Archers

Penzance Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire SN5 7JL (01793 879929) Website

Local businessman John Williams purchased Archers out of administration in July 2007. It is continuing to brew and sell, albeit on a slightly smaller scale than before, with Archers Village, Best, IPA, Golden and Crystal Clear as the core beers, plus six monthly specials (all having been brewed previously — no new brews for the time-being). The firm has moved back into the main brewery (a satellite office/warehouse down the road in Swindon was used previously to store the beers and for sales), which means local customers are able to enjoy stepping into the brewery stillage room to purchase beers straight from the cask.

The brewery, set in the former weigh house of the Great Western Railway locomotive works, underwent a £2 million modernisation programme in 2001. This included six new fermenters, a fully-automated cask washer, four-head automatic racker with automatic fining dosing and a new state-of -the-art laboratory.

March 26, 2007

Regular beers: Best (4%), Crystal Clear (5%), Golden (4.7%), IPA (4.2%), Village (3.6%)

Discontinued / unknown status: Bad Trousers (3.8%), Callender Girlies (4.2%), Dark Mild (3.4%), A Fair Cop (4.4%), Gamekeepers Folly (4.2%), Ginger Snap (4.5%), Harvest Ale (4.8%), Polaxed (5%), Pride (3.8%), Red Admiral (4%), Special (4.3%)