Ask Not for Whom the Bell Tolls

There is quite a lot of unseen business in campaigning for real ale.  I know many view the organisation as  merely a glorified drinking club, which, of course, to an extent it is, but there is much valuable work done behind the scenes in the vital area of information gathering.

It is a priority of our Branch to update all the information for the large number of pubs we have in our area. That will mean that the drinking public that use WhatPub - CAMRA's national database of pubs  - will have the most up-to-date information possible. While we try to keep everything as recent as we can, we do tend, naturally, to concentrate on the real ale pubs and clubs in our area. As a matter of interest, we look after approximately 350 pubs and clubs selling real ale across the boroughs of Rochdale, Oldham and Bury, with funnily enough the three areas all have a third or so each. Despite our 2100 members, as you can imagine the task of updating, falls to a few dedicated souls.

Thus, it was I found myself checking up on a long-standing real pub that had been reported as reverting to keg only.  This is a pub that was first a beerhouse in 1860 and only became a fully fledged public house in May 1960.  I rather think that in all the time it has sold beer, it has been sold in either bottled form, or more likely,  as cask conditioned real ale.  Alas, no more.  A very amiable chat with the landlady revealed that she switched to keg on re-opening after Covid-19.  I expressed surprise and with a pained expression she explained, that put simply, over the years and exacerbated by Covid, most of the bitter drinkers had died off and not been replaced. This had resulted in her having to throw away rather a lot of beer. Over time, with no improvement, she realised that she simply couldn't afford this, hence the move to the smooth version.

Looking around me in this neat little street corner local, there were, perhaps, a half dozen people around the bar at 5.30 p.m.  All were drinking pints of lager.  I sympathised with her predicament, and she assured me it was a very reluctant step and maybe one day, things will change.  I replied that I hoped so and left. She was a smashing woman.

There used to be a pub like this on almost every corner, but things have changed so much, that this is no longer the case.  Bigger, brighter establishments have more chance of survival these days, and the corner street or mid-terrace local, where everyone once went, is struggling.  Are bitter drinkers getting older? Well, of course, everyone is, but are these pubs that many describe as boring old men's places going to survive in any great numbers? The older customers that they rely on won't be around forever, in this kind of pub, they just aren't being replaced. Cask beer relies on volume and turnover. If that isn't there, then its presence will always be in jeopardy.

When you see so many closed little corner street pubs that used to be thriving with locals, I for one, am glad that I lived through an era that, while perhaps not the highest point of pub going, was at least when they were, more or less, all seemingly doing well. These buzzy little boozers, alive with banter and familiarity, gave me a lot of pleasure and thinking on, they still do, and I'd miss them if they all went in favour of some of the souless places they call "pubs" today.

So will they survive? It is a difficult question to answer, but looking at the evidence objectively, though some undoubtedly will, for many,  it doesn't feel that way at all.

I'm not naming the pub. That would be unfair. A landlady that made a very good impression on me is doing her best for her business.  That's exactly what she should be doing.

Yes, I do feel sentimental when I think back and when you look at the problem I outline and the people who still drink in them, you can't be optimistic.  The title of this piece tells you that I think not only will many of these pubs be gone all too soon, but those that survey and write about them won't be, relatively speaking, that far behind. 

The photo is from a picture we have in our kitchen.  It seemed appropriate.

Odd Beers in Clubs

In our quiz league we visit a few clubs. These are by and large a bastion of smoothflow beer and this often brings a chance to spot some unusual beers. No, I don't mean interesting imports, but strange oddities of our brewing past. I mentioned the subject before here. There was a new one on me last week in Delph Band Club. This weird clan of zombie beer, brought back from the brewing dead for a half life, as bastardised as Frankenstein's monster, now includes, presumably from Carlsberg,  Walker's Bitter.

Walker's was a very large brewery indeed, based in the (now former) brewing town of Warrington. The original brewery in Dallam Lane was set up in opposition to the town's other large brewery, Greenall Whitley. Dallam Brewery, was the proud home of Peter Walker Ltd, founded by Andrew Walker, an exiled Scotsman, in1864.  Walker's merged with Joshua Tetley of Leeds in 1960, which was to be the start of a series of mergers that later morphed into Allied Breweries.  Dallam was a very substantial brewery - I know - I've been there, both to tour round it and to return empty containers. It's original buildings were superb and I recall the Walker's logo of a gilded,mounted knight and stained glass windows amid oak panelling. I wonder what happened to all that? It was closed as surplus to requirements by Carlsberg in 1996. In between times vast quantities of  Tetley Bitter was pumped out of Dallam and not bad it was either - most would say the equal of the Leeds brewed version.  Next to Higsons, it was the beer I drank most of in Liverpool when I lived there. They also produced the original Walker's Bitter for a small number of outlets and then for a time, a number of beers under Walker name, even setting aside a chunk of their pub estate - mostly at the heritage end - to be rebadged  as Walkers pubs.  I used to drink in one.

