I will gladly pay the 5% to suit my tastes, but have no problem with folks wanting the glass rim full. Each to their own, and sometimes makes for good conversation,although some take it to the extreme wanting flat beer served straight from barrel, and as warm as tea nearly.
It was always about knowing where to go...football clubs and nearby pubs have rarely gone together with good beer. If you had gone in a Fullers, Youngs, or Charles Wells pub you would have had more than a fair chance of a well looked after high quality pint....albeit served with no head . We northerners traditionally look down on 'flat beer' but that's a case of drinking with the eyes, in actual fact the northern way is flatter in regards to the sparkle of carbonation as the natural Co2 is knocked out producing the creamy head. Traditional beer in the south was always produced in exactly the same way as trad beer in the north...just that we used sparklers ( a misnomer if ever I heard one ) to produce a head and they didn't bother. Good beer and poor quality beer has been and can be made anywhere....Barnsley was described in the 1976 Good Beer Guide as a ' Beer desert"....and it wasn't far wrong, John Smith's, after being taken over by Imperial Tobacco closed our own traditional Barnsley Brewery and only offered the processed product from Tadcaster...Whitbread had taken Tennants in Sheffield ( who had a couple of years before bought our own Clarksons ) and introduced only processed beer to our area...Stones were taken by Bass Charrington and the plan was to introduce processed Worthington 'E'....fortunately Stones survived for a few years due to opposition in Sheffield...Wards had a few pubs on the periphery as did Sam Smith's, Tetley's a few more. I'm going off the top here but my guess is than in 1968, 90% plus of Barnsley's pubs sold good quality traditonal beer...by 1976 about 2% . My old man loved his Barnsley Bitter in the Keel at Stairfoot...and the Clarksons (later) Tennants in the Pheasant in Ardsley but couldn't drink the new p**s on offer...we used to take it in turns to drive to Wakefield where we could still get traditional Tetley's, Sam Smith's, Cameron's and Stones.
I've always wondered what Clarkeson's bitter tasted like - I was just a bit too young to sample before it stopped. I well remember Barnsley Bitter - I used to really enjoy that. Just as a matter of interest can anybody remember what Clarkesons tasted like??
Great city Tallinn. And there are indeed some excellent craft breweries popping up there. The Baltic capitals are a bit behind St Petersburg in the craft revolution, but both Tallinn and Riga have some super breweries, and more appearing all the time.
Before my time I'm afraid....if they ever invent a time travel machine I'm going back to about 1955 to try and sample all the lost brews!!...Whitworth's of Wath ( closed 1958) had a particularly good reputation . Barnsley had a few other long lost breweries, there was one called the Britannia Brewery, just off Sheffield Road, if anyone remembers the old cinema on Britannia Street roughly where the Outpost is now, that was the brewery itself. There was another close to the Dillington dog track where the old people's bungalows are...I found records of it in the Sheffield Archives, set up by the owner of The Royal Hotel and a local vicar. Darton had one too, the buildings are still in use ( last time I looked) as a paint spraying shop just off the Mapplewell to Darton Road . 1841 was a bad year for drinkers though...article here says the town's last brewery has closed.
But pubs using those glasses only started using them because CAMRA started the campaign for 100% of your pint, even though head retention is part of the beer. Sam Smiths won't be using those glasses. Not with the old boy at the top as ruthless as he is.
That'll be The Wellington. Hornimans at Hays is the one at the Galleria. If you're a Nicholson's/Real Ale fan then The Clachan behind Liberty's and Ye Olde Watling by St Paul's are must visits. Beer is always bang on there.
Venturing round several, just in pudul in telkeskivi, an Estonian saison with hints of passion fruit and slightly sour, fantastic little break so far Off to Riga next month, if it's half as good as Tallinn I'll be very pleased Been surprised at the calibre of food too, can't beat a bit of elk!
Great city Tallinn. And there are indeed some excellent craft breweries popping up there. The Baltic capitals are a bit behind St Petersburg in the craft revolution, but both Tallinn and Riga have some super breweries, and more appearing all the time. In Riga, make sure you go to Folkklubs ala Pagreb. It's a cellar bar with live folk music, serving Latvian food and with about 20 taps serving local ales. It's incredibly good value, but make sure you don't over order, the portions are gargantuan! My starter was mushy peas with bacon, a local speciality. It was served in a hollowed out loaf of black bread! You can imagine how big it was. Needless to say I found the main a bit of a struggle (but soldiered through!) https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/2178722?m=19905
Pubs were using oversize glasses long before CAMRA started though , they came in with the rush to electric pumps in the 1960's .
That's different though. Not comparing apples with apples there mate. You needed the oversized glasses to offset and risk of not giving a full pint even with a 5% ahead (and the fact you couldn't top up)
The 5% idea was nothing to do with it...there were simply no rules, guidelines or legislation at that time...more of a presentational issue....colder...bigger head made good advertising...dispense meters when checked by Weights and Measures were checked with no sparkler fitted... as long as they delivered 20ozs they were considered fine....tighten a sparkler ( as they were adjustable in those days) and on some types you could get less.
Thanks for the info SB. The bit about the Dillington brewery is interseting. My maternal grandma lived on Howard Street just opposite the Dillington and I remember race nights well but I cant recall the brewery.
Thanks for that ST....it's a long time since I did the research but I remember the vicar was the Rev. Newman of Worsbrough....I'll try and find the info, I can't remember the street name off hand but I'll see what I can come up with. The bungalows looked like a mid 1950's style, so I assume the building came down then. In those days Breweries had to submit very detailed plans to HM Customs...I contacted HMRC and they put me in touch with their archive section in Manchester who said I could view the plans, but that unfortunately they were now down at Kew....I trekked down to London and despite the fact I was told on the phone they would be available , it was a wasted journey, the stuff had never been unpacked !!