Dark Star Brewery - History

History

The Dark Star Brewery Company started, in 1994, as a small plant squeezed into a corner of the cellar of The Evening Star Pub, in Brighton. The company was founded by entrepreneur Peter Halliday, publican Peter Skinner, and brewer Rob Jones. At that time it was known as Skinner's brewery, but there was another Skinner's brewery in Cornwall, so the name was changed to Dark Star, after Jones's successful recipe for porter.(The resemblance between the names "Dark Star" and "Evening Star" is coincidental). It soon became apparent before long that the brewery could not keep up with the growing demand from the Evening Star’s drinkers, let alone the demand for its beers from other pubs.

In 2001 the brewery relocated to a new purpose-built brewery in Ansty, near Haywards Heath, from where it supplied the Evening Star with a selection of its beers, along with its sister pubs: The Stand Up Inn, Lindfield and The Duke of Wellington, Shoreham-by-Sea. A free trade to other pubs in Sussex and the rest of the UK developed at this time. Upon moving to Ansty, Mark Tranter became and remains the Head Brewer.

A new 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) site in Partridge Green was opened by Roger Protz in early 2010. This led to a fourfold increase in production, and Dark Star becoming the second largest brewery in Sussex In 2011 the brewery acquired the The Partridge public house in Partridge Green as a brewery tap.

HopFest. Sept 28,29 and 30th 2012 will be see the launch of HopFest an annual celebration of Hops - a three day festival held at the brewery.

Read more about this topic:  Dark Star Brewery

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    It’s a very delicate surgical operation—to cut out the heart without killing the patient. The history of our country, however, is a very tough old patient, and we’ll do the best we can.
    Dudley Nichols, U.S. screenwriter. Jean Renoir. Sorel (Philip Merivale)