Wrexham Lager

About

Wrexham lager is Britain’s oldest lager brew. The brewery was originally founded in 1882 by German immigrants (Ivan Levinstein & Otto Isler) trying to recreate the lager taste that they missed from their homeland. A site was chosen in the west of Wrexham(now known as Island Green) because it’s terrain lent itself to what they proposed to do, which was to dig deep cellars to keep the brew insulated and cold for the brew to mature, and it was next to the river Gwenfro. The idea was unsuccessful as the cellars were not cool enough to create the clear crisp golden lager that they wanted and the business faced ruin. In a chance meeting on a train to Liverpool Ivan met Robert Graesser who was an industrialist with a chemical works in Acrefair on the outskirts of Wrexham. He joined the company and introduced mechanical refrigeration to cool the cellars. This was a success and Wrexham Lager was created. At this period the drinking population of the UK drank ale and there was hostility from ale brewers (19 in Wrexham.circa 1860) to this new company and its new drink. It was found that the beer travelled very well and maintained its quality and taste but the tied pub system meant that Wrexham Lager had very few outlets to sell through and in 1892 the company went into receivership and closed. Not being one to give up Robert Graesser re-launched Wrexham Lager and as well as local sales he found new markets for it and Wrexham Lager travelled far and wide. There is evidence of it being drunk by the British soldiers at the siege of Khartoum in 1885. Wrexham Lager being delivered by train Wrexham Lager certainly did travel far and wide. The White Star Line who’s most famous ship was the Titanic used it on their ships because of its ability to keep its taste and quality in transit. In 1922 Wrexham Lager purchased its first outlet in the town and that was the "Cross Foxes" in Abbot Street and when another brewery in Wrexham closed Wrexham Lager purchased the freeholds of their tied houses which brought the number of outlets up to 23. The company flourished under direction of the Graesser family but World war 2 intervened which meant export trade was lost. After the hostilities of WW2 subsided it was difficult to regain the export market and the company suffered financially. In 1949 the Wrexham Lager Company was bought by Ind Coope. The demand for lager as a drink increased and in the 1960’s Ind Coope invested in modernising the Wrexham plant. There followed a series of mergers between Ind Coope, Tetley Walker and Ansells who collectively became known as Allied Breweries, then the biggest brewing group in Britain. In 1992 Allied Breweries joined forces with Carlsberg from Denmark and the company became known as Carlsberg Tetley. This new company ran the Wrexham Lager Brewery and decided to cease all brewing of Wrexham Lager in Wrexham in the year 0f 2000. The iconic brew was produced elsewhere in the country until 2002 when the decision to end the production of Wrexham Lager was taken.