Actual Artifacts from the Actual Nineties

I read with interest Boak and Bailey's blog here about a range of ales produced by Whitbread in the nineties.  They concentrate on Colonel Pepper's Lemon Ale and while I remember it, it was as B&B say, one of many special ales produced at that time to increase interest in cask beer.  Collectively they were called "The Cask Connoisseur's Challenge". I drank them in the Dusty Miller here in Middleton when it was a Whitbread pub run by a mate of mine, Charlie Ashton.

Charlie then was a cask man and Whitbread were pushing cask. The Dusty became a cask ale house of some sort - there was a brand which I don't recall - with guest ales and of course, real ales from the Whitbread empire.  I know they sold cask Trophy and Chester's Mild and Bitter as staples. I was an eager customer and remember drinking the beers, but not only that, when the beers came out, you could acquire (I'm not sure how exactly) T shirts to go with each beer.  Charlie told me not to worry about such qualification as was deemed necessary by his bosses and that he would "Sort me out."  When the promotion ended, Charlie presented me with a carrier bag full of T shirts representing each of the beers.  Over the years the T shirts have slowly but surely died a death, but I still have three, pictured on this blog, as well as a show card for Murphy's Oyster Stout. That was bloody good stuff too.

Of course the T shirts don't fit me any more. Wonder why I haven't thrown them out?  You'll also be glad to know, nearly 25 years later, Charlie still manages the Dusty Miller having somehow survived pub company after pub company, as his pub pinged around between them.  It doesn't sell cask though now, but I still see Charlie around Midd now and then.

I hope B&B will forgive me hopping on their backs over this one, but hopefully this will add to the tale they tell.

I can remember the Lemon beer but that's as far as it goes. Can't remember at all how it tasted, but I do remember the Christmas Pudding was bloody good.

Brew Britannia - Book Review

The early 1970s was a time when not only was British Beer at a nadir, but it was starting to be recognised as such and importantly, a few people were starting to do something about it.  The rather chummy, but none too serious Society for Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW) was giving way to a much more purposeful and aggressive organisation, the Campaign for Real Ale, which sent shock waves through the whole brewing industry and facilitated to a very large extent, the changes that moved British Brewing from one of homogenisation, to one of huge diversity.

This particularly British tale is engagingly tale is told in a pretty sure footed way by well known beer bloggers, Boak and Bailey,  in their first book, The Strange Rebirth of British Beer.  Although a history, this, in part at least, is a character driven book, because the fightback against the standardisation and bastardisation of British beer is one of individuals, operating singly, but all with a burning view that the bland, fizzy, weak, lookalike beers foisted on the public by the then big brewers, was something they were going to do something about, albeit in individual and unconnected ways. People like David Bruce with his chain of brewpubs, drinkers such as Christopher Hutt, whose book The Death of the English Pub was a clarion call to the British drinker that something was wrong and the four founders of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), are well known and rightly given their place, but the authors have delved into less known cases of early pioneers of beery diversity in the delightfully named chapter Lilacs Out of the Dead Land. Outposts of rebellion in places such as Selby in Yorkshire and Priddy in Wales are discussed, as is the case of Godsons, a new brewery and wholesaler who took London by storm long before the present crop of London brewers were born, though sadly, we are not told why "everything that could go wrong did."

Inevitably there had to be something that pulled all this together and the golden thread running through the early part of the narrative of change in the brewing landscape is the emergence and dominance of the Campaign for Real Ale.  Interviews with many CAMRA worthies bring this to life and for an old hand like me, the book reminds me that CAMRA was a much more swashbuckling organisation than it is now.   And quite possibly much more left wing.  It may not be intentional, but the book clearly illustrates that CAMRA took the feeling of "something wrong",  into a movement that not only annoyed the big brewers, but by campaigning against them and what they stood for, arguably, swept them into the dustbin of history.  For those unfamiliar with this history, the role that  CAMRA played might well be quite a revelation.

