It’s a cold December morning, and Great Yarmouth is slowly dragging itself out of bed.
This seaside resort town, located on the easternmost edge of England’s coastline, is a place built for summer. It’s in the high season when the Pleasure Beach Ghost Train clunks into action; when families and couples flock to the promenade, unwittingly dripping melted ice cream onto the concrete; when seafront arcades swarm with kids stuffing grubby two-penny pieces into the machines.
But the week before Christmas is a different story. Only a handful of Great Yarmouth’s high-street shops are open, and as I walk along the seafront, nudged by a crisp breeze, there’s not a soul within shouting distance. When I pass the window of a North Sea-facing leisure center cafe, a middle-aged man inside glances at me with a look that seems to say, “What on earth are you doing here?”
The answer to that question lies behind the imposing black gates of the old Blackfriars Brewery, in a row of industrial backstreets just outside the town center. Nowadays, this site is the home of Lacons Brewery, a Norfolk beer brand whose origins date back centuries, but which was almost lost to history.
It may not look like it at first—there’s little activity or bustle to witness on this blustery winter day—but the story of the brewery is one of revival, ingenuity, and rebirth. This is a comeback story.
Great Yarmouth is famous for herring, not beer. When Lacons first started brewing here in 1760, the town was dominated by its fishing industry. Smokehouses pumped pungent aromas into the bitter sea air, turning fresh fish into cold-smoked red herring to be exported to Europe. In The Rows, a network of narrow cobbled streets leading inland from the seafront toward South Quay, the scent of herring wafted into shopfronts and houses as specially designed “troll carts” (long, two-wheeled wagons unique to this part of Norfolk) transported fresh catches to the River Yare.
The thriving trade saw nearly 73 million herring cured in Yarmouth in 1756, a high-water year, before being sent to destinations as varied as London, Bordeaux, Naples, Venice, and Genoa. Merchant houses popped up across the town as entrepreneurs looked to profit from the boom, and each autumn the population swelled by 10,000 as Scottish fishermen, fisher girls (responsible for gutting and salting fish), coopers, and curers headed south of the border to find work plowing these prosperous waters.
The Lacon family could have easily cashed in on Great Yarmouth’s flourishing fish industry, but they went down a different route. After marrying into the Ward family, John Laycon became a partner in the family’s small brewery. When his wife, Eliza Ward, died in 1760, he ended up as the company’s sole owner, changing its name to Lacons (spelling being less codified in the era) and establishing a brand that would go on to gain longstanding significance in this part of Norfolk.
“The Laycon family settled in Great Yarmouth in 1640, and they could’ve done anything,” says Amy Hancock, Lacons’ head of marketing. “They could’ve been fishermen or gone into agriculture, but they set up as brewers. It wasn’t until [John’s great-grandson] Edmund Lacon took over—he was a super switched-on, commercial guy—that Lacons went to the next level.”
A portly, white-bearded Conservative Member of Parliament who was an original shareholder in the Yarmouth & Norwich Railway (Norfolk’s first railway line), Edmund Lacon certainly marked a change in how the company operated. His business acumen helped the brewery establish a serious presence in the region throughout the 19th century, acquiring dozens of pubs and becoming well-known across the region and beyond.
Walking through Great Yarmouth today is a history lesson in the power the Lacons brand has held in the area over the years. By the 1850s, the company controlled a whopping 300 public houses in the town, and numerous pub walls are still plastered with the Lacons logo, emblazoned in capital letters across vintage cream tiling. You’d be forgiven for thinking that the brand has maintained a consistent presence in the area for all these years. But that overlooks the inconvenient matter of the brewery’s untimely demise.
During the 1960s, a hectic period of brewery mergers and acquisitions took place in the U.K. It was sparked in part by the arrival of the ambitious Canadian entrepreneur (and owner of Carling) Eddie Taylor, who began buying up breweries across the country in 1959, hoping to build an empire. The industry responded by consolidating; to escape Taylor’s clutches and hunt for ever-greater economies of scale, large breweries such as Tetley Walker and Ansell’s began merging to create mega-firms, which came to control the majority of the market.
This shift spelled trouble for Lacons. In just a decade, the market was transformed by the giant breweries’ breathless race to swallow up as many smaller competitors as possible. Whitbread bought Lacons for £3.2 million in 1965 (roughly £56 million today) and effectively asset-stripped it before closing down the brewery in 1968. After more than 200 years, Lacons was lost.
