundation, the three Almshouses supported by Alderman James Hickson’s Charities and the two schools supported by the Company: Dame Alice Owen’s and Aldenham Schools.
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The Lord Mayor of London 2017-18
04 December 2017
We are looking forward to welcoming the new Lord Mayor of London, Alderman Charles Bowman, to the Brewers' Company Court Luncheon in December. Alderman Bowman was installed into this high office earlier in November and a few days later he presented his vision for the coming year in his Address to the Livery at the Mansion House.
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Freedom Bonds
27 November 2017
It’s hardly surprising that in a Company founded in 1438 (and whose less formal history goes back even further), certain traditions have developed. One such is that of a new Freeman being required to sign a Bond when admitted into the Company. Many hundreds of such Bonds are preserved in our Company archives. It’s unclear when exactly the tradition began, but it certainly goes back for over 150 years.
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Did beer help win the Battle?
20 November 2017
A letter at Brewers’ Hall, written in 1759 by a famous Admiral, is a vivid reminder of the special importance of beer to the British navy. We don’t know how it came to be in our archives, but it hints at the part which beer may, perhaps, have played in a naval victory.
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Proceeds of City Beerfest presented to the Lord Mayor's Appeal
13 November 2017
The Master Brewer, Paul Wells, was delighted recently to have the opportunity to present a cheque for £7,000 to the Lord Mayor's Appeal 2017. The cheque, which was gratefully received by the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor Alderman Dr Andrew Parmley, represented part of the proceeds of this year's City Beerfest, held in the Guildhall Yard in July.
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Company Three wins again!
07 November 2017
We are delighted to report that Company Three has won the Dan Crawford Innovation Award at the Peter Brook Empty Space Awards!
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Inter-Livery Real Tennis
30 October 2017
This month, the Brewers' Company was delighted to be involved in the organisation of the inaugural Inter Livery Real Tennis Tournament. Taking place at the historic Queen's Club, home to two of only 26 real tennis courts in the UK, we were very pleased to welcome 42 participants from 24 Livery Companies.
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Saturday Afternoon by the Thames, 130 Years Ago
23 October 2017
A wonderful Victorian oil painting of the River Thames has recently been added to the other paintings adorning the walls of Brewers’ Hall. Entitled Sunday Afternoon - East London, the artist is Charles William Wyllie (1853-1923). The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 1887.
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Strengthening ties at Brewers' Hall
16 October 2017
The October Court Luncheon, which took place at Brewers' Hall last week, is an important event in our annual calendar at which we welcome guests from our military affiliations and one of the two schools supported by the Company, this year Aldenham School.
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Brewers' Schools Golf Match
10 October 2017
The 'Schools Match' is a highlight of the Brewers' Company golfing calendar, being a triangular competition between Aldenham School, Dame Alice Owen’s and the Brewers’ Company. The match was started many years ago by Tom Morkill who used to be Chairman of the Governors at Owen’s and wanted to create a forum for friendly competition and social interaction between the two schools supported by the Brewers' Company.
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Brewers' Annual Livery Dinner
02 October 2017
The Master and Wardens were delighted to welcome Liverymen and their guests to the Brewers' Company Annual Livery Dinner at the end of September. As part of our objective to provide a forum to foster social contact within the brewing industry and associate organisations, our two Livery events for guests: a dinner in September and a lunch in February, are key fixtures in our annual calendar.
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Visit to HMS Albion
26 September 2017
The Master and Clerk recently visited HMS ALBION – the Brewers’ Company’s Royal Navy affiliation. It is an exciting time for the crew of ALBION as she has just completed a multi-million pound refit and is currently conducting sea trials and training to become ready for operational tasking as the nation’s high readiness command ship.
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Brewers' Annual Beer Tasting Competition
11 September 2017
Congratulations to the Meantime Brewing Company, the winners of this year's annual Brewers' Company Beer Tasting Competition! In a closely contested competition, professionally presented by last year's winners Budweiser Budvar, the team from Meantime emerged victorious, narrowly beating the two runners up: St Austell Brewery and Hall & Woodhouse.
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Exam success for Brewers' schools
29 August 2017
We are delighted to report that both Dame Alice Owen’s (DAOS) and Aldenham Schools once again made a great showing with excellent results for both A Levels and GCSEs.
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“The only thing you cannot predict is the future”
21 August 2017
Brewers have not been immune from the habit of trying to predict what will happen in the future … and their predictions have sometimes turned out to be wide of the mark, as this extract from the Middlesex Chronicle of 15 September 1934 shows.
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The Master's unusual bet!
14 August 2017
Among the Brewers’ Company archives is a scrap of paper from 1771, recording an unusual bet between the then Master, Samuel Hawley, and a Past Master, Henry Mason. Their names can be seen by visitors to Brewers’ Hall as they ascend the stairs, and pass the boards listing all Past Masters.
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What do Piccadilly Circus and Brewers’ Hall have in common?
07 August 2017
The answer to this potential pub quiz question is: a work by sculptor Alfred Gilbert. He made both ‘Eros’ … and the rather less well-known ‘Charrington Cup’, one of the treasures at Brewers’ Hall.
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Research and Education in Brewing
31 July 2017
At the Court meeting which took place in July, this year’s distribution from the Brewers’ Research and Education Fund (BREF) was approved. The BREF is a major brewing industry grants award which aims to support the brewing industry by funding relevant scientific research and education.
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Giving Students their Beer Money
24 July 2017
What better way to mark the end of the school term than by giving all of the students Beer Money? This is what the Master Brewer did at Dame Alice Owen's School last week.
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Welcome to our new Master!
