Kimberley Brewery

Kimberley Brewery is loacated in the village of Kimberley close to Nottingham City in Nottinghamshire. It was established in 1861 by the master brewers Hardys and Hansons.

Kimberley has a long tradition of brewers, the first commercial brewery was in place by 1832, operated by Samuel Robinson, using a bake house which was rented for the purpose. It used water from Alley Spring which is now called Hardy Street. Heanor beer merchants, William and Thomas Hardy decided to brew thier own beer so bought out Samuel in 1857. The bake house was not sutible for their needs and built the first building on the current site in 1861.

Steven Hanson set up a brewery on what became Brewery Street in 1847 which also used water from Alley Spring. Steven died in 1861 leaving the business to his wife, Mary and son Robert.

As rivals, they bought and ran pubs throughout the area but when they began running out of water from the spring, they agreed to share the water form Holly Well spring. This arrangment worked well, up until 1930 when the companies merged due to the lack of Hardy heirs.

Since the merger, the company went from strength to strength, the brewery was expanded. In 2006, Hardys and Hansons were sold to the Greene King group and they decided to close the brewery at Kimberly. The building now sits empty awaiting an uncertain future.