Built to Brew joins the increasingly eclectic range of ‘Historic England’ publications from English Heritage, which now includes some 140 titles, some with a thematic approach, others more geographically or site-focused. Like several of the series, Built to Brew grew from fruitful co-operation between the then English Heritage and a specialist industrial archaeological group, in this case the Brewery History Society, with which the author, Lynn Pearson, has long been involved. Members of the Society and English Heritage undertook a nationwide survey of the industry between 2007 and 2009, to provide accurate information on all traditional operating breweries and to produce both a database of historic brewery buildings and a Strategy for the Historic Industrial Environment report on the industry. Built to Brew emerged as a development of this work, intended to give a broader understanding of the industry and its physical evidence.

Reflecting these origins, the focus of the book is very much on the brewery as an artefact rather than the history of brewing as an economic activity or industry. After a Prologue on beer itself – the processes involved in its creation and the various styles of ale and beer – the book provides an introduction to the development of the industry in England from earliest times to the present day. In a concise but thorough way, this deals with changes in the organisation of the industry (for example, the supplanting of common brewers by industrial-scale concerns), changes in product, such as the introduction of porter, and the impact of such diverse factors as legislation, brewers’ organisations (and exhibitions) and prominent individuals such as Samuel Whitbread. The book then moves on to consider the design and planning of the brewery and its internal machinery, organisation and power sources. These sections are chronological in structure and, while providing a wealth of information on specific firms and their owners, architects and engineers, retain a site-specific focus.

Throughout these chapters, as in the book as a whole, there is an emphasis on brewery buildings themselves and the equipment they contained, and on the history, development and fate of specific sites, especially those where evidence survives. The text is lavishly illustrated with contemporary prints and both archive and modern photographs, the majority of which derive from the English Heritage archives or the author’s own collections or her contemporary photographs. There are many plans and architects’ drawings and, while the reproductions are in one or two cases too small for much of the detail to be accessible, most are easily legible.

The rest of the book is more diverse in scope. There is a specific chapter on Burton upon Trent, which combines a historical survey of the rise and contraction of the industry in Burton with a strong emphasis on its physical impact and surviving remains. Then, in a chapter titled ‘Beyond the Brewery’, is an introduction to the manifold influence of the industry beyond its own buildings and plant. Ranging from brewers’ philanthropy (the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford and the Walker Gallery in Liverpool feature prominently) to the brewers’ churches and country houses, this is an interesting indication of the wider influence of the trade. A discussion of brewery housing provides a little more insight into the workers in the industry who otherwise – necessarily in view of the information available – feature mainly as statistics or anonymous faces in photographs.

The book concludes with a discussion of the buildings of the industry today: an account of survivors and the adaptive reuse of redundant buildings, much of which charts a path familiar from other large industrial structures such as textile mills. This is, however, a consistent theme of the book, each chapter containing many references to surviving structures or equipment and their reuse, sometimes ingenious, such as the retention of coppers and vats in visitor centres or cafes, sometimes more conventional, such as residential conversions and arts centres in larger buildings. This emphasis on surviving remains, many of which can be visited and experienced directly, is a strength of the book, and those who may find the sheer volume of sites and remains described a little overwhelming will be assisted by an excellent index of individual breweries, and a geographical as well as a general index.

Built to Brew was awarded the Association of Industrial Archaeology’s prestigious Peter Neaverson Award for outstanding scholarship in industrial archaeology in 2015, and deservedly so. It combines a wealth of information about individual breweries and their development, set within a useful general introduction to the history of the industry in general.