Blue Monkey Brewery Blue Monkey Brewery Blue Monkey Brewery is a 20 barrel microbrewery located on the border of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Founded in Ilkeston in 2008, the company doubled its capacity and moved to Giltbrook in 2010. It produces award-winning beers, including Ape Ale and Guerrilla Porter. It currently has four outlets; The Organ Grinder Nottingham, The Organ Grinder Loughborough, The Organ Grinder Newark and The Coffee Grinder Arnold Blue Monkey Brewery was founded in the Manners Industrial Estate, Ilkeston on 8 October 2008 by John Hickling, with a capacity of ten barrels. Prior to the brewery venture, Hickling worked in a
Burton Ale Burton Ale; from whence they send vast quantities to London: yet they brew at London some that goes by that denomination." In around 1708 Benjamin Printon (1680-1728) established a brewery, later bought by John Musgrove, which is considered to be the start of the foreign export trade in Burton Ale. Other breweries in Burton on Trent soon followed, including the businesses of Benjamin Wilson (established 1742), William Worthington (1761) and William Bass (1777). "It was Burton Ale that built both the reputations and fortunes of the Burton brewers." Exports were facilitated by the opening in 1713 of the Trent Navigation,