The emergence of a new wave of brewers and more importantly, beers and beer styles as well as the new wave of craft beer bars, is the sort of second half of the book, but here you feel the authors are somewhat less sure of themselves.  What about the current changes that in some ways mirror, or at least replicate the situation CAMRA found in the 1970s?  Is there a broad feeling that there is a need for step change around?  You get an idea there might be, but the book doesn't really go there. They do not get into the soul of what the new wave of craft brewers is about - no major interviews - though they do rightly identify BrewDog and Thornbridge as key players. They do make a more convincing job of bars, with an interesting delve into North Bar Leeds, which they postulate is a template for all yet to come and a fascinating reminder of Mash and Air in Manchester as well as others.  But overall there is a strong impression that not only are the writers more meticulous about the past, but the writing of this complicated history is where their main interest lies.  In fairness the emergence of the new "craft movement" is a muddled one and not yet fully formed.  Perhaps Boak and Bailey could let that one ferment for twenty years or so and then turn their skills to it? 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It is clearly written, straightforward in style, captures the essence of the issues that faced British drinkers and what was then done about it.  The history is meticulously researched.  It is weaker in its second half, though this is redeemed by a skilful weaving (doubtless intentional and maybe in recognition of the relative weakness) of the past and present and is studded throughout with attractive stories and slightly bonkers people. One criticism is perhaps more about who wasn't interviewed as who was. Given the nature of the book, it might have been useful to seek the views of someone who was there throughout and is still there now, such as Tony Allen of Phoenix Brewery. There are no doubt others.  Of course in any book there are only so many characters that can be fitted in and they have in such luminaries as Brendan Dobbin and Sean Franklin, chosen some of the best.  Later inclusions though seem somewhat whimsical at times, such as the mention of the Campaign for Really Good Beer.  Perhaps the authors elliptically allude thereby to the somewhat feckless SPBW (for whom they seem to have an abiding fondness) and their "drinking club" status?

To this writer, where the book excels is in  the pulling together of  a non linear story of change into a narrative of characters, key people and events.  Those that are familiar with the story and those that are not and those that have even the most passing interest in British beer and brewing will equally find fascinating and educational. I would particularly recommend it to those that feel they are breaking new ground in brewing, drinking or being "different" or in a fancy bar with fancier prices.  While the characters, the pubs, bars and beers have changed, the principles haven't. This book tells you in an easy to read way, that to a large extent, it has all been done before.

If you wonder how we in the UK got where we are today beerwise, I recommend that you buy it.

Brew Britannia. The Strange Rebirth of British Beer is, as they say, available from all good bookshops and on line.

Cable Steet E1

London, especially the East End, is endlessly interesting to me.  It has been hugely knocked about, gentrified and changed by bombing, demolition, regeneration and speculation, but you can still see in places what it was.

Yesterday we took a walk down Cable St, famous for its stand against Oswald Mosley's Fascist Blackshirts on Sunday 4 October 1936, when residents and others, together with the police dispersed a march by the British Union of Fascists.  There is a plaque on a wall just round from our flat, (but oddly in Dock St, not Cable St,  though I am sure it used to be), that commemorates the event.   This history pops up again as I looked out for pubs as we walked along the 1.2 miles, heading for Limehouse Basin.

First of all we came across the ex Crown and Dolphin, which look as though it is still a pub. It isn't of course, being residential.  It closed in 1992 to become flats and was a Charrington house.   Next along, yet another conversion to flats, but again you can see traces of its former ownership.  This was the Britannia Tavern first listed in 1839 and owned by Meux, Truman and latterly, Taylor Walker. It closed in July 1996, but the tiled exterior leaves you in no doubt as to what it once was. If you squint along the top of the pub you can still see Meux's Ales and Stouts in gilded lettering, peeping through the overpainting.

Moving on through the mass of council or possibly housing association flats, we come to the ex King's Arms.  Built like a very large brick shithouse, a magnificent painted Mann, Crossman and Paulin sign on a gable tells you who owned it, but sadly I can find out little about it from the usual sources.  

Lastly for symmetry (though out of order by one),  is the Ship, now converted to flats again and up for sale as such.  No doubt about its provenance as a pub though and a little bit of history here too, as this was where the blackshirts used to drink and where they tanked up before the battle of Cable St and presumably where they retired to lick their wounds.

We finished up in Limehouse, in Narrow St, the only original part of this area as far as we could see and as it was raining, nipped into the historic Grapes, owned apparently by Sir Ian McKellen and where Charles Dickens, as a child was made to sing standing on tables.  Built in 1720, it is thin, dark wooded and really rather quaint.  An American tourist's dream.  Alas, to finish on a low note, the Adnams Bitter displayed both warmth and flatness.

In London, some things never change.




We also popped into the Captain Kidd on the way home. By no means original, but a good and recommended Sam Smith's pub in Wapping High St.

