Banks’s Brewery has stood proud in Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton, for 150 years. Generations of residents have inhaled the yeasty bread like fragrance emanating from the brewery on brew days, punctuated by the almost exotic aroma of hops. The smell alone is comforting, a reminder of home to Wulfrunian ex-pats and known enough to be mentioned in many articles and comments about this area of Wolverhampton.
In fact, Professor Sebastian Groes and Dr Robert Francis, authors of ‘Smell, Memory, and Literature in the Black Country‘ mention the distinct odor. There’s just a little bit of hurt in the thought that my youngest will never associate those homely smells with Chapel Ash, or indeed Wolverhampton like the generations of her family before.
Banks’s though, isn’t a bakery. It’s the source of those aromas that we’re interested in, a source that is soon to die due to the decision of Carlsberg Marston’s (CMBC) to close Banks’s Brewery. Wolverhampton is about to lose a wonderful multi-generation brewing heritage, a Mild ale that has stood the test of time and provided much needed sustenance to the workers of Black Country. Banks’s Mild is (still, we believe at the time of publishing) the most produced Mild ale in the country. Mild is a style that we at CAMRA celebrate each May with the Mild in May event, a month of ceremony, celebration and exploration of this now endangered style. CAMRA members across the country make an effort to get out and sample some good mild ale, a task that is increasingly difficult and more so here in Wolverhampton with the closure of the brewery and the loss of cask mild.
It’s important to note that Banks’s Mild, unlike the delicious Banks’s Sunbeam, is not completely gone. It will remain available in cans and on keg, which raises the question – what have Carlsberg Marston’s got against cask ale? The same is to be said of Marston’s Old Empire, remaining but not available on cask.

It’s true that cask ale doesn’t last as long as keg. For a pub with smaller throughput, there’s always the risk of cask ale turning bad before the end of the barrel; this being one of the reasons for the introduction by the CMBC of “Fresh Ale“, said to have a shelf life of up to 14 days. For those unsure, what is so great about cask ale? For starters, it’s a green, no waste option. From reusable casks or recyclable glass and very often available cask beer is brewed locally and served locally, keeping beer miles low.
Cask, or real ale as we call it, is a living beer. It continues to condition in pub cellars, there’s no addition of artificial carbonation, no pasteurisation. Just a natural product from brewery, to pub, to you.
A person with enough ale knowledge would be able to guess the ingredients going into a cask ale – produced in the age old methods that define Britain’s brewing tradition, a drink heritage we can all be proud of. Unfortunately, outside of specialist real ale pubs, cask is struggling, not helped by big international breweries buying up and closing what were small, independent breweries serving a local customer base, a real kick to consumer choice.
In the case of Banks’s Brewery, what will we have left? Banks’s Bitter, but brewed elsewhere, and Banks’s Mild, but only available from a keg or a can. And that’s not to mention the excellent special guest beers, like Banks’s “Sabro Ambrosia”, brewed especially for the Wolverhampton Summer Festival of Beer & Cider back in July, and other Banks’s specials in previous years.
Looking at the big picture, a large local employer will be gone, there must be some risk related to the Park Brewery site and its Victorian buildings, loved beers with distinct pedigree will be discontinued (at least cask dispense, others altogether), a very important part of Wolverhampton and greater Black Country heritage will cease to exist.
The Last Banks's Mild Crawl
At the previous weekend, several Wolverhampton CAMRA branch members took to a familiar Mild in May pub trail route to drink Banks’s Mild ale and other beers from the CMBC stable that are to disappear. We called this the “Friday 13th December – Last Banks’s Mild Crawl“. The aim? Savouring Banks’s Mild while it is still available on cask.
We began at the Royal Oak Tettenhall Wood, where cask mild and Banks’s Bitter is served from the very rare electric cask dispense. Some even opted for a pint of mixed, that is half Banks’s Mild and half Banks’s Bitter in a pint glass. Of course, the Oak at Tettenhall Wood along with the Swan at Compton are two of what we believe are the last pubs in Wolverhampton serving mild in oversized glasses, to allow space for a full pint and a beautiful creamy head.

On the subject of the Swan at Compton, this was our next port of call. Here, alongside some more excellent Banks’s Mild, we had the opportunity to sample the Banks’s Sunbeam before that disappears forever. A real shame, another delicious ale that we will no longer see, Sunbeam was first brewed in 2011. It will be missed.
Next, we called at the other Royal Oak, on the Compton Road, just a good stones throw from Banks’s Brewery. On the wall at the back of the pub is a framed graphic depicting Banks’s Brewery and many Banks’s Mild pump clip designs over the years, accompanied by the text “Award winning Mild brought to you by the Royal Oak Chapel Ash”.
Indeed, the Royal Oak, alongside the Swan at Compton and the other Oak at Tettenhall Wood, have all received the Mild Merit award for outstanding mild ale, all of course, for their Banks’s Mild. The Royal Oak Compton Road also had Sunbeam and Old Empire available. The Royal Oak will be replacing Banks’s Mild with Green Duck’s Bostin’ Mild, itself a great example of a Black Country brewed mild, though modern, without the history of Banks’s Mild – maybe one day it will itself gain a legendary reputation among drinkers.
With time marching on, a decision was made to call in at the Wheatsheaf in Wolverhampton city centre. Of nearby pubs, the Stile Inn at Whitmore Reans did not have mild ale available on the night (a Real Ale Finder app check confirmed that) and the Clarendon Hotel isn’t known for it. The Wheatsheaf also didn’t have Banks’s Mild available when we called in, but we were assured that the pub is cycling through all CMBC cask ales that will no longer be available, to give their customers one last chance at drinking these ales.
So – what next? The Express and Star newspaper launched a petition recently, aimed at saving Banks’s Mild. If you haven’t yet, consider signing it. There’s a chance you’ll find Banks’s Mild at the Bull Hotel in Codsall, the Claregate in Claregate and the Dog and Partridge in Wednesfield before it disappears from cask pumps for good. The same is true of Sunbeam and the other CMBC cask ales that are disappearing. It’s a sad time for Wolverhampton – and the nation’s brewing heritage.
The opinions expressed in the above article are the views of the Wolverhampton CAMRA website coordinator and may not be representative of the branch or CAMRA as a whole.