18 July 2016
We were delighted to welcome our new Master to the helm at the Court meeting and luncheon last Thursday. Peter Furness-Smith is Joint Managing Director of McMullen & Sons Brewery in Hertfordshire and we are much looking forward to working under his leadership in the year ahead.
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The City's Festival of Beer and Music
11 July 2017
The fifth annual City Beerfest, which took place in the Guildhall Yard last week, was once again a resounding success. We were delighted to welcome thousands of visitors to the event throughout the day, while sixteen of our member breweries ensured that the beer kept flowing!
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Music for School Children
19 June 2017
The Master and Mistress were delighted to attend the Music in Secondary Schools Trust (MiSST) Annual Concert recently. This amazing charity, supported by the Brewers' Company through the Dame Alice Owen Foundation, promotes the education of young people under the age of 25 in music.
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Book Review - The Beer Monopoly
30 May 2017
New to the Brewers Company library, this fascinating account by two leading German economists reveals the strategic story behind the world’s biggest beer takeover last year.
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Talking Beer at Brewers' Hall
23 May 2017
In May we hold our Brewing and Beer Brands Forum and Dinner to give our members and other representatives from the industry a chance to come together and talk about important issues and this year's event was a great success.
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Beer Money for School Students!
15 May 2017
Aldenham School was founded by Richard Platt and the School dining room still houses a portrait showing him in the year 1600, at the age of 76, wearing a Tudor-style cap and ruff. Richard Platt was a London brewer, but he had been born in what was then the small and very rural village of Aldenham. He was a member of the Brewers’ Company and was Master of our Company twice, in 1576 and 1581.
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Entertaining at Brewers' Hall
08 May 2017
The evening of the first Wednesday in May each year is the time when Brewers' Hall opens its doors to our fellow Livery Companies, welcoming Masters and Clerks from across London (and beyond) to a magnificent dinner hosted by our Master and Wardens.
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Royal Lancers receive new guidon from HM The Queen
18 April 2017
On Wednesday 5 April Stephen Spencer-Jones, our Middle Warden, was delighted to be present at a special ceremony at Windsor Castle during which Her Majesty the Queen presented the new Regimental Guidon of the Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeth’s Own), our affiliated army regiment.
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United Guilds' Service 2017
03 April 2017
The United Guilds' Service has been held at St Paul's Cathedral since 1943 when it was established "to help lift the spirits of the City following the Blitz during the Second World War". Today it remains a demonstration of the fraternity and friendship between the Livery Companies of the City of London.
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Brewers' Company Tweed
29 March 2017
During 2002 whilst Richard Everard was Chairman of the Livery Committee he embarked on designing a special tweed for the Brewers’ Company. There are quite a number of sporting estates who have their own estate tweed and there are two regiments, the Blues and Royals and the Welsh Guards, who also have their own tweed.
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£1.6 million to help young people
13 March 2017
Last Thursday was an important day for the Brewers' Company, when the Court of Assistants approved (subject to audit) the annual distribution, this year of £1.6 million, from the Dame Alice Owen Foundation (DAOF) to Dame Alice Owen's School and educational projects in Islington.
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The Brewers' Lectures 2017
06 March 2017
On Tuesday 28 February, we were delighted to present the Brewers' Lectures 2017 at Dame Alice Owen's and Aldenham Schools. Liveryman, and representative of the Master's brewery, Fergus McMullen kicked off each talk with an introduction to brewing and a brief history of McMullen & Sons, before handing over to some of his team to talk about careers in the industry.
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The Brewers' Company Song!
28 February 2017
Members may not realise that our Company has its own song: “The Brewers’ Glee”. The earliest date we know of it being sung at Brewers’ Hall is 1842. It remained a favourite throughout the Victorian era, but later fell out of fashion. ‘Glee’ is an old word for a song generally sung by a small group of male voices.
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Noshing and Networking with the Brewers
20 February 2017
Our first Livery Luncheon for Guests in 2017 took place this week and we are pleased to report that it went down a storm! We were delighted to welcome over 90 Liverymen and guests to Brewers' Hall for this extremely popular event, which gave attendees a chance to catch up with colleagues from the brewing industry over a delicious lunch.
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Brewers Back Education
15 February 2017
On Monday 13 February, Trustess of the FE Cleary Schools Fund held their first bi-annual meeting of 2017 at Brewers' Hall.
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Preserving Britain's Brewing Heritage
06 February 2017
We are pleased to report that the Brewers’ Company recently became a Corporate Member of the National Brewery Heritage Trust (NBHT). The NBHT was formed to support the work of the National Brewery Centre (NBC) and to advance the education of the public in the history and heritage of brewing.
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Number 14 visits number 15!
30 January 2017
In the Livery Company hierarchy, fixed by the Lord Mayor over 500 years ago to put an end to arguments about their order of precedence in processions, the Brewers are number 14 and the Leathersellers are number 15. Both were founded by a Royal Charter from King Henry VI, in 1438 and 1444 respectively.
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Supporting Education in Islington and Beyond
25 January 2017
The Brewers’ Company is proud to act as Trustee to the Dame Alice Owen’s Foundation (DAOF), one of the largest charities which we support. It’s aims are to support Dame Alice Owen’s School in Potters Bar and educational purposes in Islington. Each January, Brewers’ Company representatives are pleased to be able to visit schools and programmes benefitting from DAOF funding and this year’s visit was a great success.
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Brewers' Research and Education Fund Open!
16 January 2017
The Brewers' Research and Education Fund (BREF), a major grants fund that provides funding for scientific research and education in the brewing industry administered by the Brewers' Company, has begun inviting applications for funding in 2017/18 via the BBPA website.
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Awarding grants for students
03 January 2017
Shortly before Christmas, the Brewers' Company held interviews for the EH Thompson Awards which are given to former students of Dame Alice Owen’s School to assist them with their higher education.