Thankfully, the opening of the first-of-its-kind National Collection of Yeast Cultures (NCYC) in 1951, just 20 miles away in Norwich, had offered the brewery a unique opportunity. In case its own cultures became contaminated, Lacons had deposited various yeast samples at the bank (which collects, preserves, and supplies cultures worldwide) soon after it opened. It turned out to be a clever move.
“The collection originated in the 1950s, mainly as a brewing culture collection,” says Carmen Nueno-Palop, the NCYC’s head and business development manager. “There was a big economic crisis in the U.K., and many breweries had to close down, so when the breweries closed, many decided to deposit their yeast strains. It was a very important decision, collectively.”
The bank used liquid nitrogen to freeze Lacons’ yeast strains at -196° C (-321° F). Forty-five years later, those preserved yeast cultures became a crucial part of the plan to relaunch Lacons, which began in 2009 when Mick Carver, the owner of Suffolk-based drinks distributor JV Trading, began negotiating with Anheuser-Busch InBev to secure the rights to Lacons (AB InBev had swallowed up Whitbread in 2000). Carver, who has been managing director ever since, was driven by a multifaceted vision: to reawaken a community asset, to shine a light on the brewery’s rich heritage, and—crucially—to push the brand into the modern era.
“Securing the rights was a complex process that took two or three years,” says Carver, speaking to me over the phone. “Once we did, we went to the yeast bank and asked for the deposits of our yeast from 1956, of which there were eight: five top-fermentation yeasts and three bottom-fermentation yeasts.”
Reviving these historic strains wasn’t simple, though.
“Strains frozen in the 1950s have now been dormant for almost 75 years, so we have to revive them,” says Nueno-Palop. “Also, because many of the original depositors are not alive anymore, [breweries] need to acquire the rights. With Lacons, they had the original documentation pointing them toward the right NCYC strains … it was interesting that they had documented everything because this is very important for replicating recipes.”
The task of using this yeast to replicate and reinvent former Lacons recipes was handed to the experienced brewer Wil Wood, who came with a strong reputation for developing high-quality cask ales at Oakham Ales in Peterborough and Fyne Ales in Scotland. (Wood declined to be interviewed for this story.)
“In the 45-year hiatus, consumers’ taste buds and profiles had changed,” says Carver. “Brewing the best beer was what we were looking for, and the best brewer we knew at that time was Wil Wood. He’s a pure artisan, and a recipe creator. I remember a conversation with Wil around [heritage beer] Audit Ale. He was really excited about it, but the yeast was an absolute nightmare to get to connect to the original recipe. So we then started changing the makeup of that yeast to bring us more in line with the profile of what we were doing.”
“Securing the rights was a complex process that took two or three years. Once we did, we went to the yeast bank and asked for the deposits of our yeast from 1956, of which there were eight: five top-fermentation yeasts and three bottom-fermentation yeasts.”
“They had one of the top brewers in the country, and a good team behind him,” says Cheryl Cade, a Norfolk-based journalist who covers beer. “They used the tradition well, but moved it forward.”
“It’s important that people are aware that there was that gap,” she adds. “Lacons were re-established, and they’re only there because of the people who put the passion in and re-founded it. It’s important to support your local smaller brewery, because you don’t want to lose them again.”
In the decade since the relaunch, Lacons has reasserted itself as one of Norfolk’s key breweries, earning new admirers with its portfolio of straightforward, drinkable English ales designed around the brand’s heritage yeasts but with modern preferences in mind.
Lacons’ flagship beer, Encore, is a 3.8% amber ale that occupies a perfect middle ground: smooth and sessionable enough for classic bitter drinkers, it has just the right level of zest to satisfy fans of citrus-heavy, New World hops. Legacy is a crisp, refreshing blonde, its light, summery feel making it “a really nice ale to transition people who have always drunk a lot of lager,” according to brewery operations manager Chris Everett. The core range is completed by Affinity, a full-bodied golden ale characterized by juicy, tropical aromas.
“Wil [Wood] was instrumental, because he had a lot of history in recipe development,” says Everett, recalling the early stages of developing Lacons’ core range. “We needed someone with that passion, that knowledge, and that intellect, and his recipes were spot-on. There’s a reason we put so much into Encore—it’s a fantastic recipe, and it’s one we want to hold onto. We want to brew something that old Lacons would be proud to call theirs as well. We still want to carry on looking after the legacy they left us.”
With these foundations in place, and the purchase of the Blackfriars Brewery site completed, the Lacons operation steadily grew. Soon after I arrive and gratefully receive a hot cup of tea, head brewer Hamish Cross directs me to the five-barrel kit where everything started, and explains how they've grown since that point.
