There has been a brewing connection with Mutley long before the Hop Shop opened. Within one mile of our shop in Dale Road are the sites of two now long closed breweries.

The Victoria Brewery was at the corner of Weston Park Road and Home Park Avenue. This was registered in 1898 and became the second brewery in Plymouth to be taken over by the Burton on Trent brewers Samuel Allsopps Ltd in 1920, the first being the Bedford Brewery (Plymouth) in 1919.
It was decided to merge the two operations as one and to change the title of the business to the 'New' Victoria Brewery Co Ltd. By 1953 brewing had finished at the Western Park Road site.

From at least 1824 beer was brewed by Polkinghorne & Co at the Bedford Brewery, Bedford Street, Plymouth. Later the name of the company was changed to the Victoria Brewery, and it was this company that was taken over by Allsopps and later merged with the Victoria Brewery. The site in Alexandra Road later became in turn the Bowyers Factory, a DIY superstore and is now the Eurobell building.

Another well known local brewery, Plymouth Breweries, was the result of the merging of 6 smaller breweries in October 1889. The members were Samuel Vosper's Regent Brewery, Amanda Henrietta Butcher's Anchor Brewery, G.Ryall's Frankfurt Street Brewery, Hick and Co.'s South Devon Brewery and Frederick Richard Vaughan's Saltash Brewery. This impressive combination of companies was eventually taken over by Courage in 1970, and the Regent Brewery site at Stonehouse, now long closed, is where Marine Projects build their world class range of Motor Cruisers.

So it would appear that the current wave of brewery take mergers and take-overs is not a recent phenomenon but just the continuation of a process that has been going on as long as brewing itself.
Fortunately we are blessed in the West Country by a resurgence of small brewery's such as Princetown, Sharp's, Skinner's, Summerskills and Sutton Breweries who continue a long established West Country tradition of brewing quality beers with real character.

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All pictures of the old Victoria Brewery building.