Tolly Cobbold
Cliff Brewery, Cliff Road, Ipswich IP3 0AZ
Founded 1723 in Harwich, by the Cobbold family. Brewing soon moved to Cliff Quay, Ipswich (by 1746) which made life much easier, since for a while the brewing water was being shipped from Holy Wells park (in Ipswich) down the River Orwell by boat whilst the finished beer was increasingly being shipped back to the town.
Today, most of the remaining buildings at the Cliff Quay brewing site date mainly from about 1895 when the site was considerably redeveloped and enlarged, although a few parts are much older. The buildings from this time were designed by William Bradford. Some of their beers won prizes, including the famous Cobbold's Cobnut Brown Ale which was also exported to the US. After a merger with the Tollemache Brewery in 1959, the enlarged company (now with 380 pubs) increasingly focussed on keg production during 1960s and sadly for a while their brands included the appalling Husky Lager. This was once reportedly described by John Cobbold (a popular member of the brewery owning family from late 1950s to mid-1980s) as "tasting like dog's piss." Both John and his brother Patrick not only worked at (and later ran) the brewery but also became chairman and avid supporters of Ipswich Town during the clubs most successful period to date.
According to the first edition of the Good Beer Guide (1974) it was then locally "Difficult to find real ale." Fortunately the company did widely relaunch cask ale in many outlets from late 1979 onwards using their new brand, Tolly Original, which did very well locally for many years. Other brands such as Bitter and Old Strong also enjoyed some renewed success at this time and for nearly a decade afterwards.
After 1978 the company had several new owners including Ellerman Lines (1978-1983), the Barclay brothers (1983-1989), Brent Walker (1989-1990) who subsequently closed the brewery and relocated all beer production to Cameroons of Hartlepool (which they also bought at that time). And finally a brewery-site only management buy-out (1990-2002) led by Bob Wales and (the now late) Brian Cowie.
Fortunately, the buy-out helped to re-established some good quality local brewing after another short, but disastrous brewing phase. The introduction of seasonal ales and bottled "Year Beers" soon followed. Publicity at that time included two appearances on Sir John Harvey Jones popular BBC2 TV programme "Troubleshootter". In 1995 they built a new (state-of-the-art) "micro" brewery within the existing building complex. This vibrant and growing brewing business was unfortunately sold out to Ridley's Brewery (Essex) in 2002 in an attempt to "merge assets and compete more effectively." Ridley's were subsequently bought-out by Greene King (in 2005).
Whilst we remain to see what fate becomes of the remaining historic brewery buildings, the pub estate was broken-up and sold on separately by the holding banks in 1991 (mainly to become part of the Pubmaster estate).
Today, most of the remaining buildings at the Cliff Quay brewing site date mainly from about 1895 when the site was considerably redeveloped and enlarged, although a few parts are much older. The buildings from this time were designed by William Bradford. Some of their beers won prizes, including the famous Cobbold's Cobnut Brown Ale which was also exported to the US. After a merger with the Tollemache Brewery in 1959, the enlarged company (now with 380 pubs) increasingly focussed on keg production during 1960s and sadly for a while their brands included the appalling Husky Lager. This was once reportedly described by John Cobbold (a popular member of the brewery owning family from late 1950s to mid-1980s) as "tasting like dog's piss." Both John and his brother Patrick not only worked at (and later ran) the brewery but also became chairman and avid supporters of Ipswich Town during the clubs most successful period to date.
According to the first edition of the Good Beer Guide (1974) it was then locally "Difficult to find real ale." Fortunately the company did widely relaunch cask ale in many outlets from late 1979 onwards using their new brand, Tolly Original, which did very well locally for many years. Other brands such as Bitter and Old Strong also enjoyed some renewed success at this time and for nearly a decade afterwards.
After 1978 the company had several new owners including Ellerman Lines (1978-1983), the Barclay brothers (1983-1989), Brent Walker (1989-1990) who subsequently closed the brewery and relocated all beer production to Cameroons of Hartlepool (which they also bought at that time). And finally a brewery-site only management buy-out (1990-2002) led by Bob Wales and (the now late) Brian Cowie.
Fortunately, the buy-out helped to re-established some good quality local brewing after another short, but disastrous brewing phase. The introduction of seasonal ales and bottled "Year Beers" soon followed. Publicity at that time included two appearances on Sir John Harvey Jones popular BBC2 TV programme "Troubleshootter". In 1995 they built a new (state-of-the-art) "micro" brewery within the existing building complex. This vibrant and growing brewing business was unfortunately sold out to Ridley's Brewery (Essex) in 2002 in an attempt to "merge assets and compete more effectively." Ridley's were subsequently bought-out by Greene King (in 2005).
Whilst we remain to see what fate becomes of the remaining historic brewery buildings, the pub estate was broken-up and sold on separately by the holding banks in 1991 (mainly to become part of the Pubmaster estate).
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You need Google Earth installed on your computer to use this. You can get it as a free download from http://earth.google.co.uk Last updated: August 19th 2008