Irish Brewing History: Belfast's Cromac Brewery and their 'BigBottle' Brand

At times I feel somewhat guilty that very little of the content I post is about breweries or beers from north of the border ...

I am not sure why I research and write so little about those six counties, as it makes very little logical sense given the timelines I tend to delve into are quite often from way back before there was a border on this island. Perhaps it is an unintended manifestation of a slight disconnect that I - and others I presume - feel from the land, industries and people on that end of the island? I am not sure I can rationalise my shortcomings here, and in truth I am not sure if it is the place I should do so anyway.

So instead I will try to correct that flaw, right that imbalance.

Many who follow my writing here and my chatter on Twitter will be aware of my interest in the more tangible aspects of our brewing history such as glasses, beer mats or ephemeral scraps of paper such as old brewery invoices or delivery dockets. I crave being able to hold an actual piece of our beer history, especially labels from old, extinct breweries. This is partly because I know I can never see those breweries as they were at their peak, never talk to the brewers, or smell the wonderful malt-laden aroma of the boil as it wafts down the street, or - most importantly - taste their beers (Although I'm working on that...). Practically all of the breweries I waffle on about no longer exist apart from in the writing of a few, and in those aforementioned things I find, curate and - oddly - cherish.

But sometimes almost nothing exists, so while trawling through old newspapers I keep one eye out for the next best thing to find if you do not not possess anything 'real', which is an advertisement for a defunct brewery or beer and, if I am really lucky, the printed facsimile of a beer label.  So I think you can now see why an advertisement from 1910 in the Irish News and Belfast Morning News caught my eye, even though I was a fair way down a completely different rabbit hole of brewing history at the time. (The full advertisement is at the bottom of this post by the way.)

It was not a label I had come across before and the trademarked image of a top hat-wearing gentleman with a cane behind his back staring up at a giant bottle is certainly a little different. The label also carries the words 'Imperial Pint' and '"BIGBOTTLE" Brand' along with the price, the brewery name and address, and what the bottle contains. Note also that the beer is supplied in a flip-top bottle with a seal across the top - although by 1921 they had changed to a screw stopper.

A little more digging and I came across more wonderful advertisements from this period for the same beer brand from 'Cromac Brewery', and to my eyes this use of this branding and the layout and content of the advertisements themselves were ahead of their time.

"The 'BIGBOTTLE' is getting the merit it deserves; for until its arrival no such value had ever been procurable. Today, thanks to the enterprise of The Cromac Brewery, you can obtain for 2d, a full pint creamy porter, in a nice clean bottle, and in perfect condition. Brewed from materials which are always of the highest quality, no matter what the price may be, and bottled by the brewers in their own brewery, the contents of "BigBottle" are always in condition. The price of malt, etc., may rise, but not the price of the "BigBottle," which is always 2d., and always the same high quality.
SEE THE LABEL ON EVERY BOTTLE. BEWARE OF INFERIOR SUBSTITUTES."

And here is another...

The brewery was also making a Nut Brown Ale in 1909, supplied in the 'BigBottle' too, plus 'Starbright' ales in 1911, and they were certainly pushing their beers strongly at this point, with an emphasis on that Imperial pint bottle concept and on price - in other advertisements they use the strapline 'bottling porter at the price of draught porter'. This reinforces something I mentioned in a previous post where I suggested that the famous 'Large Bottle' of ale or stout wasn't very common until relatively recently, as here we have it being promoted as a novelty either side of 1910. Perhaps we were seeing the first version of 'the large bottle off the shelf' here...?

The name Cromac Brewery caused a little confusion for me, as these beers were presumably brewed by McConnells in their distillery premises on the other side of the river Lagan, but I had come across references to a brewery on Cromac Street in Belfast. A Patrick Macauley established a brewery on that street in 1836 although it was up for sale by 1838 and appears to still be for sale as late as 1845. There is reference to a Thomas McKelvey owning it in his obituary in 1847 but I am unsure if that was from 1845 -1847 or whether it referenced a partnership that he may have had with Macauley when he set up the business - I suspect the former. By 1852 Fordyce and Mullan were selling bitter ale from a Cromac Brewery but it was up for lease by 1855. It appears to have been taken over by a H. Scott and Co. around that time and they produced 'bitter and sweet ales, porter and table beers' until around 1876 when it was for sale yet again. The newspaper advertisement at this time says the site was 149 feet long by 141 deep on Cromac Street and mentions the 'celebrated' springs that were the source - presumably - for the brewing water. It was for sale again in 1883 but not as an actual brewery, and it had not been for some time, as it was being used by its owner as a provision store at that time.

McConnell's appear to have taken over the 'Cromac Brewery' brand sometime around 1899 and used it from then - perhaps there is a connection to the original brewery but in my scant research I probably missed it. Another notable point is that in 1924 McConnells were brewing a stout called 'Redkap' that claimed was the strongest stout in Ireland, and it appears that the whole company went into liquidation in 1938. (I must stress that these last two paragraphs are based on a quick search so I'd urge anyone looking further into these tangled histories of both sites to use this information as a starting point, but not rely on it as being 100% accurate - although it is probably not far from the true facts, perhaps with a few omissions.)

What have we learned? I am not entirely sure but we have certainly seen some clever and new - for the time - marketing. Is that the first pint bottle of porter? Definitely not, but probably the first beer to be promoted in a pint bottle in this way on this island - and possibly anywhere. Is this the first flip-top bottle cap seen here too? I am not sure on this one but I think yes, at least until I find something earlier.

So there we go, a nice foray up north and certainly something I must repeat again soon - I hope it has given you a thirst for a pint bottle of ... something.

Liam

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