





Description:
An empty Badger Brown ale beer bottle by the brewery Hall & Woodhouse. The bottle would have held 275mls of ale and was 3% alcohol volume. On the side of the bottle, it has a table to register which lot and batch this product has come from. Around the top of the bottle, it has the word “Please return”. The bottle would have been returned and a small refund would be given by the proprietor so the bottle could be recycled. This practice became obsolete in the 1980’s with the introduction of plastic and drinks being sold in cans. This bottle also has a “best before” date on the label. As the date is not clear we can only date it as from the 1970’s onwards when printing of dates on food was first introduced – my guess is 1985-7!
Brown ale is made of various ingredients including English malt, hops, water & yeast. Beer has been around for many years, originally hops were dried over open fires until the ale was produced in kilns. A lighter pale ale was later produced for those that preferred not to drink such a bitter drink. Hall & Woodhouse use water drawn and filtered through the chalk soil from 120 feet under their own brewery.
Hall and Woodhouse were founded in Blandford, Dorset in 1777 by Charles Hall. During the Napoleonic wars Charles won a licence to supply beer to Wellington’s troops stationed in Weymouth who were entitled to 5 pints of beer a day! 60 years later his son Robert became partners with Edward Hall and together purchased Public Houses in the South of England to sell their own beers and ales in. When a new brewery was built in 1900, they named it Badger Brewery after their company logo they had been using since 1875.
The company not only sells beer but manufactures the soft fruit juice with spring water called Rio. Until 2005 they also manufactured Panda Pop until they sold that side of the company.
Today Hall and Woodhouse is still a family run business and now has over 180 public houses in South of England where their range of ales and beers are sold.
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