Another family joined in the running of the brewery when David John's daughter, Mary Anne, married John Lewis, the manager of the Wern Ironworks. This was later to lead to a serious split in the company, and the initial marriage was little happier.
John Lewis was a compulsive gambler, prepared to risk everything on the turn of a card or a throw of the dice. He is reputed to have lost a tinworks on a bet, and would probably have gambled away the brewery except that his wife controlled the shares. He was little luckier in his business life, once buying a worked-out mine into which heaps of coal had been carted to fool potential purchasers.
In the 1920's, the strain became too much, and he shot himself while alone in the brewery office.
Undaunted, his wife Mary Anne, a formidable woman, carried on with the business. Her visits to the brewery made a deep impression on the staff. She carried a big stick, and if she was unhappy with the performance of any of her employees - she hit them with it! The stick still hangs in the brewery office today.
These were troubled times at the brewery, but the company's close connections with the tinplate industry were to alter that.
Many types of meat, fruit and vegetables had been canned in the nineteenth century; the first food canning factory being established in London as early as 1812. By the end of the century, the can was becoming a common sight on the kitchen shelves. The 1895 edition of "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management" includes a picture of a huge array of tinned provisions, including liquids like condensed milk and soup. But tinned beer was another "can of worms", entirely.
Many brewers were sceptical that drinkers would ever accept beer in a can. Customers expected beer to be on draught from a cask, or in a glass bottle. Advocates of the can pointed out that ale had been enjoyed in pewter mugs for centuries, but few were convinced.
Much more of a hangover were the serious technical problems. Beer required a container that could withstand a pressure in excess of 80lb per square inch. Food cans on the market only needed to withstand 25-35lb. If filled with beer, they would burst along the seam. At best, they leaked.
Then there was the question of flavour contamination. Beer reacted with the bare tinplate, leaving a tinny taste. But coating with the traditional brewers' pitch, as used in casks, was no use in the smaller container. As a correspondent in the "Brewer and Wine Merchant" magazine explained: 'Samples of linings for the can were found to absorb all the hop flavour out of the beer and leave it tasting like the proverbial 'ditchwater'.
Finally there was the all-important bottom line. Cans cost more than glass bottles. So breweries, which had invested heavily in bottling plants and large stocks of returnable bottles, were unlikely to be enthusiastic.
In fact, like most drinkers, they were deeply suspicious. Sanders Watney of the London brewers "Watney, Combe, and Reid", said in an article in the World Press Review in 1934:
"I am not convinced that there would be any demand in this country for beer in cans. I cannot conceive the idea of a can ever replacing the half-pint, pint or quart bottle. The canning habit is certainly growing, but I do not think it will spread to drinks".
With brewers and drinkers indifferent, if not hostile, the impetus for change had to come from another quarter; the sector with the most to gain - the tinplate industry and the can manufactures.
In 1909, the American Can Company (CanCo) had tried to produce a can for beer, but without success. Technical problems kicked the concept into touch. In 1921, anticipating the end of Prohibition in the United States, and with the Depression affecting its conventional markets, it tried again.
