Hesket NewmarketBrewery

Hesket Newmarket Brewery started in 1988 in outbuildings behind the Old Crown pub, and by 1999 faced closure until around a hundred local real ale drinkers bought it between them as a co-operative. Shareholders, drawn from the village and further afield, hold equal stakes and vote on how the brewery is run, with profits going toward jobs and local causes rather than outside owners. Cask beers are named after Cumbrian fells, including the brewery's Helvellyn Gold. It now claims the title of Cumbria's oldest surviving microbrewery. The neighbouring Old Crown pub followed the same model in 2003, when a separate group of shareholders bought it, reportedly the first co-operative pub in the UK.