  Walker's Brown Peter brown ale was a common sight in that famous Liverpool mix of brown bitter - a half of bitter in a pint glass and a bottle of brown ale. Greenalls itself closed in 1991 and its beers were then brewed by its formal rival in Dallam. It was a big job as Greenalls had over 1500 pubs to supply. When Dallam closed, the Greenalls beers ended up in Tetleys in Leeds and JW Lees, then at Thomas Hardy Burtonwood. When Greenalls sold the lot,  the beers slowly disappeared altogether.

The Walker name died, or so we thought when Dallam closed. Ironically, Warrington's only surviving brewery, Burtonwood, now produces a myriad of contract beers, including, possibly - who knows? -  Walker Smooth Bitter.

What goes round, comes round.

Mann's Chestnut Mild was also on sale in the Delph Band Club

Smooth Operator

Didn't I read somewhere recently that smooth beer is getting some kind of makeover? Was it the relaunching of that foul rubbish Caffreys? I think it was. I dislike smooth bitters, as their blandness seems somehow emphasised and not in a good way, by nitogen.  But you know what? I do sort of like - or rather, can just about live with - some smooth beer.

This is brought home to me on quiz nights, as in our leagues, there is a fair sprinkling of both Sam Smith's pubs and some working men's clubs. As a result, they serve smooth beer. I usually have to drive too, so my drink of choice is often smooth mild. Exotic delights such as Chestnut Mild, Sam's Dark Mild, Whitbread Mild, Bass Dark Mild , Hydes and Lees Dark Smooth for example weigh in at around 2.8% - 3.5%, with a lot of them nearer 3%, thus an ideal one for the driver. A couple of pints can be sipped safely over a couple of hours. The beer can often be way too cold, but as I can't have much anyway, I can allow it to warm up a bit, so it ekes it out further.

Not that I wouldn't prefer a cask conditioned version of the same beer presented in top nick, but when you are stuck, it isn't so bad, even as a distress purchase.  Dark milds and stouts somehow tend not to suffer so much from nitrogen dispense and when in London and in Porterhouse Brewing, I am happy to drink my usual nitrogenated Wrassler's XXXX* stout without feeling that it would be better on cask, though obviously I'd love to try it in that form.

Not in London of course. Stout, like mild, without a tight creamy head just isn't the same and they just aren't savvy about that there.

*Of course that is a particularly good beer and not pasteurised, which certainly helps.

The Joys of Smooth

Remember Woolworth's? Woolies to us old'uns. They used to be big around here and had a large distribution depot a few miles from where I live. Now big businesses (remember them?) spawned social clubs and Woolies had a fine one, up a leafy (well not at this time of year obviously) side street, not far from the now closed depot. This still carries on and I read in a notice in the bar when we called for our quiz match last night, that the club has been bought from the receivers, which is good news. As part of that new freedom, they have immediately tied themselves (by loan I assume) to a brewer. Oh well, needs must and all that.

I have rather a long history with social clubs. It started with Denny's Social Club in Dumbarton, another club which long outlived its parent (shipbuilders in that case). In Liverpool it was the Docker's Club and through my years in the Liverpool Social Clubs Darts League, many others. Almost without exception, the ale (old fashioned CO2 keg) was bloody awful, requiring recourse to that old Scouse favourite, brown bitter, which accounts for my almost encyclopaedic knowledge of North Western bottled brown ales. The one exception was Walton Ward Labour Club, where a lone unmarked handpump dispensed Burtonwood Dark Mild. I don't recall cask in any other club back then.

Things have changed. In our quiz league, we often come across clubs with cask beer, though bright fonts still dominate. Back to Woolies. Their new supplier is Hydes and all the beers are smoothflow. I had the Hydes Black, a mild which knocks Guinness into a cocked hat flavour wise and doesn't taste "just cooked" and which, despite its Arctic temperature, was a decent beer well worth drinking. The boys had various Hydes' smooth beers and professed themselves as more or less content. As they pointed out, Hydes aren't known for pronounced flavour, so it was put uppable with.

My own view is that smoothflow only really suits milds and stouts. If only it wasn't served at 3 or 4° C!

