I enjoyed an excellent
“Proper Day Out” in
Burton,
on
Friday, in the company of some fine fellows – most of whom either
write blogs, or contribute to various online, beer-related discussion groups. In
addition, all have many years experience of drinking in pubs and bars up and
down this fair land of ours.
I shall be writing more about the pubs we visited, and the beers we enjoyed,
in a later post, as for now I want to put down a few thoughts, and some
personal reflections concerning
Burton-Upon-Trent after what was my first
proper visit to the town.
I say
“proper visit” as previous trips to
Burton
were either work-related or single purpose events for brewery or museum visits.
Friday
was different, as it afforded my first opportunity to explore the town and get
to know a few of its best pubs.
The first thing that struck me, as I exited the station and began my walk
into the town centre, was the extent to which brewing dominates the town, from
both an historic point of view as well as an up to date one. Across from the
station, and on both sides of the rail tracks, are buildings with obvious past
connections to brewing, whilst just off the town centre is the very modern and
contemporary face of brewing exemplified by the massive
Burton Brewery itself.
This sprawling complex of brewery buildings, silos and tall forests of
huge conical fermentation vessels and conditioning tanks brings into sharp focus
just how important the brewing of beer is to the local economy. In addition, whilst
such an obvious assembly of industrial plant and equipment might seem
incongruous in another town, in Burton
this all seems perfectly in keeping with what the place is all about.
The last time I’d walked past the entrance to that brewery, it had belonged
to
Bass who were then Britain’s
largest brewing company. They had recently signed a deal to acquire the
neighbouring
Allied Breweries site and associated plant, which was formerly the
premises of
Messrs Ind Coope & Allsop.
Today, the whole complex is owned and operated by multi-national
conglomerate,
Molson Coors. I mention this because having worked for
Bass
during the late
1970’s, I now have a small pension maturing with
Molson Coors.
I won’t go into the convoluted deals which transferred ownership of the site,
and some of the
Bass brands to
Molson Coors, but I have to say the whole
complex still looks pretty impressive.
Later in the day, whilst walking past the rear of the site, we were assailed
by the unmistakable smell of mashing; the abiding sweetish odour resulting
from the extraction of fermentable sugars from malted barley, that is so
characteristic of any brewing town.
Whilst much of this vast site is dominated by modern and functional-looking
units, it is encouraging to see a significant number of older,
Victorian
buildings still standing and being used for a variety of different purposes. The
best known example is the
National Brewery Centre & Museum,
which is housed in a former joinery workshop operated by
Bass. Other
former brewery buildings have been converted
into apartments or even offices.
We stopped off at the
Brewery Tap, attached to the
National Brewery Centre,
for a spot of lunch. A rather tasty and well-presented
fish-finger sandwich was
my lunchtime choice; satisfying and without being too filling. We also tried a
couple of beers brewed at the
NBC’s Heritage Brewery which, as its name
suggests, was set up to replicate old
Bass and other former group company
recipes.
My pint of
Charrington IPA seemed a pretty good replica of the beer once
brewed at the old
Charrington Brewery in
London’s
Mile End Road. It was
certainly far hoppier than the beer turned out at the
Mitchell & Butler’s
Cape Hill plant in
Birmingham,
which was where brewing was transferred to when
Mile End closed. I also tried a
swift half of
Charrington Oatmeal Stout, which I found a little on the thin
side.
Before leaving, I purchased a bottle of
“Czar’s P2 Imperial Stout,” a
recreation of a beer once brewed for export to
Czarist Russia. At
8.0%, and
bottle-conditioned as well, it should last quite a while, so no need for me to
open it any time soon.
The
Bridge Inn was our next port of call, and was a pub I had been in a
couple of times before. Checking back through some old reports, my first visit
was in
1987 and the second in
1998. The purpose of that last trip had been to
visit the
Bass Museum,and must have been shortly before the takeovers and sell-offs that led to
Bass exiting brewing, and the transfer of their
Burton Brewery to
Molson Coors.
I am pleased to report that little has changed at the
Bridge Inn, apart from
the opening up of a second room behind the bar. The chatty barmaid seemed quite
keen to point this out, so I took a quick peep on the way to the Gents. The
Bridge
Inn is home to the
Burton Bridge Brewery, which is housed in a group of
buildings at the rear of the pub.
As expected there were several
Burton
Bridge beers on tap, including the
company’s version of the classic
Draught Burton Ale. The latter was originally
brewed in
Burton by I
nd Coope, and
when it first appeared, during the
late 1970’s, it marked a turning point in
what
CAMRA had described as the
“Real Ale Revolution.” It was certainly the
moment in time when the large brewing conglomerates began to take
“Real Ale”
seriously.
A couple of us plumped for this legendary beer, now resurrected and returned
to being brewed in Burton once again, but unfortunately that particular cask
was not at its best – still perfectly drinkable, but not quite the beer either
of us were anticipating.
As its name suggests, the
Bridge Inn is situated at the foot of the lengthy,
and rather impressive bridge over the
River Trent, so with our next pub
situated on the quite rural looking opposite bank, we crossed the river and
headed out of town. The
Trent
divides into a couple of parallel channels, one with a semi-circular
weir, but there is ample room to accommodate any flood waters. It
all looked rather picturesque, particularly in the early
Spring sunshine, and I
found it quite uplifting after the gloomy wet and windy weather we’ve had in
Kent,
these past few weeks.
I’m tempted to break with the narrative at this point, but will just
mention the
Elms Inn, which was where we were heading for. I didn’t manage to
get a decent camera angle on the
Elms, as it looks out over a busy road which
was swollen by traffic from the
“school run,” making it
very difficult for us to
cross. When a number of cars did eventually stop, to let a woman and her
dog cross, we rushed across as well, missing out on the perfect photo
opportunity.
This was shame as the
Elms has an attractive brick frontage, and a painted
sign advertising
“Best Bass.” A number of inter-linked rooms, including a corridor
with a serving hatch, added to its attraction, and the pub certainly seemed
very busy for a
Friday afternoon. This, and its semi- rural setting overlooking
the
Trent, some distance below the
road, might explain its popularity.
The
Bass provoked mixed feelings, with the advanced party, who had arrived some
time ahead of us, finding it disappointing, whilst the group of four I was with,
agreed it was in fine form. We surmised that a fresh cask had been pressed into
service, shortly before our arrival.
Well, that’s it for now folks; more to follow next time.
Today we are fighting a completely different war against a silent and unseen enemy, so the decision taken by HM Government, brings us into line with most other countries around the world. Needs must, and given the scientific evidence, it is obviously the right and sensible thing to do in order to stop
the spread of this insidious virus, despite what JDW boss, Tim
Martin might say.
In many ways today’s situation is history repeating itself,
as it is just over 100 years since the so-called Spanish flu pandemic of
1918-20, which killed an estimated 50 million people world-wide. Towards the end of the Great War, this particularly virulent strain of flu
spread like wildfire through the overcrowded army camps and hospitals of the Western
Front, ravaging much of Europe, before spreading to
the rest of the world. 
So yes, governments and health agencies around the world are
doing the right thing by attempting to slow down the spread of Covid-19; in
effect buying time until an effective vaccine can be developed, as well as
easing the burden on over-stretched health resources and hospital beds.
