Camerons Brewery

Camerons Brewery is an English brewery established by John William Cameron in Stranton, Hartlepool, County Durham, in 1865. It is the largest independent brewer in the North East of England, with a brewery capacity of 1.5 million hectolitres (900,000 hl production in 1865) and a tied estate of 75 houses. It is one of the oldest industrial concerns... in Hartlepool, and has historically been one of the largest employers. After one hundred years of growth through brewery acquisitions, the company had an estate of 750 licensed premises throughout the North East and North Yorkshire by the 1960s. The company subsequently struggled as the economy of its trading heartland suffered, and as it underwent a succession of owners with little experience of pub and brewery management. Camerons lost its independence to Ellerman Lines in 1974, and was acquired by the Barclay Brothers in 1983 and then Brent Walker in 1989. Brent Walker spun-off the majority of the tied estate as a separate company called Pubmaster, which was acquired by Punch Taverns in 2003. Camerons was purchased by Wolverhampton & Dudley (now called Marston's Brewery) in 1992, who invested heavily in the brewery before selling the company to Castle Eden in 2002, who closed their own site and moved all production to Camerons. The company now has a relatively small tied estate but the ninth largest brewery in the country. As a result, around 80 percent of its business involves contract brewing for other companies, such as Heineken. Camerons is known across the United Kingdom for Strongarm, a distinctive ruby red bitter launched in 1955. Total production of Strongarm surpassed one billion pints in 2000.Read More