It's a bunch of Lagers from regional English brewers. Mostly from the North, with just a couple from the Southwest. The brewers vary in size quite a bit. Greenhall Whitley and Vaux being the largest, Palmer the smallest.
Given the nature of these breweries, I doubt very much any of them had the plant required to brew a Lager properly. Perhaps a couple of largest. But there's no way brewers like Hydes or Palmer had the necessary equipment.
There's quite a variation in both the price and the strength. Federation, unsurprisingly, being by far the cheapest. I'm surprised how many top 4%. My impression of Lager at the time was that it was pretty watery stuff. Though those ABVs are the result of very high degrees of attenuation. Which would also explain my watery impression.
There's a real dichotomy in their names. Some go for Germanic or Nordic names, while the others are resolutely English.
| UK pseudo-Lager in 1978 | ||||||
| Brewer | Beer | Price per pint (p) | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation |
| Cameron | Icegold | 33 | 1038.4 | 1005 | 4.35 | 86.98% |
| Federation | Ace of Clubs | 27 | 1034.9 | 1007.2 | 3.60 | 79.37% |
| Hull | Top Score | 38 | 1037.9 | 1005 | 4.29 | 86.81% |
| Vaux | Norseman | 34 | 1038.7 | 1005.9 | 4.27 | 84.75% |
| Greenall Whitley | Grunhalle | 33 | 1036.7 | 1005.4 | 4.08 | 85.29% |
| Hydes | Amboss | 35 | 1034.7 | 1008.55 | 3.39 | 75.36% |
| Lees | Gold Medal | 36 | 1033.7 | 1002.7 | 4.04 | 91.99% |
| Matthew Brown | Slalom | 30 | 1037.2 | 1004.75 | 4.23 | 87.23% |
| Oldham Brewery | Rheingold | 30 | 1035 | 1007 | 3.64 | 80.00% |
| Robinson | Einhorn | 34 | 1035.9 | 1004.1 | 4.14 | 88.58% |
| Thwaites | Stein | 37 | 1034.6 | 1007.8 | 3.48 | 77.46% |
| Hall & Woodhouse | Brock | 36 | 1032.4 | 1005.5 | 3.50 | 83.02% |
| Palmer | Shilthorn | 40 | 1041.4 | 1004.7 | 4.79 | 88.65% |
| Average | 34.1 | 1036.3 | 1005.7 | 3.98 | 84.27% | |
| Source: | ||||||
| Sunday Mirror - Sunday 08 October 1978, page 4. | ||||||
My video on pseudo-Lager:
When Robinson's in Stockport still brewed at the Unicorn Brewery, their traditional tower building in the town centre, you could go on tours round it and the guides always laughed if anyone mentioned Einhorn (German for unicorn) and said that no one who worked there ever drank it because it was so awful. They eventually dropped it and started selling Veltins in their pubs, but in the last decade or so have brewed a Helles and a Pilsner, first on a computerised brewing kit, which they bought from Germany and installed on site, and now at their new out of town brewery which opened last year. I haven't tried either, and from what other people have said they're not very exciting beers, but unlike Einhorn they are probably lagers rather than a kegged and chilled golden ale.
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