Nineteenth century Liverpool was a prosperous entrepreneurial city, with the bustling docks full of ships travelling to and from destinations all over the British Empire and the Americas. The young 24 year-old Robert Cain started brewing beer in one pub and successfully grew his business into Robert Cains and Sons with a chain of 200 pubs.
Many of the old industrial dock and warehouse buildings which supported Liverpool’s prosperity and wealth remain. Along the river from Albert Dock, the Baltic Triangle area is developing into a creative and digital quarter for Liverpool. The Blade Factory, where the mechanism for the world’s first bread-slicing machine is said to have been invented, is a popular venue for live music performance, bar/café and art exhibitions and, across the road, the former 19th century warehouse, previously the Contemporary Urban Centre, is home to two schools, The Studio – dedicated to digital and gaming technology – and the Life Sciences University Technical College, the first school in the UK specialising in Science and Health Care for 14 to 19 year olds, aiming to train and develop future generations of scientists, healthcare practitioners, engineers and entrepreneurs.
Rising like an industrial cathedral spire, the tower and chimney of Cains Brewery sits on top of the red brick and terracotta building built, along with the adjacent public house in 1896 -1902 to designs by the architect J.Redford for Robert Cain and Sons.
The brewery has had a checkered history. The company merged in 1921 with Walkers of Warrington, then the site and the brand was sold to Higsons, who operated there until 1985 after which there were several owners until, in 2002, British-born entrepreneurs Ajmail and Sudarghara Dusanj saw an opportunity to save the brewery and the historic brand and purchased it with the aim of re-focussing Cains as a craft beer company.
Proposals have been agreed to for historic site as Cains Brewery Village as a new hotel, brewery, food and leisure destination for Liverpool with an 100,000 sq.m. development that will retain and restore the historic buildings with an artisan food hall, courtyard bistro bar and restaurants, alongside new buildings including a 94 bedroom boutique hotel and independent art-house cinema. The project will also include a supermarket, health / beauty and fitness centre and up to 775 high quality homes or 2,500 student bedrooms.
Crucially, of course, the new Cains brewery will enable the brewing of a full range of international craft beers for the local, national and international market.
This summer, the brewery is the reception and enquiry centre for the 2016 Liverpool Biennale, with Andreas Angelidakis’ circular “Collider”, taking inspiration from the Large Hadron Collider to create a space which operates at the boundaries of contemporary art, filled with works by artists whose work is also seen at venues across the city including Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Hesam Rahmanian’s installations containing items which have been secretly shipped from Dubai, Sahaj Rahal’s clay and wood sculptures, Rita McBride’s profiles of buildings from Pompeii and Lara Favaretto’s “Lost and Found” suitcases. Looking as if it belongs to the building itself, Audrey Gotin’s performance structure unfolds as a cube, activated by 8 people.
Projects are slow to develop, but hopefully this is a taster for the redevelopment that will enable Cains Brewery to have a new life and become a new destination for Liverpool.
