I first tasted a pint of Barnsley bitter oakwell ales, it was and still is the finest bitter I have had the pleasure to drink. What happened to the brewery and can I still buy it? Did anyone ever work there on the forum.
Stancill Brewery in Sheffield was founded by two Barnsley lads and they brew a Barnsley Bitter which is claimed to use the original yeast strains and the original recipe. I've supped Acorn's Barnsley bitter, brewed in Wombwell but not Stancill's Barnsley Bitter and, to be honest, it's that long since I supped the original, I've forgotten what it tasted like. I think the Keel Inn adjacent to Asda, had some of the last barrels brewed at Oakwell after John Smith/Courage closed down brewing at Oakwell. By the time they'd closed down the operation there in 1976 it was just a distribution centre for John Smith's as brewing had stopped a few years before. In 1997 brewing started again on the site operated by RBNB but they packed in, in 2013. It was Stancill who acquired their equipment.
Barnsley Brewery was taken over by John Smiths in 1961 and was largely left to carry on as before. Unfortunately John Smiths was later taken over by Courage of London who then were bought by Imperial Tobacco ( if I remember rightly)....Courage/IT were little more than asset strippers who wanted the pubs but didn't want the brewery or its beer. In 1973 they announced its closure and despite a public campaign and march it shut forever, the traditional beer they were famous for had gone and all the pubs were supplied with keg John Smiths. In the early 1980's a brewery started up in Thurlstone and revived the name, nice beer but didn't taste like Barnsley Bitter...they only lasted a few years and closed. In the 1990's a chap called Hunter founded Elsecar Brewery and again revived the name , Elsecar lasted a few years and closed, the head brewer then founded Acorn Brewery in Wombwell and started using the BB name again, shortly after a consortium started brewing again in the old brewery on a small scale also selling a beer called Barnsley Bitter which led to a bit of acrimony and a Court case....the later pretender shut their doors leaving Acorn with the name to this day....later Stancill Brewery started using the name for one of their beers....brewed in Rotherham last time I looked. All the above were pleasant beers but tasted nothing like the original Oakwell brew. Acorn did get the Barnsley yeast strain from the National yeast bank, but I don't think anyone has followed the original recipe...it's possible no-one actually knows it from start to finish.
Am I right in thinking a couple of lads acquired the Victoria in Darfield sometime in the late 80s, renamed it the Hewer and Brewer and brewed another Barnsley Bitter?
first taste was in 1972 and remember a very nutty type of flavour with little of the sweeter back taste of later beers. At the time I preferred Trophy but the club sold Sam Smith's which is very much an acquired taste. I had a pint of Wards and started drinking lager..nuff sed.
Yes, that's the Thurlstone one...Dave Winstanley ran the pub and his business partner ran the brewery in Thurlstone, but they fell out and shut the brewery, I think Dave ran the pub for a while after.
Well I was too young to drink the Original Barnsley Bitter, but I have been informed by those who did ,whoever tried to brew it recently couldn't repeat the old recipe. Is it something to with the water that was used next to the football ground . Oakwell.
Been told Yorkshire bitter is closest thing taste wise to Barnsley bitter. My Dad started brewing his own but it didn't thicken up properly so we used it in gravy and stews.
To be fair, it is all down to personal taste, but I can understand you finding Wards and Sam's acquired tastes, they were old fashioned full malt and hop brews...the Trophy you were used to was a low quality weak beer, in 1972 Brewers didn't have to tell you anything about the beer...there was a big embarrassing expose on how the big brewers had cut the strength of our beers and Whitbread were amongst the worst offenders...it's likely the Trophy you were used to drinking was around 3.2% abv...possibly less. Watneys for instance were knocking beers out as best bitters at 2.9% abv.
Water is definitely a factor, but even the largest of Brewers couldn't exactly replicate a beer in another brewery. At one time I knew the Head Brewer for Tetleys in Leeds....they took over Walkers brewery in Warrington and decided to brew Tetleys for the west side of the country there...they used all the same ingredients and yeast but it was not the same... so they spent £1.5m tankering water across the Pennines, a fortune in the early 70's, but even that didn't do the trick so they decided Lancashire Tetley's would just have to taste different from Yorkshire Tetley's.
