BRIGG BREWING HISTORY RISES TO THE SURFACE AFTER 53 YEARS

There are still some people in the Brigg area today who can remember drinking beer made in the town by the award-winning Sergeant's Brewery.
Founded when Queen Victoria was on the throne and using water drawn from a Castlethorpe spring, this family firm lasted until autumn 1967 by which time it was owned by a major chain looking to reduce the cost of operating small outlets.
If Sergeant's had survived into the 21st century when specialist craft beers/real ales are all the rage, we reckon it would have proved particularly popular.
However, in 1967, closure arrived and the brewery beside the Old River Ancholme passed into local history.
It was located behind the White Hart, where the new AF Carpets showroom is taking shape - on the other side of the water from B&M's store.
Research undertaken for Brigg Blog's current Dates Timeline Project has produced a bonus - an article about the eleventh hour of Sergeant's Brewery in 1967.
We have now discovered that teacher Mr G. (George?) Mounsey and some pupils from Westmoor School visited the building that October - shortly before it closed down - to record the processes and equipment in use.
Their account of its contents was later published over four pages in an historical Lincolnshire journal.
Then, in 1976, some historians visited the derelict riverside building - taking measurements, perhaps the final photographs and publishing plans of both floors.
The account noted: "No machinery remained by this time but positions of such items as the mash tun could be determined by marks on the floor."
Drawings showed a bottle store and vat room on the ground floor, with a hoist running down from above. There was a cellar beneath but its layout was not indicated.
Mr Mouncey's account - Sergeant's Brewery, Brigg - appeared in Lincolnshire Industrial Archaeology, Volume 4, No. 2, pages 18-21.
We haven't been able to trace this feature article online through Google searches, but are hoping that someone locally may have a copy of the publication. Or could some of Mr Mouncey's Westmoor pupils from 1967 have retained the research compiled as part of this interesting school visit?
We are also keen to know when the building was eventually demolished.
Sergeant's brewing company was established in 1837 - the year Queen Victoria became monarch - and its riverside brewery was constructed in 1852, our researches reveal.
Sutton, Bean had a brewery near the Britannia Inn, on Wrawby Street, which could trace its roots back to Victoria's reign. Its last beer was made in December 1924.
Landlord Bob Nicholson established a micro-brewery at the nearby Queens Arms in the late 1990s - his beers including the interestingly named Blanket Lifter!
PICTURED: Above - Barrels of the final 'brew' in 1967 before closure (note the use of traditional wooden casks). Below - the former Sergeant's brewery in the early 1970s and viewed in the distance (right) from the County Bridge in the same era with Riverside House in the foreground and the jam factory on the other bank.