Sprake's Brewery

There have been many versions of the story of Sprake's brewery, Chale, Isle of Wight, over the years. Some of these histories were written by those with direct links to the Sprake family and one an actual family member. Some of the accounts written are quite confusing. It also seems that there is no definitive documentary evidence of when the brewery was actually founded, however there is the date of 1833 on bottle labels, business cards and advertisements. The brewery is mentioned in the 1841 Census with Robert Sprake noted as brewer and his wife Elizabeth alongside being resident in a cottage on the corner of Chale Lane and Town Lane. This part of Chale is known as Chale Green, Chale itself is nearer the coast. In geographical terms the village would be described as a linear settlement Robert was born in 1786, at the beginning it was a brewery only and named Sprake's Brewery.

The 1851 Census records Robert again simply as a brewer, the 1861 Census records Robert as brewer and beer shop keeper. The 1871 Census has the same information but the premises was then known as The Star Inn Brewery. On Robert's passing on 4/11/1865 he was described as a master brewer. The brewery then came into the hands of his son Robert Charles Sprake. For me at least this can be very confusing. The 1891 Census records Robert Henry Sprake as brewer with his wife Charlotte living at the Town Lane address. The 1881 Census had recorded him as being a brewers labourer and Charles Robert Sprake as a brewer, he was Robert Henry's older brother. According to a paper I have stamped with Ventnor and District Local History Society, Charles Robert was actually baptised as Robert Charles, his memorial in Chale churchyard refers to him as Charles Robert. This all adds to the confusion and is very easy as there were a number of branches of the Sprake family in Chale involved with activities such as building, fishing, farming and even smuggling.

Charles Robert passed away on 10/10/1882 aged 62, his brother Robert Henry taking the running of the brewery. The final Sprake's to own the brewery were Robert James, Charles Oscar, and Thomas Henry, they were the nephews of Oscar Edward, Oscar Edward was the eldest son of Charles Robert and Elizabeth. The brewery then became Sprake Brothers Brewery. Sometime between 1910 and Spring 1921 Sprake's brewery bought Knott's Brewery, Newport along with the John Lamb beer house. Charles Oscar Sprake and his wife Bertha Kate Sprake moved into the Knott's brewery premises in Orchard Street which eventually became the Malt and Hops public house.

In Derek Sprake's book 'Men of Chale'he makes several observations which illustrate that he wasn't all that familiar with certain brewing practices. Firstly he states that all the beer was the same brew. This just describes party gyling where the malt is mashed in the mash tun and is then ready to be run off to a copper for boiling, various strengths could be run off with the first most likely to be potentially strongest as the wort, the sweet liquid produced would have the highest fermentable sugar content . Subsequent run offs would have a lower sugar content, further adjustments could be achieved by adding brewing liquor to the wort. Hops would be added during the boil and the hoppiness may be increased by adding a handful of hops to a cask, this is known as dry hopping.

The story of "The Real Old" ale really just describes the practice of maturing old or "stale" beer, stale in this context doesn't mean beer that is "off", it was a term for maturing beer. This was once a common practice in British brewing, today Greene King is one of very few breweries still doing it. Greene King XXXX is blended with a younger beer to be bottled with the result being named Strong Suffolk. Derek Sprake describes drilling into the "tub", presumably a vat or cask and filling a glass with a small amount. This wouldn't have happened as the results would be similar to drilling into a dam, liquid would be gushing everywhere. The beer would have been drawn off via a tap and the vessel topped up if need be with fresh beer. Storing and maturing this beer wouldn't have made it stronger as Mr Sprake implies. Storing the beer would only allow it to mature and the flavour would change over time. If anything the stored beer would have become weaker as alcohol evaporates faster than water. Beer can only be brewed up to a strength of around 15% as the alcohol at this level begins killing off the yeast. The mention of adding a bottling line wouldn't be in today's understanding of the term with conveyor belts and crown corking machines. Sprake 's used screw top bottles with stoppers made primarily of vulcanite, which is a hard, black material. When this type of bottle was used in British brewing the stoppers were always applied by hand. I can find no reference to bottling and its heavy demand for water and the subsequent waste being a reason for the brewery's demise. Brewing in itself uses large amounts of water even if only casks are used. Brickwoods who took over Sprake's indeed carried on bottling.

The actual reason of Brickwoods interest in Sprake's was to acquire the tied estate which consisted on The Sun, Wellow, The Horse and Groom, Ningwood, The Malt and Hops, and John Lamb both Newport, The Bonchurch Inn, Bonchurch and The Star Inn, Chale.

This was written about in the County Press as follows, - "It was announced of Friday that the old established brewery business of Sprake's Brothers at Chale, Isle of Wight, including six licensed houses in various towns and villages had been purchased by Brickwood and Co, of Portsmouth, who thus increase the number of their houses on the Island to 13. Sprake's Brewery, Chale, has been established for just on a century and its reputation for home brewed beer has led to a considerable development of the business including building new premises at Chale. The brewery was started in 1833 by Robert Sprake, it was handed down to four generations of the family, but in the old brewery is preserved numerous relics of the old smuggling days , including a rusty candle lantern, which was used for signalling from the cliff to the smugglers at sea, and a cleverly constructed small pump, which was worked through a hole in the hearth stove to secure liquor from a cask hidden below whilst the family were seated in the chimney corner. The first brewers licence is still preserved. It shows that the excise duty on the beer at the time was 6d. per 36 gallon cask as compared to £5. today. It is understood that Messrs Brickwood intend to continue using the brewery and malting Island barley".

In at least two written accounts of the brewery they state bottling started in 1924 and ending in 1928 when they were purchased by Brickwood. An advert from the Isle of Wight County Press shows that Brickwoods carried on brewing at Sprake's and continued to bottle beer there. The bottled beer was One Star, Two Star and Chale Pale Ale. A price list indicates the Two Star was the strongest and the other two of a similar strength, this is indicated in the pricing. The Two Star is held up as "the famous red top", this must have been a paper neck strap stuck over the stopper, not as I've said before a crown cap. I have illustrated this article with two Sprake labels of quite different designs. If bottling only lasted for four years I doubt the brewery would have gone to the expense of having a new set of labels designed and printed. The design of the earlier One Star label suggests to me that it may be earlier than 1924, the two labels have quite different designs. Other Sprake labels survive but I've not seen them. I have been told there was one on the wall in The Star, I believe in a frame, by two prominent members of The Labologists Society, beer label collectors. It was described as yellow so presumably it was for Chale Pale Ale. What happened to it I've no clue but it didn't surface at the Whitbread Archive Auction as I was there and still have the catalogue. An old dealer friend of mine, Roy Morgan, described some Sprake labels stuck to the back of a picture he sold. This isn't as far fetched as it may sound, as some years ago there were various Shanklin Brewery Chine labels stuck on the walls of The Fisherman's Cottage on Shanklin seafront, in good condition they'd have a reasonable value now.

It was also further stated in the County Press. "The Chale Brewery.- it is announced in our advertisement column by Messrs Brickwoods, Ltd., that following their purchase of the Chale Brewery they propose to continue the brewing business with the same men, methods, and materials, the malting being under the supervision of Mr.C. Sprake and the brewing being controlled by Mr T. H. Sprake. The brewery however was itself eventually closed by Brickwood in 1933, they then supplied their public houses from their Orchard Street depot in Newport.