“Lacons were re-established, and they’re only there because of the people who put the passion in and re-founded it. It’s important to support your local smaller brewery, because you don’t want to lose them again.”
"In 2017, the 30-barrel kit was commissioned to account for the growth of the scale," he says. "At the moment we run this once a day, but it’s got the capacity to be brewed on twice a day, five days a week, and if we were doing that, it would see us at capacity for our current fermentation space.”
Hamish Cross
Cross has been with Lacons since April 2023, when he was brought in to help place more emphasis on keg beer (largely an economic decision prompted by its longer shelf life and its higher rate of consumption among young drinkers). He brings pedigree to this area; since moving to the U.K. from his native New Zealand in 2017, he’s worked at two award-winning keg-specialist breweries, Lost and Grounded Brewers in Bristol and Duration Brewing in the Norfolk countryside.
“We’re currently at about a 70/30 cask/keg split, but we wanna flip that on its head and be 70% keg-based, not by cutting down on cask but just bringing the keg up a lot more quickly,” says Cross.
To that end, Lacons recently acquired new equipment (including a 12-barrel kit to be used as a pilot kit for new recipes) from Suffolk-based Calvors Brewery. Much of this is being held in the Kingsway Building, an old tire shop (previously called Kingsway Tyres) adjacent to the main brewery that Lacons also recently bought. The plan is to convert this space into a taproom, initially for trade customers but with the goal of eventually opening publicly.
“We’ve done good things with keg beer in the last 12 months,” says Cross. “It reaches a broader range of drinkers, because some people just aren’t cask drinkers, but you can put the same product in a keg where it’s filtered and carbonated, and they love it. There’s no difference between Encore cask and Encore keg, but it allows the same brand to reach more generations.”
With its low lights, deep-brown antique furniture, and painted black barrels stacked behind the bar, the private taproom at Lacons Brewery feels like a stereotypical Prohibition-era speakeasy. As I lean against the bar, Cross heads to the draft taps, pulling through a sequence of cold pints.
“It’s got just enough bitterness to make you want to come back for more, but not so much that it’s too much for your palate,” says Cross, admiring the dark golden clarity of my glass of Encore, his description tying in nicely with the beer’s evocative title. The drinkability that defines all the best English bitters and amber ales is achieved here by a perfect balance between a sweet, biscuity malt flavor and a fresh, healthy dankness courtesy of Citra and Centennial hops.
Next, we sample the recently launched Lgr, a premium lager with a touch of citrus and some gentle floral notes. Cross tells me it’s the perfect pairing for dark, saucy ribs and wings at the Norwich-based American diner Zak’s, which serves it on tap. I can see it cutting through rich, spicy curries and mixed grills with equal zip.
During its rollout, the marketing team enlisted another important local partner to help appeal to younger drinkers. “Jack and Chris from Talk Norwich City [the biggest fan channel for Norfolk’s only professional soccer team] were pivotal in our Lgr launch,” says Hancock. “They’re very on-brand for us—slightly cheeky but charming. That was a key turning point for us in attracting a younger generation.”
Campaigns like this, coupled with strong, eye-catching pump clip and bottle designs—orange for Encore, yellow for Legacy, green for Affinity—help strengthen the image of Lacons as a modernized brand with “a really broad audience that transcends generations,” Hancock says. “You could walk into a pub and see a grandfather, his daughter or his son, and his grandchild all enjoying Lacons beer together.”
Crucially, those generational ties and partnerships with other Norfolk institutions help reinforce the brewery’s roots in the region. Hancock describes Lacons as “an East of England brewer” whose workers view themselves as “custodians of a community brand.” When I first started pulling pints in Norwich aged 18, Lacons had already re-established itself as a familiar sight on the bar, and the brand’s presence in the area has only increased since then.
That identity is reinforced by the brewery’s reliance on local ingredients, from those long-preserved yeast cultures used by generations of Lacons brewers to the Norfolk-grown Maris Otter barley from Crisp Maltings that acts as the base for every beer—“we’re very lucky to have such good maltsters just down the road,” says Cross.
What’s more, Lacons’ growth over the last decade arguably puts it in a prime position to take up the mantle as Norfolk’s leading brewer, a title that has historically been held by Woodforde’s, based at Woodbastwick in the picturesque Broads of the Norfolk countryside.
“Woodforde’s were the first independent brewers in Norfolk,” says Cade. “If you wanted a local beer in Yarmouth in 1987, it was only Woodforde’s. Now, the county has 46 independent brewers, and we have a beer festival with 70 different beers that are all local.”
