Town in Staffordshire, England
Burton upon Trent
Burton's gypsum-rich water made it Britain's beer capital, and the yeast left over from all that brewing gave the nation Marmite.
Key information
- County
- Staffordshire
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Brewing, Bass, Marmite, Burton Albion
- What locals are called
- Burtonians
- Famous people
- Michael Thomas Bass, Frederick Wissler, Saint Modwen, Wulfric Spot
- Football clubs
- Burton Albion (the Brewers)
About Burton upon Trent
The town whose water made the beer
Burton's big secret lies underground. The water drawn from local wells runs through gypsum-rich rock and is packed with minerals, which makes it perfect for brewing pale ales. Brewers elsewhere eventually learned to copy it, and the process of adding the right salts to water even picked up a name: Burtonisation. Monks at Burton Abbey were brewing here centuries before the industrial boom. The abbey was founded around 1004 by Wulfric Spot, a rich Anglo-Saxon nobleman, and its brewing tradition built up from there. The canals and railways did the rest. Once the Trent and Mersey Canal and later the railways connected the town to ports and cities, Burton's beer could travel far beyond Staffordshire.
How a Russian tariff helped Burton become an IPA centre
In the early 1820s, Burton's brewers had a big export business to the Baltic and Russia. Then a steep tariff shut it down. Allsopp's and others went looking for new markets and found one on the other side of the world, with British traders in India. Hoppy pale ale was already being shipped to India in the eighteenth century, notably by London's Bow Brewery. Burton's brewers adapted and expanded that existing trade, and their pale, hoppy beers survived long sea voyages well. By the 1870s, Bass, run by Michael Thomas Bass, was one of the biggest breweries in the world. Bass money paid for churches, parks and the grand Town Hall, and Burton became a company town in all but name.
A red triangle that went down in legal history
Bass Pale Ale's red triangle became Britain's first registered trade mark in 1876, when the Trade Marks Registration Act came into force. The brewery is said to have had a queue of staff waiting at the registry on New Year's Day to be first. The triangle also turned up in art. The bottles on the bar in Édouard Manet's famous painting, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, carry the red triangle. Burton's beer culture lives on. Marston's, Molson Coors and smaller names such as Burton Bridge Brewery all still brew here, and the town still smells of malt on the right kind of day.
Marmite: the brewery leftovers that became a national argument
Brewing makes a lot of waste yeast, and Burton had mountains of it. In 1902, the Marmite Food Extract Company was set up in the town to turn that yeast into a dark, salty spread. The name comes from the French word for a covered cooking pot, which is why the jar has a pot on the label. The company's founders included Frederick Wissler and Gilmour Thomson. Marmite was soon a household name, and later an advertising line: you either love it or you hate it. Marmite is still made in Burton, so one of Britain's most divisive foods has a very local origin.
Saints, bridges and an island in the Trent
Burton's saint is Modwen, an Irish abbess said to have lived on the town's riverside site in the 7th century. Her name is still found on streets and at the town's Saint Modwen Park, and the abbey that Wulfric Spot founded grew up around her story. The River Trent is the town's defining landmark. Burton has long had a major river crossing, and the long bridge across the Trent connects the town to Stapenhill on the far bank. Andresey Island, in the middle of the river, is a favourite spot for walkers and families, with views of the town's old brewing skyline. Burton Town Hall, gifted by the Bass family and opened in 1894, is a reminder of how much beer money shaped the place.
The Brewers on the football pitch
Burton Albion, founded in 1950, are nicknamed the Brewers. They play at the Pirelli Stadium, named for the tyre firm with a factory in the town, and have worked their way from non-league football to the Championship. Under Nigel Clough, the club won promotion to the Championship in 2016, the highest level the town's team has reached. In 2019, Burton Albion reached a League Cup semi-final, a remarkable run for a club of its size. Fans are known for their loyalty and for the smell of malt that drifts over the ground on brewing days. Locals are called Burtonians, and many will tell you the town is still the capital of British beer.