Brewpubs no longer brewing
Hedgehog and Hogshead Highbury
259 Upper Street N1 1RU (Islington)
First sold beer: September 1995
Ceased brewing: Early 1998
Hedgehog and Hogshead Sutton
2 High Street, Sutton SM1 1HN (Sutton)
First sold beer: September 1995
Ceased brewing: Early 1998
Three years after selling his pioneering Firkin pubs, entrepreneur David Bruce embarked on the creation of a second brewpub chain, when his company Inn Securities leased former Tamplins pub the Cliftonville Hotel in Hove (now the Station, 100 Goldstone Villas BN3 3RU) from Watney (Grand Metropolitan).
This reopened on 24 July 1990 as the Hedgehog and Hogshead, complete with a small full mash brewery, officially known as Bertie Belcher’s Brighton Brewery Co at the Hedgehog and Hogshead. The company opened a second brewpub in Southampton later that year.
Besides another alliterative name combining an animal with a traditional cask size, the operation recycled other elements of the Firkin style, even brewing a strong dark beer known as Hogbolter. But they saved themselves the trouble of devising new variants on the name by renaming subsequent venues simply as the Hedgehog and Hogshead.
The new chain didn’t grow as consistently or as far as the Firkins, and didn’t expand further until two more venues opened in August 1995, both in Greater London. First to open, on 15 August, was a makeover of the Cock Tavern, on a prime site at Highbury Corner, right next to Highbury and Islington station. The in-house brewery, known as Bertie Belcher’s Islington Brewery Co at the Hedgehog and Hogshead, began operating a few weeks later.
Once again a Watney lease, the Cock originated as a grand Victorian pub opened with the station, also originally a much more elaborate building, in 1872. It was badly damaged in a fatal rocket attack in 1944 and demolished and rebuilt in more mundane style in 1956. It was only a short walk from one of the original Firkins, the Flounder and Firkin on Holloway Road (now the Lamb), which was then still a brewpub under a new owner.
The second London Hedgehog and Hogshead, and as it turned out the last in the chain, opened in Sutton in the south London suburbs on 23 August 1995 and began brewing soon afterwards, as Bertie Belcher’s Sutton Brewery Co at the Hedgehog and Hogshead. Unlike the others, this was a conversion of a building that had been an ironmonger’s shop and then a branch of the Midland Bank.
Both venues produced a standard range of beers: Belcher’s Best Bitter (4.2%) and the stronger Tailer (or Taylor) Maid (4.6%) in cask, several keg beers including a blonde ale, Dina Might (4.6%), and a stout, Newgates Knocker (5%), that was available in both formats. There were also specials and seasonals, including a winter ale, Slaybells (6.4%).
The pubs in London and Southampton ceased brewing in 1998, and were then taken over by other operators, renamed and operated as non-brewing venues. The original Hedgehog and Hogshead in Hove likewise closed in 2000.
The two London venues are still functioning pubs, now on Stonegate leases: the Famous Cock in Highbury and the Old Bank in Sutton.
David Bruce, meanwhile, continued to found pub chains, including Capital Pubs which operated two 21st century brewpubs in London: see Florence Brewery and Firkin Brewery.
Updated 10 June 2024.
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