Me and Black Sheep

I received a very glamorous bottle of beer from Black Sheep Brewery last week.  It is a fancy 10% abv effort, celebrating 20 years of the company's existence.  It was nice of them to include me, though I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to drink a 75 cl bottle of such strong beer.  At least it won't go off soon.

We do have a slight connection though, me and Black Sheep and one that does make this kind gift  apposite.  Around 21 years ago, I was present at a beer tasting by Black Sheep before they launched. It was held at the Beer Emporium in Oldham, a pub which alas no longer exists.  I can't remember what feedback I gave on the beers, but no doubt me and others did, so I have contributed, albeit in a small way.  It is at least a connection.

Good to see they have survived and prospered.

There is a good photo of the Beer Emporium here, but take the date of the photo with a pinch of salt. It was closed and knocked down long before 2009

Little Bits of History

I don't bother that much with history in this blog. You have to be a particularly pernickity person that likes facts and exactitude. I paint things with  an altogether much broader brush. But I do like to read and know about old breweries and the like, which is reflected to some extent by my small collection of breweriana.  I haven't collected anything much for years now really, but one or two interesting pieces adorn a bookcase in my sitting room, so I thought I'd share them.  These examples of advertising - showcards - in the parlance - are of course, history and both are quite old.

Murray's was one of many Edinburgh breweries that turned up its toes in the takeover frenzy of the 1960s.  According to the Scottish Breweing Archive, "The company was acquired in May 1960 by Northern Breweries of Great Britain Ltd, later United Breweries Ltd, York and London, England, which merged with Charrington and Co Ltd, London, in 1962 through a holding company, Charrington United Breweries Ltd. It continued to brew until May 1962 when brewing was transferred to Aitchison Jeffrey Ltd, Heriot Brewery, Roseburn Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland. Bottling and malting continued at the North British Brewery until 1964"

Devenish closed as recently as March 2004 having fallen into the hands of Whitbread and subsequently, after a lot of mucking about, changes of ownership and brewing stopping and starting, it went bust and that was that.

Nice little mementoes of the past.

I've just realised since blogger inconveniently changed, I haven't done labels as they have moved them to a new place. I'll restore them now, but I'm not going back over those that have missed out.

Odd Beers in Clubs

In our quiz league we visit a few clubs. These are by and large a bastion of smoothflow beer and this often brings a chance to spot some unusual beers. No, I don't mean interesting imports, but strange oddities of our brewing past. I mentioned the subject before here. There was a new one on me last week in Delph Band Club. This weird clan of zombie beer, brought back from the brewing dead for a half life, as bastardised as Frankenstein's monster, now includes, presumably from Carlsberg,  Walker's Bitter.

Walker's was a very large brewery indeed, based in the (now former) brewing town of Warrington. The original brewery in Dallam Lane was set up in opposition to the town's other large brewery, Greenall Whitley. Dallam Brewery, was the proud home of Peter Walker Ltd, founded by Andrew Walker, an exiled Scotsman, in1864.  Walker's merged with Joshua Tetley of Leeds in 1960, which was to be the start of a series of mergers that later morphed into Allied Breweries.  Dallam was a very substantial brewery - I know - I've been there, both to tour round it and to return empty containers. It's original buildings were superb and I recall the Walker's logo of a gilded,mounted knight and stained glass windows amid oak panelling. I wonder what happened to all that? It was closed as surplus to requirements by Carlsberg in 1996. In between times vast quantities of  Tetley Bitter was pumped out of Dallam and not bad it was either - most would say the equal of the Leeds brewed version.  Next to Higsons, it was the beer I drank most of in Liverpool when I lived there. They also produced the original Walker's Bitter for a small number of outlets and then for a time, a number of beers under Walker name, even setting aside a chunk of their pub estate - mostly at the heritage end - to be rebadged  as Walkers pubs.  I used to drink in one.

  Walker's Brown Peter brown ale was a common sight in that famous Liverpool mix of brown bitter - a half of bitter in a pint glass and a bottle of brown ale. Greenalls itself closed in 1991 and its beers were then brewed by its formal rival in Dallam. It was a big job as Greenalls had over 1500 pubs to supply. When Dallam closed, the Greenalls beers ended up in Tetleys in Leeds and JW Lees, then at Thomas Hardy Burtonwood. When Greenalls sold the lot,  the beers slowly disappeared altogether.

The Walker name died, or so we thought when Dallam closed. Ironically, Warrington's only surviving brewery, Burtonwood, now produces a myriad of contract beers, including, possibly - who knows? -  Walker Smooth Bitter.

