Branded Pale Ale in 1953

Brands: don’t you just love them? Saves having to think too hard about your purchases. Which is presumably why big breweries were so keen on them.

Pale Ales, which were the flagship of many breweries, were some of the beers most likely to be branded. Many breweries pushed strong bottled Pale Ales back in the 1950’s. Things like Ben Truman, Double Diamond or Red Barrel. Which tells you how complete the Brewery Manual list is as it contains only one of those names. Many of these beers also became keg brands.

Intriguingly not only is simple Diamond in the list, but also another beer called Diamond Ale from another brewery. Odd that a large brewer like Ind Coope should be using a brand name that they didn’t have exclusive rights to.

Talking of missing brands, I don’t see the two biggest Pale Ale ones: Bass Red Triangle and Worthington White Shield. I could probably think of more, if I put my mind to it.

Names like “All Bright”, “Starbright” and “Sunbright” were common for filtered bottled beers. The name obviously intended to conjure up an imagine brilliantly clear beer.

Label colours – Red Label and Green Label – were also well liked. Though here’s another inconsistency in this list. Flowers Green Label is cited as a generic trade mark for their bottled beer. When it was in fact the name of a specific bottled Pale Ale.

Webster’s Green Label is lumped in the Pale Ales. Even though it was a Light Mild. In the book’s defence, Webster’s were always a little coy about its style. I can remember the TV ads for it, from which I assumed it was a Bitter.

Coincidentally, that’s the only one of these beers I drank. At least under the name given. I was rather partial to Burton Ale, the cask version of Double Diamond.

Branded Pale Ale in 1953
Brewery	Beer	Type
H. & G. Simonds	Golden Dry	Pale Ale
A. M. & E. Sergeant	Dolphin	Pale Ale
Ann St. Brewery	Mary Ann	Pale Ale
Castletown Brewery	Red Label	Pale Ale
Drybrough	Starbright	Pale Ale
Gardner	Cavalier	Pale Ale
Gardner	Extra	Pale Ale
George Younger & Son	Highland	Pale Ale
H. & G. Simonds	Bulldog	Pale Ale
H. & G. Simonds	Tavern	Pale Ale
H. B. Clark	County's Best	Pale Ale
H. E. Thornley	Sunbright	Pale Ale
Hall & Woodhouse	Forum	Pale Ale
Ind Coope & Allsopp	Coronet	Pale Ale
Ind Coope & Allsopp	Double Diamond	Pale Ale
Ind Coope & Allsopp	Diamond	Pale Ale
John Lovibond & Sons	Royal College	Pale Ale
Meux's Brewery	Treble Gold	Pale Ale
Morrell's Brewery Ltd.	Castle Ale	Pale Ale
Richard Whitaker & Sons	Light Shire	Pale Ale
Saml. Webster & Sons	Green Label	Pale Ale
T. Losco Bradley	Gold Gross	Pale Ale
The Ely Brewery	Brewers Own	Pale Ale
The Ely Brewery	Imperial	Pale Ale
The Star Brewery	Diamond Ale	Pale Ale
Tomson & Wotton	Double Allbright	Pale Ale
Truswell's Brewery	Sunbright	Pale Ale
Wilson's Brewery	Olympic	Pale Ale
Source:
Brewery Manual 1953-1954, pages 382 - 394.

Probably Old Ale and Strong Ale next.