History

The Durham Brewery launched in August 1994 at the Durham CAMRA Beer Festival where we were awarded beer of the festival with Celtic, an achievement that was to be repated the following year.

Founders Christine and Steve Gibbs were full-time teachers at the time and the brewery was to become the sole employer when the teaching jobs closed after the first year.

Steve soon developed "The White Range" which properly launched the brewery into the wider world. The beers were explorations of many hop varieties over a pale malt base. The beers were an instant success and still form the basis of our portfolio.

The original 5 barrel plant was sold and a new 10 barrel plant was installed in new premises in 1999. We have increased staffing over the years and now we have six members. Steve explored all types of beers over the years and one of the most notable was a recreation for Mike Field of The West Riding Refreshment Rooms, Dewsbury, of Whitakers "Old Tom". This evolved into Evensong which won Gold in the 2005 GBBF Real Ale in a Bottle competition.

Bottle-conditioned beers were started in 2000 with "Millennium City" in celebration of Durham's two thousand years. This beer is now known as St Cuthbert. An adventurous bottle range is now available from the lightest 3.8% to the darkest 10%. Steve continues to experiment and has developed a hybrid keg beer with cask qualities. Using continental techniques and English cask methods our bright minicasks have all the convenience of keg with the flavour of cask.