What goes round, comes round.

Mann's Chestnut Mild was also on sale in the Delph Band Club

Lovely Free Beer

I rarely get sent free beer despite my extremely educated palate and my record of beer tasting going back donkey's years, as well as my leading blog status. I think I protest too much about not drinking at home. However the nice people that do the UK PR for Duvel-Moortgat kindly sent me a couple of bottles of Vedett and I've gone and drunked them.

I remember visiting Duvel many years ago and the hospitality was mighty. They brewed a pilsner then too I recall, so whether this is the same one or not, I have no idea. I do though remember, distinctly, the feeling of impending doom when they let us loose in the hospitality suite and our concerns amid a sea of Duvel, Duvel Green Label (it goes back years folks) and Maredsous, that by the time we got to De Koninck later that day we'd be pissed. I needn't have fretted. By the time we got to De Koninck we were indeed completely pissed, but happily, no longer worrying about it.

Back to Vedett then. Not the most complex beer ever, but I doubt if it is meant to be. Crisp, a bit of hop, very highly carbonated and would be great in the sunshine, or just as I did as a thirst quencher. It feels far cleaner than a lot of pils type beers and I like clean in a beer. You don't need to know any more really.

So there you are. Send me beer and you'll get history, provenance and usually an anecdote. Oh and possibly a nice mention too. Get sending then.

When Every Town had a Brewery

My interest in beer started a long time ago, but it wasn't until meeting Charles McMaster, the former curator of the Scottish Brewing Archive, that I found out my own home town had a brewery. Whisky of course, but a brewery? I didn't know. Charlie was able to give me photo copies of the labels, unfortunately in black and white, but I know where the originals are (in the University of Glasgow Archives) and I dare say colour copies could be obtained these days.

The brewery was Gillespie and it was taken over by Scottish Brewers (or maybe even McEwan's or Youngers pre merger)and inevitably closed, probably in the 1940's. My curiosity has been piqued though and I've written to the Scottish Brewing Archive (within Glasgow University) for more info.

The name was briefly resurrected in the 90's with a stout no less from S&N. God knows why.

Beer Styles 1994

Martyn Cornell was speaking about style the other day in his blog. Beer style that is. Now Martyn is a beer historian, which I am not, but I have been around a bit, so I thought I'd look up what we were talking about on the good old Usenet in 1994, which is as far back as the records go. Bloody Hell. It was beer styles.

Now most of us kind of regard the Americans as being a bit daft when it comes to style, but it wasn't always so. My mate Jon Binkley wrote a primer on beer styles this week in 1994. He listed the beer styles that were considered the main ones then. He also dealt head on with why styles matter. Importantly he gave a historical perspective. This is what he said.:

" Beer style definitions are not written in stone, and sometimes the exceptions are more interesting than the rules. However, there are situations where they are very useful, or even essential. For me, the importance of style classification has been to make sense of what was a very confusing world of obviously different beers. Serious beer culture in the United States was destroyed on 16 January, 1920, when the prohibition of alcohol became the law of the land. Although the law was repealed on 5 December in 1933, appreciation and production of diverse styles of beer is only now being rekindled in this country, and this is on a limited scale. I, like most Americans, had never seen or heard of, let alone tasted, anything other than the standard American light lager until I was well into my twenties. When my interest was first awakened, I was confronted by an incomprehensible array of labels and flavors. Well defined style classifications provided a comfortable base from which to explore the many complexities of the beer world. They continue to be the most convenient tools for intelligently discussing and comparing different beers.

Jon went on to list the main styles which were:

III: Styles of LAGER

III.A. BLONDE LAGER

III.A.1. BOHEMIAN PILSNER
III.A.2. GERMAN PILS
III.A.3. HELLES
III.A.4. EXPORT
III.A.5. NORTH EUROPEAN LAGER
III.A.6. NORTH AMERICAN LIGHT LAGER
III.A.7. CREAM ALE

III.B. AMBER LAGER

III.B.1. VIENNA LAGER
III.B.2. MAERZEN (Oktoberfest)

III.C. DARK LAGER

III.C.1. DUNKEL
III.C.2. BLACK LAGER

III.D. STRONG LAGER

III.D.1. BOCK
III.D.2. DOPPLEBOCK

III.E. SMOKED LAGER

III.F. CALIFORNIA COMMON BEER ("Steam Beer")

