The demolition of The Ram Brewery in Wandsworth is well under way with many of the old buildings disappearing to make way for a mixed housing and retail development. The stables and farmyard that kids used to love visiting have gone and the main buildings (recently done up to film 'Masterchef') will soon follow.
Yes, it's good something is at last happening to the site which has been standing empty since Young's sold it and re-located a few years ago but to dedicated Young's drinkers it really is the last nail in the coffin. The company has ceased brewing altogether and is now just a pub management company and any beers bearing the Young's name are brewed by Charles Wells Ltd. of Bedford. That's progress!.
Sorry, I still can't do that links thing but Google 'The Ram Quarter' ' if you want to know more or to buy a very expensive apartment in up and coming Wandsworth.
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Now of course, there are lots of new micro/craft breweries in London, so the choice has never been better
The Guinea pub in Mayfair kept the best Youngs, always tasted that little bit better there.
Their beers and lagers used to all be great and reasonably priced, but now most have been discontinued or exist as 'glass of brown shit with fairy liquid on top' generic ales (to steal a quote from Bottom).
Youngs were bought for their real estate portfolio - as a result, most of the interesting boozers have become overpriced wine bar type places.
The demise of Youngs is a great pity, but at least there are other decent brewers in South London nowadays.
Take Courage Best for example - it used to be a decent enough session beer when brewed by Courage, but the bland beer today masquerading as Courage Best (brewed by Charles Wells) doesn't even taste the same.
It was the Young's family who chose to quite brewing, they could have built a new, more modern brewery themselves, but chose not to.
Similar story with Doombar. Sharps were a wonderful independent brewery in Cornwall that opened in the early 90's. Their ales were superb, Sharps Own being a particular favourite of mine. However they were so successful that they sold out to one of the industry giants, Coors, and all we are left with is the awful, insipid, tasteless Doombar.
As others have stated we are very lucky to be experienceing a renaissance in beer not seen since CAMRA forced the big brewers to clean up their act in the 70's. We now have thousands of independent breweries and a growing number of independent Micropubs to serve these wonderful ales.
I heard that the original developer paid £67m. for the site in 2006 and that the Chinese consortium that is currently developing it acquired it for around £600m. Not a bad profit!
The horses retired to a farm in Sussex and still make appearances at shows and events. There is a driver's eye film on U-tube showing a Young's dray clip -clopping its way through Richmond and coping with the traffic.