Ye it was a session beer alright for a full night out without needing an A&E appointment the next day. Moved on to bigger and better later in life but sadly so did mi waistline..
Did the Vic in Hemsworth sell a beer called Victoria.?I went in years ago and got a pint of their beer.After a few sips I realized it was absolutely foul so I bought a bottle of Guinesss to liven it up but in fact made it worse.The rest of the drink ended up watering (literally) the plants.
It might have been Darleys then I'm going back to the early 80,s,all I remember is it was awful bad enough to turn Guiness sour.
Yeah it was well known locally for being poor tackle. I just looked Darleys up and didn’t know they were from Thorne, and were bought out by Vaux in 86, which is probably when the pub had a huge makeover and became a ‘fun pub’ One beer I could never get on with around that time was Boddingtons. Kinsley Hotel was reputed to be the only place locally you could get it, and my dad loved it. Landlord was always trying to get me into it, but I couldn’t get on with it at such a young age. It stank. I did drink it in Manchester some years later j though, and found it really nice.
Again..all down to taste and what you get used to. It stank as you put it because each barrel had a handful of hop flowers added to it for extra hop aroma....quality brewers did that, but the national brewers stuff...Whitbread, Johns, Bass Charrington etc didnt bother, so their beers didn't have the hop aroma...customers got used to bland beers and lost the taste or smell of good beer as brewed for centuries. We regularly visited the Kinsley Hotel just for the pleasure of tasting the Boddington's...we felt lucky as it was the only pub in Yorkshire that sold it...Boddies was as legendary in Lancashire as Barnsley Bitter was in South Yorkshire. It was unfortunately taken over by Whitbread and they tried to market it as a 'national' beer, advertised on telly and sold in cans as smooth. Unfortunately as with everything Whitbread touched they cocked it up....the Boddies of the 90's wasn't a patch on that of the 1970's when it was still family owned.
Yeah it was just me being young and not really appreciating the taste. I’m going back 40 years or so.
1973 ehh, what a weird title for a song lol. And Jan Tomasewski the Polish 'clown' keeper (as Cloughie called him), stopped us qualifying for the World cup at Wembley!.
Doom Bar (originally brewed in Padstow) is now brewed by Coors in Burton. I can't say there's any difference - mind you I never had the draught beer, only bottled. Bass is now brewed by some of the old Bass lads in Marstons brewery (the old enemy) its just like it always was and a million times better than Pedigree which is now a shadow of what it used to be (arguably the best beer in England 30 years ago). Incidentally, neither of them now use the "Burton Union" continuous fermentation system any more and are both produced in batches like all other beers.
You'll probably be disappointed to hear but Marstons have now exited brewing completely and sold out to Carlsberg. Some of the Burton Union kit has been bought by Thornbridge...which will be interesting I think...hopefully give a bit of tradition a new lease of life. I can't comment much on Doombar, only tried it the once and wasn't too impressed tbh. ..but it's highly possible that Coors produced Doombar was on the market at the same time as the original, and blended in so people don't pick up the difference so much. But water is less significant nowadays as most breweries only use town water for brewing which can be easily treated, back in the day breweries were built on their own well..ie Oakwell which they used straight from under the brewery and was a significant factor, one example of that is Sam Smith's who use their own well...the salts and mineral balance of which is responsible for the unusual bowel movements of those who don't drink it regularly....John's and Bass in Tadcaster use town water and don't exhibit that end result. The other thing that's changed is that most of the best traditional brewers in the past fermented in open squares...the yeast gets used to that environment and produces flavours and aromas unique to it, it's virtually impossible to match the flavour of open square beer on another site, nowadays most large breweries use closed conical fermenters and often a continuous fermentation process which doesn't expose the yeast to the local atmosphere...to put it into rough wine terms it's similar to the effect of terroir on the grapes...same grape but different yard and it will taste differently.
What surprises me is how knowledgeable some people are and me a bit of a dope considering the talent out there.
Sainsbury’s India Pale is made by Marstons, very nice drop, and I also like Badger Golden Champion which is very similar. Have you tried Tongham T.E.A from Hogsback Brewery mate? I’ve only had it bottled, but would imagine it’s amazing on draft.
I think it’s same as owt else mate - if you’re interested in something, it sticks with you, and in my case it’s an age thing as well. I didn’t appreciate beer when I was younger, just getting drunk with my mates, then someone introduced me to Taylor’s Landlord and I started going down the rabbit hole in my early 30s. I honestly can’t drink much these days, and I rarely go in pubs, but I do enjoy trying different beers, mostly from smaller brewers, as already mentioned, that’s where the flavour and individuality is more commonly found imho
Still one of my all-time great Reds players. Opposition defenders were reluctant to pass back to their goalie just in case, as he often did, Mick pounced on to the pass and scored!