IV: Styles of ALE

IV.A. PALE/AMBER ALE

IV.A.1. BITTER
IV.A.2. ENGLISH PALE ALE
IV.A.3. INDIA PALE ALE
IV.A.4. SCOTTISH ALES
IV.A.5. IRISH ALE
IV.A.6. BELGIAN PALE ALES
IV.A.7. ALT BIER
IV.A.8. KOELSCH
IV.A.9. AMERICAN PALE ALE

IV.B. BROWN ALE

IV.B.1. MILD
IV.B.2. ENGLISH BROWN ALE
IV.B.3. FLEMISH BROWN ALE
IV.B.4. AMERICAN BROWN ALE

IV.C. BLACK ALE

IV.C.1. PORTER
IV.C.2. SWEET STOUT
IV.C.3. DRY STOUT

IV.D. STRONG ALE

IV.D.1. OLD ALE
IV.D.2. STRONG BELGIAN ALES
IV.D.3. IMPERIAL STOUT
IV.D.4. BARLEY WINE

IV.E. SPECIAL BELGIAN ALES

IV.E.1. TRAPPIST and ABBEY BEERS
IV.E.2. LAMBIC

IV.H. WHEAT BEERS

IV.H.1. BERLINER WEISSE
IV.H.2. BAVARIAN WEIZEN
IV.H.3. BELGIAN WIT BIER
IV.H.4. AMERICAN WHEAT ALE

It is interesting to note that so many of the "styles" now commonly in use such as double this or that, or even American IPA aren't listed. And that's only two notable examples. It is also interesting to Jon at least, that the development of written styles was, for him as an American, firmly rooted in the destruction of American brewing brought about by prohibition and the subsequent rise of micro brewing in the late 80's and early 90's. Out of little acorns, mighty oaks grow.

Beer has come a long way in a short time. Thus endeth my dip into history. For now.

The photo show Ancient Egyptians making a Double Imperial IPA.

Gwladys Street - For MicMac

This'll bring back memories Mike! Your two childhood sweethearts, side by side. In no particular order of course and I suppose they looked better when you were a lad.

More Higsons

I feel like treating you all a bit today, or maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic, so more Higsons. Anyone know the rest of the characters in this set of show cards? I'll give you a clue as Billy Butler used to say on Radio Merseyside. There were 14 in all.

There's no prize, but I might just post more photos.

Blast From the Past

In my modest collection of breweriana, I have a few items from my favourite brewery, Higsons of Liverpool. Or should I say, my favourite closed brewery!

Does anyone out there remember this? It is a lager font - well a photo of one anyway. The beer was short lived and indirectly caused the demise of the brewery. Maybe I'll tell you why sometime. Unless anyone knows of course.

Then you can tell the story.

Fuller's IPA - 1998

Way before blogging was possible, there was this thing called Usenet. It still exists. I used to contribute to it, including this rather lack lustre beer review. Look at the price of the bottle. You probably wouldn't pay much more now.

It was posted on May 27th 1998. I've been around I have:

Fullers IPA Bottled 500 ml - Bought Leeds UK £1.49 abv 4.8%
Best before 05/01/99

Golden brown / amber in colour with a thin loose head which rapidly falls away. Aroma is of flowery hops, possibly Fuggles, with crystal malt and caramel.

Beer starts with a deep bitter Goldings flourish. Body is quite light and malt is subdued throughout. Carbonation is just on the high side of medium through which the abiding impression is of hoppy bitterness. Finish is short and bitter leaving a pleasant hoppiness and some caramel.

Conclusion

Overall the beer is on the thin side and drank below it's strength. IMO the pasteurisation shows through too much. This beer would improve as a BCA. Nonetheless pleasant and drinkable but unremarkable.

The label claims "Fullers have faithfully recreated the traditional characteristics of this historical product"

God was I was crap at beer reviewing then! In this instance at least.

More Higgies

I often mention Higsons beer here. The beer was brewed at the Stanhope Street Brewery now (and formerly) occupied by Cains. The offices were in Dale Street however, next to the Ship and Mitre. The building, which is still in use, is clad in grey marble and still bears the Higsons name.

The photo was taken from the inside of the Ship and Mitre.

