Camerons Brewery Ltd is a brewery established by John William Cameron in Hartlepool, County Durham, England in 1865. It is the largest independent brewer in the North East of England, with a brewery capacity of 1.5 million hectolitres and a tied estate of 75 houses. It is one of the oldest industrial concerns in Hartlepool, and has historically been one of the largest employers.After one hundred years of growth through brewery acquisitions, the company had an estate of 750 licensed premises throughout the North East and North Yorkshire by the 1960s. The company subsequently struggled as the economy of its trading heartland suffered, and as it underwent a succession of owners with little experience of pub and brewery management. Camerons lost its independence to Ellerman Lines in 1974, and was acquired by the Barclay Brothers in 1983 and then Brent Walker in 1989. Brent Walker spun-off the majority of the tied estate as a separate company called Pubmaster, which was acquired by Punch Taverns in 2003. Camerons was purchased by Wolverhampton & Dudley in 1992, who invested heavily in the brewery before selling the company to Castle Eden in 2002, who closed their own site and moved all production to Camerons. The company now has a relatively small tied estate but the ninth largest brewery in the country. As a result, around 80 percent of its business involves contract brewing for other companies, such as Heineken, which owns 24 percent of the company, and Carlsberg.Camerons is known across the United Kingdom for Strongarm, a distinctive ruby red bitter launched in 1955. Total production of Strongarm surpassed one billion pints in 2000. Across the North East it is also known for Castle Eden Ale and Trophy Special, both originally brewed at Castle Eden.
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