The Worth Brewery was set up as the Commercial Brewing Company in December 1991. CBC was founded by four local businessmen, three of whom owned public houses in the town. These were to be the main outlets for the beers. The technical know-how would be provided by brewing and microbiology graduate Bob Brown, licensee of the Red Pig and also one of the four partners.

Acquiring and installing the brewing plant took around two months and the first brew, Worth Best Bitter rolled out in February 1992. This was a very distinctive light-coloured bitter beer of 4.5% ABV which was well received by some but its extreme bitterness and dry astringency was too much for others - our market research told us that less than half of those who tried it could face a second pint.

The learning curve had begun!

Many other recipes and beer-styles were attempted in those early days (see full list). Some succeeded and are still being brewed today. Others were less popular and have been dropped. The beers appeared all over the country, and were sold in free houses and as guest beers as far away as Plymouth and Kent. However, the logistics, high costs and quality-control problems of servicing such a wide spread of customers did not make sense as a business strategy. Obviously, it made much more sense to concentrate on a more locally based market.

After several years of hard work, the Commercial Brewing Company partnership was dissolved and the running of Worth Brewery was taken over completely by one of the original founders, John Mitchell. It was at this time that the brewery changed its official trading name from CBC to Worth Brewery.

At roughly the same time, Worth took on the lease of a run-down Timothy Taylor pub, then called the Masons Arms. This was refitted and refurbished by the brewery staff, taking only three weeks, and reopened under a new name, The Brewery Arms, just before Christmas 1996. This pub is now independent of Worth Brewery.

A second pub was acquired in 1998, when The Cricketers Arms in Coney Lane was taken over. This is also a former Timothy Taylor pub, situated less than 5 minutes walk from the Brewery Arms.