Another "Required" Tick

Tickers, when they have a beer in mind for their collection of ticks, say it is "required". I am not a ticker, but of course, like most beer people not averse to listing in my mind the odd beer I'd like to try. So yesterday, after being dragged round the local woods by E for the good of my health, a beer seemed a good idea. So, to Rochdale and the JDW Regal Moon for the beer festival. My required beer for this visit was Baron's Black Wattle Original Ale, Australian in origin, but brewed by the brewer in Banks' in Wolverhampton and there it was on the bar. It was delicious. A full malty body with touches of dark toffee, some fruitiness and an earthy character which I assume is the black wattle. It had a pleasing East Kent Goldings finish and was much more bitter than I'd anticipated. Great stuff which I was fortunate to savour in the peak of condition.

My good luck continued. I found the Everard's Equinox, pale and not as sweet as the JDW tasting notes would suggest. I wouldn't have brewed it with Goldings as the single hop variety myself, but it was decent enough. Way up the scale though was Bateman's Eastern Promise. The tasting notes have it spot on " a mix of spicy and citrus hop flavours blending with the lemon grass to impart an impressive taste experience, while its initial spicy aroma leads to a citrus finish." Couldn't say it better myself, so I won't. The Liberty hop finish really lifted this beer to new heights. Stunningly good stuff - they ought to make it permanent.

I finished less well. I had to try the Gouden Carolus having toured the brewery a few years ago. Despite only having a third, it was just too strong in alcohol (8%) with a dodgy wet dog finish. I left most of it. You can't win 'em all.

I'm still after a few more beers, particularly St Austell Proper Job, which was a beer I used in a tutored tasting at GBBF. It was fantastic in the bottle, so I'm looking forward to the cask version. So far so good with the JDW fest, Beer quality has been excellent, but my horizon looks cloudier. My next JDW visit will be in London where I fear a severe quality decline! Let's hope I'm proved wrong.

The Road to Wigan Beer

CAMRA business took me and my mate Graham to Wigan last night. We checked out two pubs, both Good Beer Guide entries and both convenient for Wallgate Station. First up was the Anvil, oddly enough a Hydes pub, though guest beers from Allgates and Ossett complemented the Hydes offerings. The Anvil is very much a community pub and was buzzing happily when we arrived. What brings me to tell you about this? Well it occurs to me that a tied house of the brewery selling others beers is, when you think of it, an oddity. Why pay a dog and bark yourself as it were? Sam's wouldn't countenance it, nor would Lees. Hydes don't as a matter of course. Most other biggish breweries don't do it either. While my delight at choice was uppermost last night, I just wonder really why any brewery should do this, particularly one like Hydes with a decent cask conditioned range. Nonetheless I enjoyed my Allgates Mild and the 5% Ossett Quicksilver (pale, good body, hoppy and refreshing) though the mild really wasn't a dark mild, but a 3.8% dark bitter which reminded me of Lorimer's (formerly Usher's) Dark Heavy, a beer that hasn't been brewed for over thirty years, but which I sold in the pub I worked in a long time ago! A bit of history for you!

On the way out, we went for a pee. I was a little taken aback at the machine in the gents which (among others things - click on image to scandalise yourself) sold blow up sheep for a fiver. A nice accompaniment to your pie I suppose.

Across the road is the GBG listed Berkley. At first glance it could be a Wetherspoons until you are brought up sharply by the £2.60 pints. We enjoyed suprisingly good Nimmo's XXXX brewed by Cameron's of Hartlepool and Adnam's Explorer while the staff pointedly ignored us and chatted together. You think JDW soulless? This place knocked it into a cocked hat. I can't imagine what it looks like on a Friday night, but then again, I doubt if I'd set foot in Wigan on Friday night. I've seen it on one of these video cop shows. Not pretty!

I know the headline isn't original, but it is new to this blog, so that'll do.

Bottled Brown Ale and Memory Lane

I was set to thinking by Southport Drinker, when in a response to Stonch, he mentioned that old classic drink, "brown bitter". When I played in various Darts Leagues in Liverpool, it was inevitably keg beer in the Social Club League in which I played for St Anthony's of Aigburth and mostly cask, as most beer was then, in the Merseyside Civil Service Darts League. Most of us, cask ale men in the main, when in social clubs, consequently drank brown bitter, which was indeed a very popular mix in Scousley. (I believe in the Midlands a brown bitter was unattractively called a "brown split". I don't think I'd fancy asking for one of those!) The bottled brown ales all had their differences in terms of body and sweetness, though all were inevitably on the sweet side of the brewing spectrum with the possible exception of Higson's Double Top. In those days you knew where you were with beer. Each pub or club sold the beer of one brewery, with many selling Mann's Brown Ale in addition.

