Brewers and Brands from yesteryear - Mansfield Old Baily

Old Baily ashtray

Whilst working on Old Speckled Hen in the 1990's, part of my role was to attend Licensee Trade Shows where we would showcase our beers to landlords and beer buyers alongside other brewers. One such brewer was Mansfield Brewery and the main beer they were promoting was called Old Baily. I did not know Old Baily very well, but the people who worked for Mansfield were good people and apart from selling lots of  Old Speckled Hen, I was always pleased to hear if they'd had a good day as well.

Mansfield Brewery had only recently returned to brewing cask ales after a ten year break . This was driven by the resurgence in popularity of cask ales which was partly down to the efforts of CAMRA. The opportunity was further enhanced by the Monopolies and Mergers report in 1988 whereby many pubs became free of tie for a guest cask ale. Prior to this Mansfield had focused on keg and and lager brands, including Marksman lager. The bread and butter cask ales for Mansfield were its Mansfield Bitter and Riding Bitter, both fine beers with a strong local heritage and following, but were not overly marketable on a national basis. Mansfield identified this weakness in their portfolio and realising they would have to introduce a new beer if they wanted to succeed in this growing market, rebranded a beer called 4X into Old Baily.

The pump clip featured an image of an Old Baily judge but in fact, apart of the name the beer had no connection with the famous London law courts. The name came from one of Mansfield's original investors and founders, William Edward Baily. He joined the business in 1855 and was one of the driving forces behind its initial success. However, for the consumer naming a beer after Baily and then liking it to images of a bewigged judge on the pump clip and POS must have caused confusion. The imagery implied the link to the famous London law courts and I always felt some sympathy for the Mansfield marketers in trying to give Old Baily a personality because of this puzzling and misleading link.

Unfortunately despite the hard work of the sales and marketing teams, Old Baily was not to survive. Sadly Mansfield Brewery went the same way as a number of other Regional Brewers in the late 1990's including the likes of Breakspear, Morrells and Morland and it was acquired by a much larger competitor. In the case of Mansfield it was Wolverhampton and Dudley who made the acquisition in 1999. W & D's main focus at the time as to build Marstons Pedigree into a strong national brand and as both beers were similar in abv and style there was not room for both. In truth there was only going to be one winner here between the two brands as Pedigree had more credibility and potential so Old Baily was quietly withdrawn from sale.

Within two years of the take-over the brewery was also closed and all brewing was moved to Burton. Sad as it was to lose Old Baily, W & D had made the right decision as to have two competing brands in the same sector would cause confusion for the sales teams and split resources. An important thing I learned in my time in beer marketing was that focus was one of the key factors in success, there is seldom room for two from the same stable! 

Pedigree pump clip from the 1990s

Its was not quite the end of the story for Old Baily as it has reappeared as a one off brew for Wetherspoons from time to time. The original beer was pleasant enough. It was 4.8% abv, on the sweeter side, a deep bronze colour and eminently drinkable. However I'm doubtful the latter day version brewed at Marstons would have been an exact math of the original. None-the-less, its good to see memories of long gone beers refreshed at times.

I have no insight into the fortunes of Mansfield and it ultimate downfall, however I do have fond memories, not so much of Old Baily, but more for the Mansfield sales teams who were both passionate about beer and worked hard to make their brans a success. 

Mansfield Brewery sign