It takes a special sort of person to decide to make vinegar, when they have all the kit to make beer! But that is exactly what Walter Ellsey did - and the fact that his investment is still thriving 70 years later is testament to his shrewd judgement.

History has played a major role in shaping the destiny of his firm but Ellsey's remains one of Wigan 's best known names.

It was in 1932 when Walter Ellsey, Edith Tinsley and John Sleaford, workmates from a vinegar firm in Manchester , decided to have a go themselves and took over the old Heaton's Brewery on Warrington Road , Goose Green, Wigan .

At that time there were many similar businesses dotted all over the area but, as the years and decades rolled by, most of the competition fell by the wayside and eventually Ellsey's was one of only 3 vinegar brewers in the North of England.

In 1960 Mr. Ellsey's nephew, John Williams joined the company after serving 12 years at sea and gaining his Master's Ticket. He eventually took over the company's running after Walter retired.

Malt Vinegar Production At Ellsey's

In those days Ellsey's produced exclusively malt vinegar. Malt vinegar is produced from malted barley or “malt”. Malt is produced by steeping barley grain in water, allowing it to germinate on the malting floor, then roasting it in kilns to arrest further growth and to preserve its characteristic flavour. Few vinegar brewers malt their own barley; they prefer to rely on the expert knowledge of specialist maltsters. On receipt of the malt from the maltsters it is coarsely ground and packed into the “mash tub”, a large copper vessel with a mesh floor. It is then doused with hot water for about two hours. The malt contains an enzyme, diastase, which breaks down the starch content of the malt into a sugar, maltose , which dissolves in the water, and the hot sweet liquid, called “sweet wort” drips out of the bottom of the vessel. This is then cooled in refrigerators and pumped into fermentation vessels. Yeast is added and alcoholic fermentation starts in a few hours, subsiding after about four days. The alcoholic wash or “gyle” is passed through a centrifuge to separate the spent yeast then piped into storage vats and matured for a limited period.

The second fermentation, in which the alcohol in the “gyle” is converted into acetic acid to form vinegar, is carried out in large cylindrical vats, known as “acetifiers”. These are constructed usually of oak or pitch pine, in a similar way to the storage vats, except that each has slatted staging built into the top half, on which bundles of birch twigs are stacked. The lower half of the vat serves as a reservoir for the “gyle”, which is constantly sprayed or “sparged” over the birch twigs in a current of air drawn upwards through the acetifier. The twigs serve as a host for the bacteria mycoderma aceti , which convert the alcohol into acetic acid, and at the same time present as large a surface as possible for the necessary atmospheric oxygen. The complete fermentation to vinegar takes about 5 days.

From the acetifiers the rough vinegar is pumped into huge storage vats, holding many thousands of gallons, and is there allowed to remain for nine months to a year until the flavour and aroma characteristic of malt vinegar develop. Before being released for sale, the matured vinegar is filtered and pasteurised and diluted to the required acidity with water. The spent grain is disposed of to dealers as cattle food, while the surplus yeast left over after the fermentation process is sold as a by-product for use as gravy salt.

Vinegar brewing continued at Ellsey's until 1966, when a compulsory purchase order, imposed so that Warrington Road could be turned into a dual carriageway, robbed the firm of its brewing tower.

From then on the direction of the company changed. It stopped brewing and instead concentrated on processing vinegar and diversified into supplying the other types of vinegar coming into the market from Europe . These included wine vinegar and spirit vinegar, which it bought in 5000 gallon road tankers from the continent. The malt vinegar and distilled malt vinegar is now sourced from other brewers in the UK .

John Williams' son, Tim, joined the company in 1989 after University and a couple of years in the Builder's Merchant trade. He has now succeeded his father as Managing Director after John's retirement in 1998. John has retained the role of Chairman but is not involved in the day-to-day operations.

In 1998 Ellsey's moved to a new purpose-built factory a couple of miles from original site. Another compulsory purchase order – this time for the A5225 bypass (which has since been postponed) forced them to leave their home in Goose Green and move to Martland Park .

Over the last few years Ellsey and Co. has enjoyed a growing turnover and today processes about 3 million litres of high acidity vinegar each year. The range is shown below.

 

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