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| The J.W. Green Group was based in Luton which is a
town some thirty miles north of London. One of its less well-known claims to fame is that
my father's family came from there and we lived within smelling distance of the brewery. John William Green bought the Phoenix Brewery in Park Street West, Luton
in 1869 and nearly one hundred years later his successors had a built a business of over
1,000 public houses that stretched the length and breadth of the country. It is said that
a Luton man who was travelling to Sunderland in the north east fell asleep on the train.
When he woke up he saw an advertisement for Brewmaster beer and thought himself back in
Luton! Along the way, the concern had changed its name to Flowers Breweries. In 1961 it
became part of the Whitbread group. The Luton brewery was closed in 1969 and the site is
now occupied by Whitbread offices. A brand new brewery was opened on the edge of the town,
but that too was closed less than twenty years later. |
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The Dragon's Blood beermat is Green's earliest
recorded issue from around 1952. Acquiring it achieved a long-held ambition, but was also
slightly disappointing. The British catalogue of the time had listed it as a pre-war
issue, but this beermat bore the printer's name "BCM/Quarmby" at the bottom and
this style was only used post war. Since I first wrote this paragraph, further evidence
that the beermat is post war has emerged with Martyn Cornell reminding me that the
nickname "Dragon's Blood" was given to the beer by US servicemen during World
War Two. |
| In
1954 Greens merged with Flower and Sons of Stratford upon Avon to form a ten million pound
organisation. One of the conditions of the merger was that the Flowers name was to be
retained, so the company was called Flowers Breweries Ltd. In
all, eight beermat issues are known under the name of J.W. Green, and two are illustrated
below. |
| Poacher continued to be produced by Whitbread for a
while after the take over. The name reappeared on beermats in the 1980's as Poacher
Bitter. Sable Stout has not been brewed for many years, but I think that its beermat is
the most attractive of the eight. |
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Flower and Sons are credited with a couple of
beermats, both with their trade mark of Stratford upon Avon's most famous citizen William
Shakespeare. Flower's Bitter, revived as Whitbread brand, has been advertised on many
coasters of the eighties and nineties, but the genuine article from the early 1950's is
featured here. |
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