My first ever brewery visit, which just happened to be to a company in Burton-on-Trent, that's making the wrong sort of headlines at the moment.

With the Marston’s Brewery at Burton-on-Trent currently in the news for all the wrong reasons, it’s worth taking a look back at the time I visited the brewery on what was my first ever brewery trip. I wrote this post several years ago, but for some reason never published it. I’ve had to tweak it a bit, and even re-write parts of it, and whilst it doesn’t tell you that much about the brewery itself – for reasons that will become apparent later in the piece, I trust it still makes interesting reading.

My first brewery visit took place in 1974, towards the end of my first year as a student at Salford University. The brewery trip followed an approach from a friend called Nick, who I hadn’t seen for some time, owing to us being on a different courses. Several weeks previously, Nick’s departmental society had organised a visit to Marston’s Brewery at Burton-on-Trent but following several fellow students literally dropping out at the last minute, there were now some spare seats on the pre-booked coach.

I was sitting in the Student Union Bar at the time, with course mate Chris, when Nick approached us, trying to drum up support for the trip to Marston’s. Although I was tempted, Chris and I had already made other arrangements, and it would have been somewhat churlish for me to have abandoned these in favour of the brewery trip. Whilst I was weighing this over in my mind, Nick proved very persistent in his arguments, even broadcasting an appeal over the Student’s Union Tannoy system, extolling the virtues of Marston’s beers, and the opportunity of seeing how they were brewed.

Nick’s persistence worked, even though I felt the Tannoy appeal was aimed primarily at me, but Chris felt differently, and whilst we didn’t exactly fall out over the matter, we agreed to go our separate ways that afternoon. I still had some misgivings over letting down a friend in favour of another, but these feelings were soon dispelled by the prospect of touring Marston’s Brewery, and sampling some of the beers produced there.

A relatively short coach ride saw us arriving in Britain’s brewing capital in time for a lunchtime drink. The tour wasn’t scheduled to start until mid-afternoon, so we headed for the Albion Hotel, the nearest Marston’s outlet to the brewery, and effectively at the time, the brewery tap. The Albion had been chosen by the tour organiser, a mature, Welsh student called Gareth who, like Nick, was studying to be an Environmental Health Inspector. Unlike Nick, Gareth already had a job working for Manchester City Council, who were sponsoring his studies. Having been around a while, Gareth turned out to be quite a connoisseur of good beer and pubs, as well as having rather an eye for the ladies!

Several pints later we presented ourselves at the brewery entrance, just a short distance away. Unfortunately, I remember very little about the brewery itself, partially because the beer I’d consumed that lunchtime had clouded my judgement, but mainly because I knew very little about the brewing process at the time. This is pity, as undoubtedly, we would have seen the soon to be scrapped, Burton Union system in action. At the time, Bass also employed this system of fermentation for their stronger beers, and I think I’m correct in saying there were far more union sets at the Bass Brewery, than there were at Marston’s.

After our tour of the plant, we were conducted into the brewery’s Sports and Social Club. Those of a certain age will remember it being quite common for companies of a certain size to provide facilities where employees could relax after work, or in the evenings, and Marston’s were no exception. This was the one part of the visit I do remember, as the hospitality shown to us was on the generous side, with plenty of food and copious samples of the brewery’s products.

It was there that I sampled Marston’s Pedigree for the first time, and very good it was too, despite being dispensed by "top-pressure." The latter system was in common use during the early 1970’s and, as its name implies, top-pressure involves applying carbon-dioxide gas, under pressure, into the top of the cask (via the spile hole). This forces the beer out of the cask, and along the line, to a tap on the bar. It came into being as a way of preventing cask beer from going sour (oxidising), but unfortunately the excess gas tended to dissolve in the beer making it fizzy and compromising the taste.

I was already familiar with Marston’s weaker, but eminently enjoyable Burton Bitter; this being a fairly common drink in the company’s Manchester pubs, but Pedigree was a new beer so far as I was concerned. The following term, the nearest Marston’s pub to where Nick and I lived, ended up stocking Pedigree, but that’s another story. As far as the trip was concerned, the journey back was uneventful, although I have vague recollections of stopping somewhere en-route at a Bank’s pub. This was mainly to answer the call of nature, but of course also entailed another pint or two!

 By the time I arrived back at my lodgings, or “digs” as they were called back then, I was slightly the worse for drink and too late for the evening meal. 

Fortunately, I had eaten well at the brewery, so I went to bed early to sleep off the surfeit of ale I’d consumed and awoke the next morning feeling none the worse.  Later, that day I was able to recount my exploits to my course mate Chris, and although he put a brave face on things, claiming he had had an enjoyable afternoon, deep down I’m sure he was secretly wishing he’d come to Burton with Nick and me.

That trip to Marston’s was to be the first of several dozen brewery visits I have enjoyed over the years, and whilst I’d like a return trip there sometime, it won’t be the same now, given the recent decision by the company’s current owners, to scrap the Burton Union system.