This Greenall Whitley Red Rose Stout logo originally appeared on the side of a beer barrel. Now, it’s yours to put on all kinds of things. Put this rate and beautiful design on more than 50 high-quality merch items by going here. Of, check out dozens of other unusual and rare designs by going right here.
Greenall Whitley Red Rose Stout: A Brief History
Greenall Whitley & Co traced its origins to 1762, when Thomas Greenall founded a brewery at Wilderspool, on the River Mersey at Warrington, then in Lancashire. For generations, the Greenall family ran the business, and through 19th-century partnership and marriage the Whitley family joined the firm, producing the “double-barreled” name by which it became known.
By the late 19th century, the British company was incorporated and had grown into one of the North West of England’s most substantial regional brewers, owning a large tied estate of public houses across Cheshire, Lancashire, Merseyside and North Wales.
Reputation
At its peak, Greenall Whitley controlled well over a thousand pubs and was a fixture of everyday drinking life in the region. Its reputation rested on dependable, traditional beers (chiefly cask bitter and mild brewed at Wilderspool under the Greenall’s name) rather than on fashionable innovation.
The company was a major local employer and a pillar of Warrington’s identity. In the later twentieth century the parent group diversified, expanding into hotels (the De Vere chain) and into spirits through G&J Greenall, makers of Greenall’s gin, which proved far more enduring than the beer.
Red Rose Stout
Greenall Whitley Red Rose Stout was a bottled stout named for the red rose of Lancaster, the historic county emblem, and its labels carried the rose device. It belonged to the brewery’s bottled-beer range and represented the kind of rich, dark, bottled stout that Northern English brewers had long supplied for home consumption.
Surviving bottles and labels show it was marketed with proud regional branding, but like many minor bottled stouts of the period, it attracted little written documentation, and precise details of its strength and recipe can only be guessed at now. It appears to have been a strong, sweetish stout typical of its time rather than a dry Irish-style stout.
Disappearance
The brewing operation came to an end in 1990, when the group announced the closure of the Wilderspool brewery. Brewing ceased, and Greenall’s beers survived only for a while under contract before fading from the market. Red Rose Stout disappeared with the brewery that made it.
The company refocused on hotels, pubs and gin, and the beer brands were eventually dispersed and discontinued. Today the brewery is long demolished, and Greenall Whitley survives mainly in pub signage, bottle collectors’ cabinets and the memory of drinkers who recall a genuinely regional institution.
Anyone familiar with the Canadian TV show “Republic of Doyle” will likely recognize this design. It featured prominently on the wall of the Saint John’s, Newfoundland bar that the Doyle family owned. If you haven’t seen this show, do yourself a favor and check it out (currently on Prime).
