lined fermenting vessels, the largest of which would hold
150 barrels in addition to a new laboratory and malt store
and updated hot liquor tanks.
for soft drinks and these too were winning admirers and
prizes. Flavours such as stone ginger-beer, dry ginger-ale
and lime juice captured the public‘s imagination and trade
was buoyant. Soda water was a favourite Edwardian mixer
and Ward’s supplied it in grand style by making the siphon
head in silver-plate - the insides lined with porcelain. In
the autumn of the same year Ward and Son won a major
contract to supply the National Sanatorium with ‘nutritious
oat malt stout’ and mineral waters, which gained great
popularity owing to the Sanatorium eccentrically approving
the beer as part of the daily diet for convalescents. It was
from this success that much of the power of Ward’s
marketing was to stem.
gallon capacity; the contents of which were pumped to the
top floor of the brewery through condensing units and then
to fermenting vessels below.
steam-generated, now a compressed air 90 HP diesel
National engine was introduced in addition to two
Lancashire coal-fired boilers which required the building of
a 75 foot chimney stack. The transport fleet was upgraded
and included four steam wagons and twelve horses with
eight drays and carts, housed in stables and cart sheds
beside two paddocks for the horses with an additional 10-
acre field gifted by Eliza Foster which provided foodstuff for
the hard-working animals.
including various regiments of the British army such as
those based at Landguard Fort at Felixstowe and the
House of Commons flooded in.
The Titanic Room) was completed in 1912, as were larger
draught beer cellars which were capable of storing 2,000
barrels of beer. A new Long Shed was built to store 54
gallon capacity Hogsheads and here workers added finings
knew that more space was required if it was to expand
satisfactorily. David Ward toyed with franchising the brand
to Bailey and Tebbut at Panton’s brewery at Cambridge, 28
but was encouraged by his good friend Harold Bailey to
have an immediate rethink. In 1912 he gambled on
designing an updated version of the three-storey brew
house originally constructed in 1897, and commissioned by
his mother.
ingredients such as isinglass or gelatine. A new bottling
store had seven men and five women producing 1000
bottles of beer a day from two filling machines and the firm
began bottling Gaymers Norfolk Cider. 29
at full production, most workers were working double shifts
to cope with the exceptional demand. And what a demand
am.
Ward family. The Panton brewery was the first to win the Paris
Gold Medal for outstanding beer. It was awarded in 1907.