Wolf in new clothing?

From the news pages of the
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website comes news of change

of ownership of the Wolf Brewery, Attlebrough.

Wolf was my first proper brewing job, so I hope the sale/restructuring makes the new business viable.

IIRC one of the new director's, Wolfe Witham's stepson, Paul Kerridge mentioned below, for a time was the brewer at The (excellent) Reindeer brewpub in Norwich that Wolfe owned prior to selling to the Firkin chain & setting up his Attleborough micro. cheers MikeMcG

____________________________________________________________ Norfolk micro brewery has new owners - Monday, July 04, 2005 at 07:18 New owners of an award-winning micro brewery already own one well-known pub in Norwich and plan to open other havens for real ale drinkers.

The former Wolf Brewery in Attleborough has been sold and re-launched as WBC (Norfolk) Ltd, while the original company started by Wolfe Whitham has gone into liquidation.

Its directors are his stepson Paul Kerridge and John and Kay Edwards, the owners of The Duke of Wellington pub on Waterloo Road, one of the best loved real ale haunts in the city.

That means that not only will beers like Edith Cavell, Straw Dog, Coyote and Granny Wouldn't Like It continue to appear on bar counters, but the brewery may eventually have its own pubs in which to sell its growing selection of beers.

A public notice appeared yesterday announcing that the former brewery was being wound up and asking creditors to submit details of claims to the liquidator by July 31.

Mr Whitham said the new company had simply bought the brewery's assets and the debts remained his personal responsibility.

He said he was "saddened" that he had lost control of the business he had started, but it was always his intention to hand over the reigns to someone else in the future.

The new company was trading and both drinkers and pubs had continued to support the business. Drinkers at the Hove & Brighton Beer Festival had meanwhile recently voted a special 4.5pc 'Wolf' ale as 'Beer of the Festival', an accolade that would usually go to a local brewer.

The link with the Duke of Wellington or Iron Duke and the possibility of other pubs opening up in the city would further strengthen its position.

"We already trade very well at the Duke of Wellington which is probably our top account in Norfolk," said Mr Whitham.

"To have control of the outlets you supply takes a lot of pressure off the micro brewer. The biggest problem for small breweries is getting access to the market as more and more pubs are bought up by large national chains."

Asked what had gone wrong, he replied: "I was working under a lot of pressure for a lot of years. This started a long time ago and now the people who are going to be running it on a permanent basis will not be under that pressure." __________________________________________________________________

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