Written by Greene King, Suffolk, UK
Anyone driving through the Suffolk town of Bury St. Edmunds knows it’s a brewery town 
before you arrive – the smell of the brewing processes is noticeable from the giant premises which sits alongside the A12 road. While not the oldest of breweries, Greene King has in recent years made its mark as one of the biggest in the country. Old is relative of course and this Suffolk establishment dates back to 1799 when Benjamin Greene first became involved with the brewing trade in Bury St. Edmunds. The actual Greene King brewery did not come into being until Benjamin’s son Edward Greene merged his Westgate Brewery enterprise with Frederick King’s St. Edmunds Brewery in 1887, creating one of the biggest breweries in the country.
Edward died in 1891 the following statement is a line from the Bury & Norwich Post in his obituary:
“He was one of the first country brewers to discover that beer need not be vile, black, turgid stuff, but brewed a bright amber-coloured liquid of Burton-type, which he sold at a shilling per gallon and made a fortune”.
So Greene King was a pioneer of sorts, tempting Victorian pallets with a more pleasant tasting drink. Right up until the current period it has been run intelligently and relatively conservatively, although the number of acquisitions and takeovers of smaller pub chains along the way may suggest otherwise. The takeovers began in the 1880s and continue until the present day, although there have been periods of inactivity.
This policy of buying up small pub chains means that Greene King is the third largest pub company in the United Kingdom. It has always avoided the temptation to break up the enterprise into different parts and this is a strategy which has proved profitable. There have of course been critics along the way, especially with reference to their most famous drink, Greene King IPA. In a similar situation to that of Boddington’s beer, some drinkers believe that the taste of IPA has been altered to appeal to a wider audience, diluting the original, more nuanced flavour.
Greene King produces four well known beers all year round along with many seasonal releases and guest beers. The main four are IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale and Belhaven (a recent acquisition).
