In search of good beer

Regular blogger The Pub Curmudgeon aka Mudge,  posted an excellent piece about the joys of drinking in the 1970's; a time when it was possible to tell whereabouts one was in the country, by the local beer on offer.

He describes "a patchwork of independent breweries the length and breadth of the country, ranging from regional giants such as Vaux and Wolverhampton & Dudley to tiny firms like Bathams and Burts. Each had its own territory, its own distinctive beers and very often its own style of pub. It was a lesson in geography, with strongholds, heartlands and outposts."

Now that is a situation I not only remember very well, but also empathise with strongly, and I stated as much by a comment on that particular post. Mudge certainly managed to capture the sheer joy of travelling around the country, and the sense of anticipation which went with visiting certain towns, or areas, knowing that the beers you were going to drink weren’t available anywhere else. This made travelling a fulfilling and pleasant experience, but also made the destination much more rewarding and enjoyable.

Basically providing you knew your beers, you knew where you were in the country. As a beer lover, you also knew which parts of the kingdom would offer the best choice, or the most distinctive beers, and which areas to avoid.

For example the Greater Manchester conurbation could boast one of the best selections of beer anywhere in the country, as there were around half a dozen independent brewers operating in the region, alongside a couple of national breweries which also turned out a decent drop of beer.

Contrast this with the county of Norfolk, where a series of takeovers and mergers had left most of the county's pubs in the grip of one large brewer; the infamous Watney Mann. Watney's, of course, had abandoned cask beer altogether and, as early beer campaigner Richard Boston so eloquently put it, "had placed all their kegs in one basket." If you didn't like cold, weak, fizzy and characterless beer and lived in Norfolk, you were out of luck.

Obviously things have changed over the past half century, and good beer is not only far more widely available, but comes in a myriad of different types, styles and strengths. Beer Agencies - companies that distributed a variety of different beers, from all over the country, coupled with the parallel rise of the “beer exhibition”  pubs, which served these beers meant that in many cases punters could drink beers from the length and breadth of the British Isles, just by working their way along the bar!

Whilst many drinkers welcomed this vastly increased choice, for drinkers like myself it took much of the fun and excitement out of travelling around the country. Gone were the joys of a visit to Dorset, where the delights of Eldridge Pope, Hall & Woodhouse and Palmers awaited the thirsty drinker, or pitching up in rural Lincolnshire to enjoy a few pints of Bateman's.

A weekend in Oxford meant being able to sup the much missed Morrells beers, whilst a little further back along the Thames Valley, saw one in Henley-on-Thames, where the incomparable Brakspears Ales were available, in some of the most unspoilt and picturesque pubs imaginable.

One year, the previous Mrs Bailey and I took a holiday in the Cotswolds, and based ourselves near to Stow-in-the- Wold, with the purpose of visiting and drinking in as many Donnington pubs as possible.

Even more memorable were the forays we made, by bicycle, from south London, into Surrey where there was a handful of pubs belonging to legendary Horsham brewers, King & Barnes. Their Horsham PA, pale in colour, low in strength, but packed full of flavour and crowned with a flowery hoppiness, made the effort of all that pedal-pushing worthwhile.

Further afield, a trip into the area of East Sussex, centred on Lewes, meant the chance of enjoying the delectable and, in my view the still unbeatable, Harvey's Prize Sussex Ales. Another area of interest to the beer drinker was Suffolk, where beers from Adnam's, Greene King and Tolly Cobbold were widely available.

Whilst Tolly Cobbold have gone to that great brewery graveyard in the sky, Adnam's and Greene King beers are now nationally available, and the same has happened to other well-regarded brewers, such as Timothy Taylor's and Shepherd Neame, to name just a couple.

At least these companies are still independent and still brewing, in the main, good beer, unlike Boddingtons, the iconic beer from Manchester, which was bought up by a large brewer (Whitbread), turned into a national brand, dumbded down and bastardised, before suffering the ultimate indignity of seeing its brewery and original home closed and razed to the ground.

Slowly, but surely, the uniqueness that characterised the British beer scene has been eroded, and whilst there has been an unprecedented rise in the numbers of new brewers entering the market, producing some outstanding beers (as well as rather too many mediocre ones),  the decline in the numbers of independent family brewers, coupled with the rise of voracious pub owning companies has made pub-going a real lottery for many drinkers.

Whilst the potential choice of beers available to today's drinker would seem unimaginable to one from 40 years ago, much of this choice is random in its distribution and often haphazard in nature. Like Pub Curmudgeon, I look back to the years of mid 1970’s, with a real fondness. Today too much choice really does mean less, and I feel we have definitely lost something which is both unique and rather precious.