Vaux Breweries
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Vaux Breweries was established in the centre of Sunderland in the 1880s and for 110 years was a major employer in the town.
The company bought the Sheffield based Wards Brewing Company in 1972, which it retained as a separate subsidiary.
By the 1990s, the company had become the Vaux Group, expanding into hotels. Despite the brewing business being profitable, both breweries were closed in July 1999 and the tenanted pub estate was sold to Pubmaster. The company changed its name to Swallow Group plc, concentrating on Swallow Hotels business and incorporating the former Vaux managed pub estate under the Swallow Inns & Restaurants brand. The company was subject to a successful take-over by Whitbread in the autumn of 2000, following which most of the hotels were re-branded as Marriott and the larger pubs were brought under other national brands, such as Brewers Fayre. Later, 10 hotels unsuitable for the Marriott converions were sold off, forming the nucleus of the current March 2006 Swallow Hotels chain.
The Sunderland brewery site was demolished for redevelopment.
Former beer brands of Vaux included:
- Samson bitter
- Double Maxim
- Sunderland Draught Bitter
- Lorimers Scotch
- Norseman Lager
- How's Your Father, a light, golden, cask conditioned ale sold in summer.
- Moonlight Mouse, an autumn cask conditioned ale
- Waggledance - a cask conditioned honey ale, sold to Youngs when Vaux ceased brewing
- Lambtons An ale named after the Lambton family
Two former directors of Vaux, and the former head brewer, formed the Double Maxim Beer Company in 2000 and bought the beer brands and recipes which has seen the return of Samson and Double Maxim.
