How an Abingdon brewery marked fifty years of MG.

Old Speckled Hen began as a celebration beer. English Wikipedia says it was first brewed in 1979 in Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, by the Morland brewery, to mark the 50th anniversary of the MG car factory in the town, which fell on 30 November 1979. MG had moved its works from Oxford to Abingdon fifty years earlier, and the factory asked its local brewer for a commemorative beer, suggesting the name itself and designing an octagonal label.

The brewery had a long history of its own. English Wikipedia says John Morland, a farmer, founded it at West Ilsley in 1711 and that it moved to Abingdon in the 1880s and describes it as the second-oldest brewer in England at the time it was sold in 2000.

The name comes from a car. According to English Wikipedia, MG built an experimental Featherlight Saloon in 1927 whose body was a wooden frame covered in black fabric speckled with gold. It served as a runaround for workers at the Abingdon factory, who nicknamed it the “owd speck’ld un.” Morland’s head brewer, Jim Dymore-Brown, brewed the anniversary beer as an amber pale ale at an original gravity of 1050, a figure chosen to echo the anniversary, English Wikipedia says.

What was meant as a one-off did not stay that way. English Wikipedia says the first batch proved popular enough that a second had to be brewed before the anniversary weekend. After the MG factory closed in 1980, production dwindled and the beer was found mainly in Morland’s own pubs, until the brewery revived it and launched a draught version in 1990. In January 1993 the beer writer Michael Jackson made it his “Beer of the Month” in The Independent, English Wikipedia notes.

An octagon from a car badge, and a fox in pursuit of a hen.

The octagon has been the brand’s shape from the start. English Wikipedia says that in 1987 Terry Symonds, head of RPG Design, a design agency in the Saatchi group, redrew the label around the MG octagon to show the link between the car maker and the brewery, and suggested a back label telling the story of the name, because landlords were so often asked about it.

Later owners kept the octagon and changed what sat around it. The Drum reported on 25 November 2014 that the branding consultancy Ziggurat Brands had redesigned the beer’s packaging for Greene King, working with the advertising agency Grey and the PR agency Popcorn. In that design a fox stood for the quality of the beer and could be shown chasing a hen, and the hen appeared on pack for the first time.

The fox has a name. The Drum reported on 7 October 2019 that the independent agency Isobel had created a campaign under the line “Drink Curious” featuring a fresh version of Henry the fox, who first appeared in the brand’s advertising in 1994. A month earlier, on 3 September 2019, the Morning Advertiser reported a further redesign that kept the octagon and the name but brought in a sleeker typeface and silver edging, made the words “English pale ale” more prominent, and came with a new glass echoing the octagonal shape. Matt Starbuck, Greene King’s brewing and brands managing director, said the aim was “a fresher, cleaner and more contemporary look.”

The strength of the beer has changed over the years. English Wikipedia says the cask version was reduced from 5.2% to 4.5% ABV in 2006 to make it more sessionable.

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all British beer names: Fuller’s, Greene King, Adnams, BrewDog, Theakston, Old Speckled Hen and Shepherd Neame. Beer brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from family brewers that still carry a founder’s name to labels that now belong to much larger drinks groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a pub bar.

A beer brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single bottle than by a pump clip, a label, a name and the place it promises, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its brewing or grown far beyond the town where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its beer is actually brewed and packaged.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its beer is brewed and how its labels have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From Abingdon to Bury St Edmunds, and on to Bedford.

The brand changed hands with its brewery. English Wikipedia says Greene King bought Morland in 2000, closed the Abingdon brewery and moved Old Speckled Hen to its own Westgate Brewery in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk; the old brewery buildings were converted to housing. Under Greene King the beer became a family of brands, including Old Golden Hen and Old Crafty Hen. Greene King itself was taken over by the Hong Kong group CK Asset Holdings in 2019, the Morning Advertiser reported that October.

The latest change was announced in spring 2026. The Brewers Journal reported on 19 May 2026 that Damm UK, the British arm of the Barcelona family brewer S.A. Damm, which makes Estrella Damm, had agreed to acquire the Old Speckled Hen family of brands from Greene King. The deal covers Old Speckled Hen, Old Golden Hen, Old Crafty Hen and Old Master Hen, along with a low-alcohol version. The beers were to keep being brewed at the Westgate Brewery during a transition, and brewing was then scheduled to move to Damm’s Eagle Brewery in Bedford. Luke White, managing director of Damm UK, called it “an iconic British ale brand with a rich heritage and loyal following,” and Greene King’s chief executive, Nick Mackenzie, said the brewer was pleased to have found a partner that would keep brewing the ales in the UK.

For a design guide, Old Speckled Hen shows how a commemorative label can outlast the occasion it marked: a car badge’s octagon, a speckled factory runaround and a fox have carried an Abingdon anniversary beer for more than four decades. Compare Greene King, its brewer since 2000, and Estrella Damm, the Barcelona lager from its incoming owner. For this guide we use pale ale amber, speckled black and octagon silver with a slab serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Old Speckled Hen’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.