JOHN YOUNG was the colourful chairman of the family-run brewer for more than 40 years, working from a site in Wandsworth that had been a brewery for more than 400. The Ram Brewery had laid claim to being the oldest in Britain to have seen continual operation, and Young died just as South London was mourning its loss. By next month brewing will have moved to Bedford as part of the merger with Charles Wells.

Young & Co’s Brewery had survived the growth of the small town on the banks of the Thames into a highly developed part of southwest London. Largely under Young’s direction, the brewer stood firm against the postwar fashion for lager and saw its traditional bitters come back into fashion.

Young’s also stood out by continuing to deliver its beer to its many pubs on horse-drawn carts. It protected itself from takeover by a complicated shares structure, but, in its 175th year, and with Young seriously ill, it surrendered to the pressures of its leading nonfamily shareholders and sold its valuable site, merging its brewing with that of its competitor in Bedford.

Young’s Brewery began in 1831 when Young’s great-great grandfather, Charles, and his partner, Anthony Bainbridge, bought the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth, which had been in operation at least since the reign of Elizabeth I. Young’s family had shares in the horse-drawn Surrey Iron Railway, which helped to distribute the brewery’s beer. The following year most of the brewhouse was burnt down, but was soon rebuilt.

The Ram Brewery produced popular porter, but Young and Bainbridge moved to lighter beers, closer to today’s bitter. The partnership was continued by Charles Young’s son and Bainbridge’s nephew, but ended abruptly when the latter had an affair with the former’s wife.

The company then became Young & Co, a private limited company, and when Young died in 1890, the main shareholders were his widow, with whom he had been reconciled, and their children.

In 1924 Young’s took over the brewers William Wells and Britannia. During the Second World War, air raids damaged the brewery and also many of the company’s 80 pubs, with some destroyed. In 1955 Young’s was listed on the London Stock Exchange, but with three-tiered shares to protect it from takeovers. In 1962 Young’s bought the high-quality bottlers Foster-Probyn.

John Allen Young was born in 1921. He was educated at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

He was commissioned into the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1939 and, as commander of 888 Naval Air Squadron, was mentioned in dispatches.

After the war he joined Runciman and was then with Moor Line for five years before joining the family firm in 1954. He became managing director the following year and in 1962 was appointed chairman.

He was involved heavily in promoting traditional draught beer in the face of the increasing popularity of lager, although he also widened his business interests when, in 1973, Young’s acquired the wine merchant Cockburn & Campbell.

In 1984 a £5 million brewhouse was built, and six years later Young’s built a hotel at the Bridge in Greenford. The company took over the public management outfit H H Finch in 1991 and by 1998 the increasingly large supermarket sales meant a new bottling line needed to be installed. But, with the expansion, traditions were also being threatened. In 1995 the practice of serving as much free beer as shareholders could drink at the annual meetings was ended, after the previous one cost £25,000 — it was suspected that many of the 658 attending, some with only a handful of shares, were there only for the beer. In 1997 the daily delivery to local pubs on carts pulled by two dray horses ceased because of an increasing number of inconsiderate drivers. Nevertheless, a year later the horse-drawn deliveries were reinstated.

Young was known for his eccentricities. When, in 2001, Blake Nixon, of Young’s shareholder Guinness Peat Group, wrote to him saying that they could not “continue to operate the company and act as if Queen Victoria was on the throne”, Young is said to have turned up at the next AGM dressed as Queen Victoria. Certainly he responded to GPG’s blandishments by attending one meeting wearing a beekeeper’s hat, and boxing gloves at another. On another occasion, for a beer advert, he dressed as Lord Kitchener, mimicking the First World War “needs you” poster.

In 2005 the brewer moved its listing to the Alternative Investment Market. This left the Young family and the family and employee trusts with 57 per cent of the shares, but it seemed clear that the move was a step in its loss of independence. In May 2006 Young’s announced that it would merge its brewery division with Charles Wells in Bedford to create Wells and Young’s, meaning the sale of the Wandsworth site and the end of brewing there. The 5½-acre site is expected to be turned into flats, shops and offices as part of a redevelopment by Wandsworth council.

Young was president of the London Carthorse Parade Society, 1957-62, treasurer of the Shire Horse Society, 1962-73, and president, 1963-64. In 1972-74 he was president of the Greater London Horse Show and, since 1992, was president of the London Harness Horse Parade Society.

He was involved heavily in various health bodies; he was chairman of the board of governors of the National Hospitals for Nervous Diseases, 1982-86, president of the National Hospitals Development Foundation from 1993 and vice-president of the Chalfont Centre for Epilepsy from 1995.

Young was made a Freeman of the City of London in 1986 and the Borough of Wandsworth in 1992. He was appointed CBE in 1975.

He is survived by a daughter and a son. His wife, Yvonne, predeceased him in 2002.

John Young, CBE, chairman of Young & Co’s Brewery, 1962-2006, was born on August 7, 1921. He died on September 17, 2006, aged 85.