W.B. MEW, LANGTON & Co. LTD. WINE AND SPIRIT MERCHANTS
BY APPOINTMENT
PALE ALE AND STOUT BREWERS TO HER MAJESTY AND H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF
WALES
HEAD OFFICE - THE ROYAL BREWERY, NEWPORT, ISLE OF WIGHT
This is the story of a brewery company that began in Crocker Street in Newport around 1814 when Benjamin Mew and his partner James Cull, brewers, were jointly occupying premises there. Over the next 150 years the company was to be the major supplier of ales to the Isle of Wight and mainland public houses around the Solent area. By 1965 two hundred public houses and twenty off-licences on the Isle of Wight, around Lymington and in Southampton and Portsmouth were controlled and annual sales amounted to £1.5 million. In that year a take over by Strong & Co. of Romsey was accepted and Mew Langtons existence came to an end. In 1968 Strongs itself was bought out by Whitbread and the old brewery site was used as a depot. The maltings, said by some to be the finest in the south of England, fell into disrepair and mysteriously caught fire in 1979, enabling Whitbread to dispense with a tiresome preservation order and sell the site for redevelopment.
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