Vaux Breweries

Vaux Breweries was a major brewer based in Sunderland. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange.

History

Vaux was established in the centre of Sunderland in the 1830s and for nearly 170 years was a major employer in the town.

The company bought the Sheffield based Wards Brewing Company in 1972, which it retained as a separate subsidiary.

By the 1990s the Vaux Group had expanding into hotels. Despite the brewing business being profitable and an offer to buy it having been received from management, in March 1999 the Board accepted the advice of the Corporate Financier, BT Alex Brown, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank, and decided to close both breweries. This caused the Chairman Sir Paul Nicholson, who disagreed with the closure decision, to resign. The company changed its name to Swallow Group plc, and in July sold its tenanted pub estate to a client of the corporate financier, concentrating on Swallow Hotels business and incorporating the former Vaux managed pub estate under the "Swallow Inns & Restaurants" brand. The company was subject to a successful take-over by Whitbread in the autumn of 2000, following which most of the hotels were re-branded as Marriott and the larger pubs were brought under other national brands, such as Brewers Fayre. Later, 10 hotels unsuitable for the Marriott converions were sold off, forming the nucleus of the current March 2006 Swallow Hotels chain.

The Sunderland brewery site was demolished for redevelopment.

Former brands

Former beer brands of Vaux included:

* "Samson" bitter
* "Double Maxim"
* Single Maxim
* Sunderland Draught Bitter
* Lorimers Scotch
* Norseman Lager
* Frisk Lager
* Scorpion Lager
* "How's Your Father", a light, golden, cask conditioned ale sold in summer.
* "Moonlight Mouse", an autumn cask conditioned ale
* "Waggledance" - a cask conditioned honey ale, sold to Youngs when Vaux ceased brewing
* "Lambtons" An ale named after the Lambton family

Recent developments

Two former directors of Vaux, and the former head brewer, formed the Double Maxim Beer Company in 2000 and bought the beer brands and recipes which has seen the return of "Samson" and "Double Maxim".

ee also

*Ernest Vaux
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/wear/content/articles/2008/10/08/vaux_timeline_feature.shtml BBC Wear - The story of Vaux since the closure]