'In March 1792, the Gloucester Journal advertised the forthcoming sale of 'one of the most complete breweries outside London'. Could this be the earliest known record of Cirencester's most important brewery - a business that would later become the biggest industrial complex in Cirencester and the largest employer in the town? The Brewery played a vital role in the regional economy until closure in 1949, but the date of its foundation is a little more difficult to place. With the Cirencester Brewery's own records dating rather uncertainly from 1798, Joyce Moss examines the evidence for its development'.