ALLSOPP'S BREWERY
The origins of Allsopp’s brewery and its trademark “red hand” date back to the 1740s when Benjamin Wilson, an innkeeper/brewer of Burton upon Trent in England, brewed beer for his own premises and sold some to other innkeepers. Over the next 60 years, Wilson and his son and successor, Benjamin Jr. grew the business and became the town's leading brewery. Around 1800, Benjamin Jr. brought his nephew, Samuel Allsopp, into the business and then in 1807, following a downturn in trade resulting from the Napoleonic blockade, sold his brewery to Allsopp for 7,000 pounds.
At first, Allsopp struggled to replace the sales he lost in the Baltic as part of the Napoleonic blockade with increased trade in his homeland of England. In 1822, after successfully copying the India Pale Ale of Hodgson, a London brewer, business started to improve.
By 1876 Samuel Allsopp & Sons had expanded to become the second largest brewer in England -- brewing over 260 million pints per year. However, by 1900 the future of the brewery became very shaky and Samuel began to look for new business alternatives to strengthen his brewery. In 1934, a merger between Ind Coope, Ltd. and Samuel Allsopp & Sons saw the birth of Ind Coope & Allsopp Ltd. The company name was changed to Allied Breweries in 1961 when the London firm of Taylor Walker and Co Ltd joined forces with Ind Coope & Allsopp, Ltd.