Greenall's had "Bull's Eye Brown" a pretty good beer as I recall, Whitbread had "Forest Brown", Tetley and Walker's pubs had the excellent "Walker's Brown Peter" and Mann's, Bass I think just called their effort "Bass Brown Ale". To add to the variety available, there was on occasion in Tetley pubs, Ind Coope Brown Ale. Some deviants even added Jubilee Sweet Stout to their keg bitter! One advantage this drinking habit had was that the half pint of bitter was poured by eye and usually gave you a bit extra, which in these impoverished days, was a welcome bonus. You measured this simply by how much ale remained in the bottle after topping up your half pint while gleefully or dolefully looking at the measure others had got. Happy days. It was therefore good to read Stonch's review of Mann's, which, with a few notable exceptions in some regional breweries such as Harvey's and Holt's, is a survivor and in its own way, despite its peripatetic career, a genuine piece of brewing history.

Perhaps less well remembered, but worth recalling are other beer mixes. "Golden" was a lager/bitter mix and "fifty" was a mix of mild and Guinness. I used to drink this in the Park Hotel in Tuebrook for a bit. Mild and Bitter was I think the same as it is now - A pint of mixed. It survives still. I poured quite a few on Saturday when I was working at the pub. I say survives, it clings on here and there where draught mild is available, but is a splendid reminder of how, when breweries produced little by way of variety, the drinker found a way to individualise his beer, though of course there were other more sinister reasons, historically at least, why bottled beer was added to draught. That's for another time though.

Now with all the variety available, I miss the simple act of being able to make a bad beer taste better by the addition of a bottle of brown. I fact, I miss all these brown ales and all these breweries. Am I alone in thinking this? I hope not.

The Good Old Days?

Last night I attended a lecture on 'Chemists, Brewers & Beer-Doctors' by University of Manchester Historian of Science, James Sumner. He turned out to be a bright and personable professor who delivered his talk with enthusiasm and aplomb. More of this later.

First of all liquid refreshment was needed, so I met my companions for the evening in the Knott Bar. This is under a railway arch near Deansgate station and you can wonder at the Victorian, brick vaulted ceiling while hoping the train thundering above doesn't fall though it. There was a few beers to try. I was a little disappointed with my Skipton Brewery Copper Dragon Golden Pippin. It was slightly off the boil and probably getting a bit too far down the cask. Much better was Salamander Mud Puppy which had failed to impress me in Leeds and finally a rather good Marble Bitter on Bernie's recommendation. Sue tried the Ginger Marble which had her cooing happily.

Then a short stroll to the venue, the Briton's Protection, a marvellous, Victorian, multi roomed, tiled wonder. We all chose Jennings Cumberland which was very good indeed.

The talk was given upstairs by the rather young looking prof. He explained the close relationship both Victorian and pre-Victorian brewers had with chemists, how the thermometer changed brewing and went on to describe that many different substances were added to beer, some of them such as caramel, relatively benign, but most of them were at best noxious and at worst highly toxic. The reason for all this chicanery? As the prof said, "when in doubt, follow the money!" If they weren't added to save money, they were added to increase appeal and thus sales or to disguise watering down etc.

A number of substances were passed around, all of them legal, for us to sniff and add to either our beer or handy little glasses of water. Compounds that weren't handed round but which you might find in your 18th or 19th century pint included, arsenic, strychnine, sulphuric acid, various sulphates of iron, copper and many more. At best you might not notice them or would attribute your fearsome hangover to strength and excess. At worst, you'd wake up dead!

Most of the substances were added to bring beer back to how it should taste, its taste having been monkeyed about with in the first place to make more money. A couple of interesting points: one, it seems our drinking forebears liked a head on their beer and the ability to re-create a lasting creamy head using various salts and cream of tartar was demonstrated to us by the prof creating a lasting head on a watery, flat, caramellly beer sample. Two: the press and public opinion saw the end to most of these practices in the mid 1800's. This was illustrated by a particularly good cartoon showing all the contaminants as demons being poured into beer by the very fat brewers, while the twin angelic nymphs of malt and hops were forlornly at the back of the queue for the mash tun.

The last point I'll make on this one is that the brewers blamed the publicans for the adulteration, while the publicans blamed the brewers. In fact they both had a hand in it. Some just things don't change!

All in all a fascinating and different night out.