About us
After the take-over of the historic Horsham Brewery ‘King and Barnes Ltd’ in the year 2000, Bill King, the former Chairman, decided to concentrate on quality Cask Ale production. As it would only be possible to sell to ‘Free Trade’ accounts the brewery as it stands today started in a small leasehold premises in Horsham as ‘W J King & Co (Brewers)’. The brewhouse has been extended over the years and now has the brewing capacity of 65 brewers barrels per week. All of the beers are hand crafted by the WJ King team and produced on site in Horsham using only the finest natural and local ingredients. The name King has been synonymous with the production of fine ales in Horsham for over 150 years, firstly with ‘King and Son’, then ‘King and Sons’, more recently with ‘King and Barnes’, followed by ‘W J King and Co (Brewers) and now WJ King. In 2009, the WJ King Brewery was taken over by Nigel Lambe and Ian Burgess. Nigel’s background comes from PepsiCo Restaurants and Grampian Foods as well as a number of technology and logistics businesses. Ian’s career started in the lab of the world famous Truman Brewer in London’s Brick Lane where he learnt his trade brewing classic beers such as Sampson Hanbury’s Strong Ale (7.6%), Ben Truman’s Export Draught and Watneys Special Bitter. He decided to move to Sussex to raise his family and was soon recruited into Harvey's of Lewes as number 2 brewer where for the next 19 years he ran the day to day activities of this world renowned 250 bbl brew house.