Camerons brewery in Hartle-pool has had more owners than Tiger Woods has golf clubs, but it has survived and now has to carve out a future in modern Britain.
It is one of many breweries that built its strength on heavy industry and saw its customer base disappear in the 1980s.
Many years ago I happened to be, on a journalistic assignment, in a pub opposite the entrance to an enormous steelworks in Redcar, a girder-throw from Hartlepool.
At five minutes to six, the landlord started pulling pints, and arranged them in a long line on the bar top.
At six o'clock, the factory whistle blew and men came streaming from the steelworks straight into the pub.
They were like weary travellers in the Sahara who had come across an oasis.
Pints disappeared in one gulp down dozens of thirsty throats, and empty glasses were immediately refilled.
Throughout Britain, the steelworks, coal mines and shipyards have gone, along with the jobs of millions of working people who created not only the country's wealth but also prodigious thirsts as they laboured underground or in the daunting heat of steel factories.
It's not surprising that breweries have closed as a result of the decline of industry.
But Camerons is still there in the Victorian Lion Brewery in Hartlepool and, under new ownership, is facing the future with quiet optimism in a much-changed north-east.
The company has been on a roller-coaster ride since the 1970s.
In 1975 Camerons, along with Tolly Cobbold of Ipswich, was taken over by Ellerman Shipping Lines.
A curious game of pass-the-parcel ensued, with the breweries sold to the mysterious Barclay brothers, and then to Brent-Walker.
When Brent-Walker lost interest, Tolly was sold to its management, while Camerons became part of Wolverhampton & Dudley.
The Hartlepool company was at last back in the hands of people who understood how to make and sell beer, and the future seemed more assured.
Then W&D had to fight off a takeover bid by Pubmaster, a pub group ironically housed next door to Camerons.
W&D had to raise cash and was forced to slim down its brewing operations.
Mansfield Brewery closed and the axe was poised over Camerons.
Enter David Soley.
He is a successful north-east businessman who admits he has no experience of brewing but stepped in to save the neighbouring Castle Eden brewery, which had lost both its owner, Whitbread, and most of its customers as the surrounding coal fields closed.
In 2002 he bought Camerons from W&D and took the sad but inevitable decision to close Castle Eden and centre production in Hartlepool.
I have visited the brewery on several occasions.
It's a substantial plant, with an airy and spacious brewhouse that can produce both ale and lager, and an impressive fermenting capacity, with open vessels for ale and massive conicals for lager.
I expected to find a heavily scaled-down operation.
But David Solely and his team aren't cutting back on production in order to qualify for Progressive Beer Duty.
Camerons is brewing 400,000 barrels a year, which means it is still a sizeable regional operator.
The bulk of that production is given over to lager.
Camerons has a contract with S&N to make Kronenbourg and it also brews Harp for W&D and Scorpion, a brand acquired when Vaux of Sunderland closed.
These contracts allow Camerons to brew an impressive range of ales.
I was struck by the enthusiasm and commitment to ale among the brewing and sales team.
They produce Camerons Bitter and the renowned Strongarm, as well as Castle Eden Ale and Nimmos XXXX from the former brewery.
A 10-barrel micro-brewery has been installed to enable Camerons to produce short-run beers, including ales from Butterknowle, a defunct micro in the area that was taken over by Castle Eden.
The Butterknowle brands include Conciliation and Banner, beers with strong mining connections: one is named after a former pit, the other after one those magnificent miners' banners depicting their long struggle for trade union rights.
If only there were some miners left to drink them.
Lets raise a glass to the future success of Camerons and, at the same time, damn the politicians in the 1980s that destroyed this country's industrial base.
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