Gales HSB - another blast from the past

Back in April I wrote a post about Walter Hicks Special Draught – HSD, a beer brewed by Cornish brewers, St Austell. It’s a beer that many drinkers thought had disappeared, and without beating about the bush, it’s a real, old fashioned strong best bitter, of the type we don’t see much of today. The article was sparked by the appearance of HSD in a well-known Tonbridge pub – the Nelson Arms, and it is the Nelson again where another strong, best bitter, complete with a proper traditional taste and feel, has featured on a couple occasions recently.

The beer I’m talking about has a similar three letter acronym to HSD and is called HSB. This strong, English bitter, is russet in colour and is packed full of rich, soft-fruit flavours, which are definitely not citrus in nature! Its full name is Horndean Special Bitter, Horndean being a small village 8 miles north of Portsmouth, on the main A3 road from London. 

Until 2006, Horndean was the home of George Gale & Co Ltd, a brewery with a distinctive range of traditional, bitter ales. It was founded in 1847 but found itself on the market when a member of the owning family decided to cash in his share of the business. Gales was bought by well-known, London brewers, Fuller, Smith & Turner in 2005, for £92 million, and closed the following year, after which production transferred was to Chiswick.

In the years leading up to the takeover, Gale’s beers – primarily HSB, were often seen in the free trade, and were stocked locally, until quite recently, at the Dovecote Inn at Capel, near Paddock Wood. During the early years of my association with West Kent CAMRA, HSB sometimes featured as a guest ale, at the Little Brown Jug at Chiddingstone Causeway, but apart from those two outlets, I haven’t come across the beer in ages. Several days ago I did, and enjoyed my first pint in years of HSB at the Nelson. It was every bit as good as I remember it. Then, the following day I noticed it on sale again, this time at the famous Lewes Arms, a wonderful unspoilt pub at the top of the Sussex county town, in the shadow of Lewes’s imposing castle. Some might call it serendipity, whilst others will just dismiss it as coincidence, but it’s worth noting the care that new owners, Fuller's put into this beer, as HSB is still brewed with the same Gales yeast that gave it its famous flavour.

I first enjoyed Gale’s beers on a visit to a small village in Surrey. This would have been in the mid-1970’s, whilst I was a student, at Salford University. A friend of mine had access to a small cottage, in the equally tiny village of Eashing, near Godalming. The property belonged to his mother, and her partner, and having borrowed the keys (with permission), my friend Nick and I, along with our respective girlfriends, headed down into deepest Surrey, to enjoy a long and relaxing weekend in the Surrey countryside. The four of us met at Waterloo station, and boarded a train to Godalming, but not before enjoying a few pints of Brakspear’s, at the Hole in the Wall opposite.

The latter was a well-known free house, occupied a railway arch opposite the station, and was renowned for offering a good selection of cask ales. This was the first opportunity any of us had to sample a few pints of Henley’s finest, so we made the most of it, before catching our train. Without a car at our disposal, we walked from Godalming station to Eashing, and it was getting dark by the time we reached Nick’s mother’s cottage. There was an Ind Coope pub in Eashing, serving top-pressure Ind Coope Special Draught, but little else of interest to budding beer enthusiasts, like ourselves. Fortunately, our host had done his homework and knew, from previous visits, there was a Gales pub in Milford, the next village to the south, situated just off the busy A3 trunk road.

There were a couple of bikes at the cottage, so the following day Nick and I cycled to the pub, leaving the girls to their own devices. Whilst there, we enjoyed Gale’s Light Mild, Bitter plus of course, HSB. I’ve been trying to identify the pub itself, as none are listed on What Pub under Milford, but a look at a website for closed pubs indicates that the village had two pubs, both named after lions, one red and the other white. Looking at the photos, I’ve a feeling it was the Red Lion, situated on the Portsmouth Road, that we visited. The pub closed in 2009 and is now used as a Tesco Express. The White Lion fared slightly better, by managing to hang on until 2015.

Going back to the takeover of Gales, for a moment, the brewery at Horndean, had suffered from years of under-investment, and whilst Fuller’s had intended on keeping it open, the costs of the work required to bring it up to modern standards, would have made this uneconomical. This is the reason why the plant closed when it did. As I mentioned earlier, Fuller’s  managed to save Gale’s unique strain of yeast, and as well as HSB, they produce another former Gale’s beer, this being the unique Prize Old Ale, an extremely strong, old ale, that is matured in oak casks, prior to bottling. The bottles were originally sealed with a cork, but I understand more conventional crown caps are now used instead.

Unlike its Cornish counterpart HSD, this other survivor from the past, is much more widely available, and HSB can often be found on the bar, in Fuller’s tied houses. The reason I haven’t seen it, is there are very few pubs owned by that brewery, in this part of Kent, and the only one I can think of is the George & Dragon in Westerham, an imposing old inn, overlooking the green in the centre of the town. The brewery have plenty of pubs in London though, so the capital might be your best bet, it you are after that elusive taste from a largely bygone era.