S. A. Brain & Co. Ltd.
This brewery was founded in 1882 by Samuel Arthur Brain and his uncle Joseph Benjamin Brain. The company has remained in the family ever since. They acquired the Old Brewery, just off St.Mary Street in Cardiff, a site that had been used to brew ales since 1713. The company was registered in April 1897 by which time the brewery controlled an estate of 74 public houses. A new brewery was constructed just before the First World War. In 1997 S.A.Brain & Co. Ltd. acquired the rival Crown Buckley brewery, an independent company formed from the merger of the Crown Brewery of Pontyclun and the Buckley Brewery of Llanelli, originally founded in 1767. With a larger tied estate and free trade, production was increased when the company moved to the larger Cardiff Brewery in Crawshay Street in 2000, a site originally used by Hancock's but acquired from Bass in 1999.
© Copyright. Images supplied by S.A.Brain & Co.Ltd and reproduced with kind permission. Beer labels supplied by Digital Photographic Images.

Border-Breweries Ltd.
This company was registered in June 1931 in order to acquire the liquidated F.W.Soames Ltd., the Oswestry-based firm of Dorsett, Owen & Co. and the Island Green Brewery Co. Ltd. which was also located in Wrexham. The brewery, along with a tied estate of 170 public houses was acquired by Marston, Thompson & Evershed Ltd. in 1984. The Burton-based company closed the Nag's Head Brewery shortly after the acquisition.
© Copyright. Images supplied by Digital Photographic Images and reproduced with kind permission.

F.W.Soames Ltd.
Based at the Nag's Head Brewery in Mount Street, this brewery was founded in the mid-18th century. The company was acquired by F.W.Soames in 1879. The company was registered in 1931, the year that the brewery formed part of the Border Breweries [Wrexham] Ltd.

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