[Tealeaf]

"Lions Ales" was the tradeing name for Matthew Brown & their pubs sold beer under the Lion brand name. Matthew Brown purchased Theakstons in the mid 1980's because at the time there had been a major real ale revival and the best known premium English Real Ale was Theakstons Old Peculiar.

However, their pocession of the Theakstons brand served only to attract the larger brewers & in 1989 Matthew Brown were themselves subject to a hostile takeover from S & N, who on completion of the deal announced that "brewing was safe in Blackburn for the foreseeable future"......18 months later the Lion brewery was flat building land. The Lion range has gone, Theakston's remains..and that's about it.

Their beers were quite nice; the mild was a bit nutty, the bitter so-so, but the best of the lot was a bottled beer called Crystal, which came in pint bottles and when you drank it your belly expanded because of all the gas in there.....you could do some really good, serious burps.

As for the pubs....well, The Queens in Church used to be a Matthew Brown pub, so did the Oak Tree & the Tanpits/Plough....in Accy, however, they tended to be the smaller back street pubs, although the Castle above was an exception...I think possibly Owd Bert might know of a few.