‘Brewella De Vil’: Smell as (disappearing) local heritage
Ringwood is a market town that sits on the Hampshire-Dorset border. It has been a home to multiple breweries since the 1600s, until 2023 when the last standing ‘Ringwood Brewery’ was sold off to Carlsberg and its ornate iron gates officially shut. The ‘Society of Independent Brewers and Associates’ reported that, on average, three independent breweries closed each week in England, 2025. The reasons include market pressures and an increase in brewery mergers and acquisitions. With Britain’s brewing heritage circling the drain, something less visible is disappearing with it - the smell. I miss the smell of the brewery and how it connected our local industry, heritage and identity. No longer wafting through the town on a weekday morning, the loss of this distinctive sensory experience reflects a disappearing local heritage sweeping through rural England. To reconnect with my hometown’s history and brewing legacy, I made a homebrew beer.
Beer was sustenance before it was an industry. It was traditionally brewed by women (Brewsters) in their homes as a cottage industry, later developing into small local breweries and free houses. Ringwood High Street was home to multiple breweries, thanks to access to the River Avon. Over time, these free houses and smaller breweries closed. Then, in 1978, Peter Austin set up a new microbrewery in Ringwood and went on to create the award-winning, globally renowned beers of Ringwood Best, Forty-Niner, Old Thumper, Razor Back and Boon Doggle.
Ringwood Brewery was bought out by Marston’s in 2007 which subsequently merged with Carlsberg in 2023. The beers continue to be sold but are no longer brewed in Ringwood. Our local symbol of the New Forest hog is used to sell these beers with Ringwood’s name, but there’s no industrial, economic or social connection to the place or its people anymore. Truly, a deep sense of loss in the town followed the closing of Ringwood Brewery. A facet of our local identity had been acquired, rebranded and sold back to us by a corporate body. We shared memories of the brewery tour, getting Ringwood kegs in for a party and our joy at seeing Ringwood beers served in pubs across the country. Our small rural town, making a name for itself.
To honour Ringwood’s brewing history and as an act of dissent against the brewing monopolies, I started a homebrew. A lager fermented in an unassuming bucket in the corner of my room. The faint smell of yeast seeping out took me back to morning break times at school when I could smell the almost intrusively warm, sweet malt that carried over the town. I didn’t like the smell at first (it reminded me of dog food), but over time, I began to enjoy the waves of yeast, impressed that the smell had travelled so far from the other side of town. It signalled the industrial rhythms of life outside of school, contextualising my days into this distinctly local environment. At 18 years old, I finally got to go on the Ringwood Brewery tour and was amazed by the scale of production inside this historic building I had only known as an olfactory landmark before then. (Not to mention the open bar at the end of the tour!).
As a returning observer to the town, I wasn’t around when the smell officially ended. My emotional attachments to it stem from school days and shape my perception of how it permeated our local identity. But when I discuss the closed brewery with others from Ringwood, its smell often comes up as a collective memory we actively feel the absence of. Smells often continue as afterlives of an experience, deeply rooted in memories. The fact that others go to their memory of the smell, unprompted, suggests it is a part of our (disappearing) local heritage. While undocumented as heritage, smells do form a visceral experience of a place and can be an integral part of how we understand it. The closing of Ringwood Brewery didn’t just take the jobs and sense of identity attached to the beer itself but also removed this distinctive layer of everyday experience in the town. Ringwood became slightly more interchangeable, once shaped by the rhythm of this local industry, the town looks the same but feels less rich, almost thinner. The loss of the smells from the brewery contributes to the flattening of rural life, where we retain our names and symbols, but lose the sensory textures that make a place distinct.
I watched my homebrew move through its life cycle and processes, as a Brewster would have all those years ago. Its smell conjured memories but could not replace or fully capture that of the Ringwood Brewery from my school days. Once bottled, I waited eagerly for it to be ready for the first taste… delicious (though it has nothing on Ringwood Best). Affectionately named “Brewella De Vil”, I tied handmade labels to each bottlecap. Handing out bottles to friends and bringing kegs to parties, the conversation always turns to our appreciation of a truly local brew.
Written by Isabella Rix
Bella Rix (@brix.246) explores the stories and experiences of communities in rural England. Currently digitising a local archive, she is interested in understanding belonging and what or who is included in our community heritage. Drawing on creative and sensory approaches to ethnographic fieldwork, she focuses on lived and embodied experiences of rural life.