Despite these shifts, accelerated by the U.K.’s craft beer explosion, the beer scene in Great Yarmouth itself remains underdeveloped. The Red Herring, a charmingly old-school, no-frills boozer on a backstreet corner facing a section of the medieval town wall, regularly serves Lacons. But elsewhere, the brewery’s recognizable falcon logo is less present on the taps than you might expect, even in pubs like The Blackfriars Tavern, known for its excellent real ale selection.
“Everything we do is a balance of honoring our brewing heritage with being a forward-thinking company. Not living in the past, and being innovative, whilst always honoring our roots.”
“Yarmouth isn’t as much of a stronghold as we would like,” admits Everett. “But we’re working on it. Pubs in general are having a really hard time at the moment. People are finding it hard to make that commitment to go and put money over the bar.” Everett is right; soaring energy bills, hikes to food and drink prices, and a crippling cost-of-living crisis have put a squeeze on the pubs Lacons sells in, and the people who frequent them. The pandemic was another major recent blow. Still, Carver is philosophical about that particular roadblock.
Chris Everett
“We’re traveling so fast down the road that we’re almost trying to change direction as we’re driving,” he says. “COVID was a lay-by; we were able to breathe, sit down, and design exactly what we were looking to do, and that’s got us to the place where we are today.”
That place is one of strength: While Yarmouth isn’t a stronghold yet, Lacons has spread well across the more vibrant nearby beer cities of Norwich and Cambridge, as well as the Suffolk towns of Beccles and Lowestoft, near the company’s distribution depot. Norfolk and Suffolk together account for 80% of sales, with London making up around 5%. The latter figure is growing, though, particularly in renowned cask ale venues like The Cock Tavern and The Sutton Arms, allowing Lacons to stretch deeper into the capital.
“We get an awful lot of people coming through with submissions for the museum,” says Cross. He’s guided me away from the pebbled Victorian courtyard that operates as the nucleus of Lacons HQ and into a fluorescent-lit mini-museum packed with relics. I look around, taking in an array of pewter mugs, glasses, and tankards, as well as the old clocks bearing illustrations of falcons (a symbol on the original Lacon family crest).
“Some people have collected things over time and either they’ve moved on or it’s in their estates,” explains Cross. “But a lot of it is just public donations, which is really cool, and a testament to the buy-in to the brand. People appreciate what it was and what it can be going forward.”
That final point is crucial. With all this talk about heritage and history, it’s easy to gloss over the forward-thinking nature of the modern brewery. The shift toward keg, the slick design choices, and the partnering with other organizations to help reach younger drinkers are all evidence of how Lacons wants to continue growing. But that’ll never be at the expense of those old Norfolk origins.
“Everything we do is a balance of honoring our brewing heritage with being a forward-thinking company,” says Hancock. “Not living in the past, and being innovative, whilst always honoring our roots.”
A week or so after my visit, I’m drinking Lacons Saint Nick’s in The Jubilee, one of Norwich’s best real ale pubs. The post-game-day, pre-Christmas Saturday evening rush has eased off, and I can stand at the bar without feeling like an obstruction. The pint in my hand is one of many seasonal specials Lacons brews throughout the year; crucially, though, it avoids the sense of festive overexcitement that dominates too many wintry beers. It’s deep red and full-bodied, and its judicious additions of orange and cinnamon let you know Christmas is around the corner but don’t smack you around the face with it.
Saint Nick’s has a striking story of its own. During a World War II air raid, Lacons Brewery and the nearby Saint Nicholas’ church were both bombed on the same night. The importance of keeping Britain’s wartime population refreshed was underlined by the fire brigade’s decision to save the brewery instead of the church that night. Today, Lacons’ festive tipple pays tribute to that sacrifice, made all those decades ago but still very much remembered.
This solid winter ale sums up Lacons pretty well. Local heritage is paramount, and stories like that won’t be forgotten. Seasonal adaptation is part of the plan, but steady, consistent quality is far more important than any hot trend. This is a brewery that feels secure enough about its own history and regional legacy that it’s able to strive confidently forward. It’s an agenda that has served the brewery well in the first decade since its relaunch.
“When we first launched, we were talking too much about the history and the heritage,” says Carver. “The heritage yeast gives us that hook into the authenticity and the past, and that’s something we’re incredibly proud of. But we brew modern beer for modern people now. The road ahead is the focus.”
Words by Fred Garratt-StanleyPhotos by Sean McEmerson
