George Bateman bought the brewery equipment for £505 and 10 shillings, then paid £800 the following year to secure the lease on the building itself. His teacher in the craft was Edwin Crowe, the outgoing brewer, whose own expert employee stayed on to help despite his blindness. George's wife Suzanna — who had some experience of home brewing — worked alongside him. By 1880, enough money had come in to purchase Salem House, a Georgian building two hundred yards from the original site, and a new brewery was built into its coach houses. In addition to the beer, Bateman bottled spirits and his wife baked bread for sale.

On Fair Day, held twice a year, farmers came to Salem House to pay for the beer their workers had drunk over the previous six months. Payment rarely arrived in cash — more often in meat and potatoes. After settling the account, the farmers were invited into the kitchen for a feast. The tradition lasted until 1930.

The brewing industry hit a difficult stretch in the 1920s and 1930s. Restrictions carried over from the First World War, higher taxes, and a general decline in sales squeezed businesses across England. Batemans was no exception. At one point, Harry Bateman — George's son, who had bought the business from his father in 1919 — was forced to lay off his entire workforce.

The sight of his former employees struggling brought Harry back to the same conclusion his father had reached: expand rather than retreat. To find work for them, he extended the business into buildings opposite Salem House, including a derelict windmill that would eventually become the brewery's most recognisable symbol. The windmill still stands today, a reminder that what looked like crisis was, in retrospect, the making of something lasting. By 1948, the tied estate had grown to 68 pubs.

Batemans brews to a principle captured in its slogan: Good Honest Ales. The cask range centres on three regulars — Gold, XB, and XXXB. The XXXB was first brewed by Ken Dixon on 1 February 1978 and has been a flagship ever since. The brewery owns 69 public houses, with 23 in Boston alone, making it a significant presence across Lincolnshire's pub landscape.

Bottled offerings include Victory Ale and Dark Lord, both approved by the Vegan Society. The Mocha — brewed with genuine arabica coffee, Belgian chocolate, and locally grown roasted malt — won the Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt in 2012. Batemans also produces a hard green ginger wine for Aldi. The product range is distinctly of its place, rooted in the ingredients and traditions of the Lincolnshire countryside that surrounds it.

In the 1980s, Batemans faced what many family businesses eventually face: half the family wanted to sell, half wanted to keep brewing. The brewery survived that internal argument intact. It remains in family hands, operating independently at a time when most English regional breweries have been absorbed into larger companies or closed entirely.

The site at Wainfleet — with its Georgian house, its brick brewery buildings, and its windmill turning above the Lincolnshire fens — looks now much as it has for generations. Visitors can tour the brewhouse and museum. The keg beer line that ran from 1970 to 1992 is long gone; the focus returned to cask. What George Bateman started with a farmer's gamble on a railway-side brewery has endured into the twenty-first century, still making the ales his slogan promised.