Crown Wharf, our flagship Brewery Tap stands in the shadow of the original Joule’s Brewery on Crown Street, Stone. Part of the Crown Wharf site sits on the original Breweries Dirties Yard and the canal-side location was owned by the Brewery back in the 70s but never developed. Ever since completing the fourth Joule’s Brewery in Market Drayton back in 2010 Joule’s has been looking for the perfect site to home their Stone Taphouse. None came close to what they were looking for so they decided to build their own, their very first new-build Tap.

Works began on the project way back in March 2018, in January of the following year planning permission was finally granted and works began on site straight away. Progress was steady and by October 2019 the steel frame of the Taphouse was completed. Then 2020 hit, our first national Lockdown meant progress had to slow down onsite to a skeleton team of two lone joiners. Plans for an October 2020 opening soon slipped away…

Finally on the 20th of July 2021 at 11 am, the day after restrictions lifted to the country, Crown Wharf opened its doors to the public. Joule’s was back in Stone at last. General Manager Kayleigh Knight served the first pint to William Smith aka Billy Bass who Brewed for Joule’s from 1957 to 1974.

The project is the result of a collaboration with Stone Town Council, Crown Wharf Theatre Trust and Joule’s Brewery.

Steve Nuttall Managing Director

We have been planning this for so long we wanted to let people see the pub and enjoy a normal pint, so we have waited for that.  It’s a hugely significant day for us to be trading in Stone once again after a gap of nearly 50 years.  This is the biggest project we have ever done, it is a pub that represents us, we felt it was important to return to Stone the original home of the brewery.  We are launching Stone Ale, one of our ancient trademarks with the opening of the pub, we feel we can do that now we are back in the town.

Pip Machin Marketing Manager

The public have been really engaged all the way through our journey from planning to the building phase, we have had so much support and we are very grateful for the good wishes of everyone in Stone.  The last 3 weeks have been intense as we have trained a whole new team and we are delighted to be opening our doors on the 20th and looking forward to finding out what people think.  It’s a new chapter, a new start, with restrictions easing today we can look forward I hope we can all put a very testing 18 months behind us.

The company has invested over £3.5m in the project creating the tap house and also a shell building for a community theatre and a shell building for a heritage centre, both free to their respective users.