Salopian Brewery

Salopian Brewery was founded as Snowdonia Brewery in 1994 by Brewer Martin Barry at his Pub in North Wales. In 1995 he relocated to Shrewsbury and renamed it Salopian (meaning of Shrewsbury). At that time it was the smallest commercial brewery in the country (not attached to a Pub) with a 2 barrel brewlength.

After two years of trading Wilf Nelson, the current Managing Director joined the brewery. Initially much of the production was contract brewed for bottling – mainly into Oddbins and Safeways – but the advent of progressive beer duty in 2002 allowed the Brewery to concentrate on it’s own cask beer production. Barry left in 2004 and Mark Hill of the Brewers Wholesale became a partner. At that stage the production of the brewery was all into cask, very much in the traditional Midlands style of blonde and lightly hopped. Over this period the brewlength regularly increased, firstly to 10 barrels in 2000, then to 15 barrels in 2005 and on to 20 barrels in 2007.

In 2008 Jake Douglas was recruited as our first salesman, and after a short period he began to influence the production of the brewery as well. A change was made from the traditional to a more modern hop led style. This transition has proved very successful, with sales nearly trebling since 2008 and recognition of the brewery’s prowess at every level of competition. A new 30 barrel brewery was installed in 2010 to cope with demand and when this was overwhelmed the brewery relocated in 2014 to a purpose built 50 barrel plant.