The Halifax Steam Brewing Company

Fancy a brewery trip………?
After a drunken round table trip to the White Bear Brewery in Cross Hills it was my turn to start a brewery! The fact that I knew nothing whatsoever about brewing was hardly going to stop me, I had just been on a brewery trip with the great grandson of  the Founder of Whitakers Brewery so how difficult it be? Now I like Beer, a lot, and I like flavour , a lot so that was it, It was only a matter of time before it all came into fruition.

A small history……
Well it all started when I cobbled together a collection of vessels together in my back garden, to be fair it was a purpose built 5 barrel plant squeezed into a Grim stone garage, it was essential to build a full sized brewery as a laboratory to see if I could make beers of merit, The first brew I make was Cock o’ the North, it remains unchanged and it is as good today. My neighbours were unsympathetic and did not appreciate the pub sign, ‘the Friendly Neighbour’

Moving on………..
to a small red Portakabin in Hipperholme, the former changing rooms for the channel tunnel proved an unlikely home for a brewery. I somehow placed the successful bid for the brewery at the Fox and Firkin, having won the bid I had to remove it and bring it ‘up North’ and the only storage space was its current location, now to be fair it was a rundown trim shop and I had no intention of putting a heavy weight brewery on a ply wood floor, but, necessity being the mother of invention, we pit propped the floor all over and it’s holding up pretty well.

Making beer………..
boy did we make beer, lots and lots of the lovely stuff and did we ever trade beer. We travelled everywhere buying, selling, trading, reciprocal trading agreements with breweries in the Lakes and Midlands meant we could and would supply beers for festivals, We worked and worked to set up beer festivals for anyone and everyone,  in the meantime………

We had been trying to get planning permission to open a bar, despite being recommended for approval, every possible avenue was being closed to us, mainly by foul means, but with the big guns of the fantastic Marilyn Britchard and us being on the side of God, history was change when we opened the doors of – Cock o’ the North