Brewing in Maidstone

British beer has four main ingredients, which Kent was well placed to supply:
• Barley (converted to malt) – gives body and alcohol
• Hop flowers – give flavour and preservatives
• Water (90%)
• Yeast – fermenting agent

Hops began to be grown commercially in Kent from the 16th century, and the local brewing industry was further supported by the 1682 Maidstone Charter, which gave the town a Hop Fair.

In Kent, hops were grown on wires fixed on 4-5 metre high poles. In the early hop gardens the entire pole was upended and the hop flowers picked from it. Later ‘bin men’ were appointed to pull down the hop bines with a hook. The bines were then laid across the pickers’ laps and picked into a bin. The flowers were dried in traditional Kentish oast houses before going off to the brewery.

At the peak of Kentish hopping (1880-1940) c.77,000 acres of land was dedicated to growing hops.

A ‘Hopping Special’ train would run from London Bridge, bringing as many as 200,000 East Enders from London for a three week ‘holiday’ to join the locals hop picking. As they filled each bin or basket, the picker would be given a token, or have a notch added to their tally stick.

In the early 19th century an exciting gamble was to forecast the weekly changes in hop prices due to a late frost, appearance of hop fly, etc. This was known as the ‘Hop Lottery’.

Hop garden near Maidstone, 1907

Hopping was a tough job; people worked from dawn to dusk, often walking several miles to reach the fields. Conditions were, at first, appalling. Charitable bodies began to provide basics; food, straw to sleep on and tents, and tried to regulate the hoppers’ free and easy lifestyles!

Although some farmers treated workers poorly in their hop fields, brewers in general had a reputation as good employers and often provided clothing, housing, firm outings or even holidays and beer to drink at work! However, work continued to be hard and it was not until 1847 that a law was passed limiting the working day for women and children to 10 hours.

Fremlin's Brewery

The original brewery was founded on Earl Street c.1790. It was bought by Ralph Fremlin in 1861, who rebuilt the premises and expanded the production plant.

Initially the business focussed on the home trade rather than pubs, delivering bottles door-to-door via horse and cart. An interesting alternative to the milk round!

Fremlins became the first British brewery to mass-produce beer in bottles and jars, which was a key factor in its growth. Its beer was known for the distinctive elephant logo on its bottles, which was used because of the company’s association with the East India Company.

Eventually the Fremlin brewery expanded to become the largest in Kent and when Fremlin Bros Ltd formed in 1920, it reverted to the pub trade, buying up smaller breweries around the county. They took over Isherwood, Foster & Stacey (1929), Beer and Rigden (1949) and Frederick Leney & Sons (1960), acquiring over 800 pubs and licensed premises by the mid-20th century.

Whitbread took over Fremlins in 1967 and closed the Maidstone premises to brewing, but continued to market Fremlins products. The brewery buildings were eventually demolished in 1978 and 1980. The former Earl Street site is now part of the Fremlin Walk Shopping Centre.

Fremlin's Gremlins?

Carol Rose, in her book Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins: An Encyclopaedia, attributes the origin of the Gremlin of English folklore (malicious creatures said to be responsible for sabotaging aircraft) to a combination of the name of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the folklore surrounding Fremlin’s beer; a favourite beverage of local Royal Air Force mechanics and pilots.

Beginning as early as 1865, Fremlin’s Brewery company tradition included the fabled existence of an unseen, ambivalent house spirit named Robin Hodfellow or Hödfellow.

Hodfellow was said to be a biersal, (a type of sprite stemming from Germanic mythology and surviving into modern times in German folklore), that inhabits breweries and beer cellars.

Hodfellow was said to ride a miniature elephant (or sometimes was himself a miniature elephant) and kept the brewery machinery in working order when he was paid his due (in beer) and alternatively wrought havoc in the machinery works when not remunerated appropriately.

Brewery workers and even publicans were said to leave small jars or dishes of beer out to appease Hodfellow – a tradition that survived at least into the late 20th century in some Maidstone and Canterbury pubs.

Author Roald Dahl is credited with getting the gremlins known outside the Royal Air Force. He would have been familiar with the brewery and the myth, having lived in Kent with his family for ten years from the age of 13 before writing his first children’s novel, The Gremlins, in which ‘Gremlins’ were tiny men who lived on RAF fighter stations and who regularly caused technical problems and mechanical damage that could not otherwise be explained.