The Beers of Others

It is sometimes too easy to look at the beer world from our lofty and geeky towers and demand new, or better, bigger, bolder, stronger, faster, more type beers and overlook that we are in a decided minority. As one who knocks boring brown beers constantly, you might wonder if I've any windows left in this glass house, but then I get out and about a fair bit and have my feet firmly enough on the ground, to know that most people that drink beer, simply don't see it my way.

I was reminded of this in two ways yesterday, firstly in Wetherspoons, where I nipped in to see what was on in their festival. I had my fingers crossed for one I hadn't had and while on my way, visualised Thornbridge Pioneer on the bar, in the vain hope, that mind over matter could make it so. It wasn't. Instead I had excellent bitter and dry Purity Gold, Lees Supernova, which packed in liquorice and chocolate flavours in a full bodied - yes full bodied - 3.5% variation of their mild and a half of Mordue Porter which was coffeeish and very decent.  But I digress.  There were a few customers experimenting with the guest ales, but most, despite the relative cheapness of the festival beers at £1.49 a pint, stuck to good old much more expensive, John Smith's Smooth.  I overheard one table of drinkers say that they'd be glad when the festival is over, so that can get back to ordinary beer.  Now this isn't an affluent area by and large, but these people were choosing to pay more for (what is to me and probably you) an inferior beer.  Where pennies count for a lot, the attraction of interesting cask beer was at best, limited.

The second incident was in a local Lees pub where the bitter was, most unLeeslike. The miserable drinkers were complaining about this.  (I get approached a lot in this way - being the local CAMRA guru in a small town - people think I can do something about it). It isn't a good thing when a brewery's main product isn't up to snuff.  You neglect your core products at your peril. To do so will lose you more trade than almost anything else, as those who know and love the beer, the gallon men, will simply have one and go home grumbling.

Cask beer these days is a bit of a niche product, albeit an expanding niche. Most of the expansion though, in volume terms at least, is in the cooking bitter that can be dismissed as "ordinary, dull and brown". I like to see brewers push the boat out as much as the next person, but it is these mainstream beers that keep the mash tuns filled. While brewers should be more bold in their product line, particularly when they do occasional or seasonal beers, it would be foolish for them to abandon boring brown. There. I've said it.  I don't have to like it, but I know it makes sense.

This post scratches the surface of an issue ( what beers should brewers be brewing) that intrigues me.  I know it is written from (as usual) the pub going point of view, but I'd be interested to know what others think.

Of course my preferred niche is the specialist cask ale pub where little of this applies, but I drink more Lees Bitter than anything else.

The One Eyed Rat

Ripon, for those who like this kind of information, is the fourth smallest city in England. The One Eyed Rat is in Ripon. It is a very decent pub that does no food, but does do excellent beer. Although in North Yorkshire, here the vowels of the locals take on a distinctly West Yorkshire sound. Unsurprising as it was part of the West Riding until 1974.

The landlady was chatty and welcoming, a feature we noticed throughout Yorkshire and the North East and one which could do with being copied elsewhere. She happily provided us with directions to the butty shop and said we were free to bring a sandwich in. We supped Copper Dragon Golden Pippin which was hoppy and satisfying.

On the wall right in front of the bar was a sign which amused us greatly. It is pictured above. Click on it to read it properly.

Accidental Inebriation

I didn't have a single mouthful of cask ale yesterday, but still managed to get sozzled. Not by intent - I'm too old for that malarkey - but through circumstance. I don't normally meet any of my better half's colleagues, not through some kind of curmudgeonly avoidance, but by happenstance. London is a big place and I'm rarely there during the week. I therefore hadn't met her workmate Bob before when we arranged to join him for a snifter in the Captain Kidd, a riverside Sam's house on Wapping High Street.

Now the Captain Kidd is very pleasant despite selling keg beer only and on a glorious day, we bagged the prime seats beside two large open windows, looking out on a sparkling River Thames. My choice of beer was easy. Sam's brew a fine version of a German weiss bier, now divested of its Ayingerbrau connection, though it seems to me to be just the same. Bob joined us and it has to be said he likes an hour out. He drank the smooth bitter with practised ease, while E slid halves of Pure Brewed Lager down red lane. It was a great afternoon. After five pints of wheat beer for me and equivelant amounts for my companions, we were invited back to Bob's sumptuous flat in a converted warehouse overlooking the Thames. A couple of hours later and with two bottles of top class red inside us, we tottered off home.

The evening passed in a blur, though I did cook a perfectly acceptable spag bol.