Interesting stuff, HH, it was the Chester Walls site that inspired my original searching. I have looked, to no avail so far, for any surving records from the Lion Brewery to get an idea of what their beers were like. As it was acquired so early on, 1902, by Bent's I think the possibility of the malt and hop records surviving in the public domain is remote.
Being a more recent closure, a larger collection of records from Northgate Brewery survive. Other interesting documents in the Records Office are the old licensing records which show which local pubs were tied to which breweries in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This might make an interesting article for a future newsletter.
One little mentioned brewery was the Queens Park Brewery in Handbridge which closed in the late 19th century. It was situated at the corner of what is now Elizabeth Crescent and Edinburgh Way. The 1881 census shows the owner as a brewer and maltster. It is believed that the brewery grew its own hops and barley on the Meadows which may explain the abundance of now wild barley and hops there today.
In September, I made some beer with some of the hops, and very nice it was too. Difficult to measure the alpha acid as I don't have the facilties, but my guestimate is around 7-8% as they are considerably more bitter than a benchmark Golding when I made a hop tea with equal amounts of each for comparison. I used the hops in both bittering and late hopping, and they produced a very sharp, traditional bitter taste which was very drinkable.
If you look at the Tithe maps
http://maps.cheshire.gov.uk/tithemaps/TwinMaps.aspx?township=EDT_96-2The brewery was there in 1836 and 1875, but had gone by 1910.
Residents near the site of the brewery, still occasionally unearth bottles and other artefacts.
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