200-year-old Castle Eden Brewery proves online hit after bottling heritage beers for lockdown drinkers

As its main business was supplying direct to pubs, Castle Eden Brewery was hit hard by the lockdown measures which were imposed in March.

Brewing came to a halt and the brewery in Spectrum Business Park in Seaham remained closed throughout April, which gave the management team time to rethink their business plan in line with the new Government guidance.

Utilising their existing bottling line, the firm ramped up its bottled ales production, selling six of its own brand beers direct to the public, and went from zero production to 60,000 in recent weeks.

As well as people around the country being able to order the bottles online, the brewery applied for a license to sell on site and launched a brewery beerstore so people can collect their order in person.

Embracing the opportunity to cater direct to drinkers, a website cebl.co.uk was also launched to highlight the brand and facilitate the online orders and click and collect service.

The flood of orders meant that all 12 of the team were able to return to work, including those who’d been furloughed.

Rich Sullock from sales and marketing at the brewery said: “Lockdown gave us the head space to do things we’d talked about, but had been too busy to implement. We’ll still be brewing for pubs and bars when the demand returns, but we’ll be doing a lot more bottling of our brands now too. It’s not a case of either/or.”

Cliff Walker, who co-owns the brewery with Dave Travers, said: “As a board of directors we’re so thankful to our brew team, they’ve really pulled one out of the bag.”

Phil Douglas, production manager, said: “We’ve had enquiries from all over the country. They can’t go to the pubs, but this gives people the chance to have fresh beer from the brewery, just hours after it’s been bottled.

“We’ve had the bottling line for years, but it’s never worked so hard as it has done in the past month. It’s crazy as we’ve gone from zero production to 60,000 and it’s beautiful to see full articulated lorries leaving the site.

Rich added: “We’ve had fantastic feedback from customers, with lots sharing their beers on social media. People have been saying things like ‘this IPA is a game changer’, which is fantastic to read. When lockdown happened it was a very worrying time, but this is great, positive news for the brewery team.”

As it approaches its 200th anniversary, the brewery has also brought back a range of heritage beers, using the same traditional recipes and ingredients from the original Castle Eden Brewery in Castle Eden Village. The 500ml bottle range includes Castle Eden Blonde, Castle Eden Ale, Castle Eden Red and Castle Eden Black.

Phil said: “We really want to get the Castle Eden Brewery name back out there. As we approach 200 years of the brewery, which dates back to 1826, we really wanted to bring back the heritage brands and have gone back to the original recipe as closely as we can. It’s a modern representation of what people would drink in pubs in years gone by and it really evokes memories for people.”

Although the original brewery site in Castle Eden has been demolished, its brand names were kept alive after being bought by Cameron’s and then bought by the current owners and opened as an independent micro-brewery in Seaham in 2015.

It comes as the Sunderland Echo is running its #SupportLocal campaign to shine a light on great local businesses.

For some more of the independent breweries and shops you can support during lockdown see our guide here.

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