Our Independent Manchester Brewery

From humble beginnings in 1849, our independent Empire Street brewery in Manchester has been home to Joseph Holt since 1860. Over the years, it has evolved and grown to become the modern beer creating brewery it is today, although still surrounded by some of the original history, fixtures and fittings.

It all adds to the theatre of doing what we do best – creating award winning beers that have served generations.

Still being housed at the original Brewery means we never lose sight of what’s important to us. We have remained faithful to the brewing traditions established by Joseph Holt back in the 1840s but have embraced modern technology to ensure our beer tastes better than ever.

Today, our independent family-run brewery is equipped with three different sized mash tuns and three coppers, which are capable of brewing up to 500 barrels per day. We use the best quality English malt and hops from the UK and lager hops from Slovenian hop gardens.

Historic Manchester Brewery

With 173 years of experience under our belts, we have perfected the brewing technique. Our range of ales are all top fermented in enclosed square fermenters. During the brewing process, the temperatures of all fermenting vessels are closely monitored and we use chilled water jackets to give us full control of the all-important temperature.

Our lagers are bottom fermented using multiple continental profiles. They are cold conditioned in cylindro-conical vessels at a temperature of 0 degrees centigrade for 21 days prior to earth filtration and packaging into kegs.

Natural sedimentation is used at all stages and cask beers are allowed to settle for a minimum of 18 hours prior to packaging.

Our beer also gets packaged into 5L mini kegs for the Holts at Home online beer shop. Now, we can send our well-loved beer to all corners of the UK.