Some of the examples are very highly-attenuated at over 80%. Which must have left Draught E, and Banks and Marston's Bitter very dry. Forming quite a contrast with Kingpin Keg with only 67% attenuation.
Best value by quite a way was Marston’s Bitter. Though it looks to me like they’ve got the Pedigree and Bitter the wrong way around. According to the 1977 Good Beer guide, Pedigree was 1043º and Bitter 1037º.
The three worst value beers are all from Big Six brewers: Ansell and M & B. Springfield Bitter wasn’t brewed at Cape Hill in Birmingham, but at M & B’s other brewery in Wolverhampton. I drank a fair bit of it in the early 1970s. It was a lovely, light Bitter, far superior to Cape Hill brewed Brew XI. Obviously, they closed the brewery making the better beer.
Looking over the set, I drank quite a few of them. Ansell’s Bitter wasn’t great, either. Not a patch on their Mild. Pedigree was a farty delight. A classic Burton Pale Ale. I never realised that there had been a cask version of Worthington E. Pretty sure that was later rebadged as Worthington Best Bitter.
Incidentally Worthington E is another beer with its roots as an IPA. E is, in fact, short for EIPA and was Worthington's flagship IPA in the 19th century.
| Midlands Bitter in 1971 | ||||||||
| Brewer | Beer | Price per pint (p) | º gravity per p | % ABV per p | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation |
| Ansell | Kingpin Keg | 14 | 2.43 | 0.21 | 1034 | 1011.1 | 2.96 | 67.35% |
| M & B Springfield | Springfield Bitter | 13 | 2.88 | 0.27 | 1037.5 | 1010 | 3.57 | 73.33% |
| Ansell | Bitter | 14 | 2.78 | 0.27 | 1038.9 | 1010.2 | 3.72 | 73.78% |
| Marston | Pedigree | 13.5 | 2.67 | 0.28 | 1036.1 | 1007.1 | 3.77 | 80.33% |
| Worthington | E Keg | 16 | 2.36 | 0.24 | 1037.8 | 1008.5 | 3.81 | 77.65% |
| Worthington | E Draught | 15.5 | 2.37 | 0.26 | 1036.8 | 1006.4 | 3.95 | 82.61% |
| Banks | Bitter | 14 | 2.87 | 0.31 | 1040.2 | 1006.6 | 4.38 | 83.58% |
| Marston | Bitter | 12.5 | 3.38 | 0.37 | 1042.2 | 1007.1 | 4.57 | 83.18% |
| Average | 14.1 | 2.72 | 0.28 | 1037.9 | 1008.4 | 3.84 | 77.73% | |
| Source: | ||||||||
| Sunday Mirror - Sunday 21 March 1971, page 25. | ||||||||
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6 comments:
Marstons was an odd one, you never knew where it would turn up. The first time I encountered it was in 1973 (I think) in Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland, where Marstons dominated the town pubs. A few years after that I was in Winchester, and there was Marstons. And a few years after that I found myself living in Manchester, and there it was again. Always the bitter, I don't recall seeing a mild, but then perhaps I wasn't looking. Pedigree only seemed to appear on the horizon many years later. I think Alston was the first place I encountered it, outside of beer festivals, when in did the Pennine Way in 1983.
Springfield Bitter was indeed a lot better than Brew XI: I believe it was basically the old Butler’s Bitter (Butler’s of Wolverhampton were taken over by M&B in 1960) that had been renamed in the early days of Bass Charrington (sometimes by the simple expedient of placing a sticker reading “M&B Springfield Bitter” on the Butler’s pump clip: I acquired one such pump clip a few years ago). Even after the takeover in 1960, Butler’s Bitter (‘Pride of the Midlands’) figured prominently in advertising such as beermats. In the 1970s, some pubs with Springfield Bitter sold Highgate Mild as well: a good combination if you found one, though the ordinary M&B Mild was perfectly adequate, and much better than Brew XI. For a while in the mid-1980s, Springfield Bitter was sold in London, but didn’t seem to catch on.
By the 1970s, the cask version of Worthington E wasn’t very common, though I think it survived until towards the end of the decade. However, by the early 1970s (if not before) it was the same beer as draught Bass. Ian Nairn noted the difference between Bass and Worthington E in his “Nairn’s London” in 1966, implying that one was a fair bit stronger than the other – though he didn’t say which. But by the 1970s this distinction had disappeared. Worthington Best Bitter was in fact available throughout the 1970s alongside Worthington E: although I think they were roughly the same gravity in 1971, by about 1976 the OG of Bass/E had been increased to 1044, while Worthington Best Bitter remained at around 1037. Despite draught E losing out to Bass, the opposite was true for bottle-conditioned beer: by the early 1970s, Red Triangle Bass had almost disappeared in favour of Worthington White Shield (I assume these were also the same beer by that time). I can only remember drinking Red Triangle Bass in a few places – most memorably in Young’s pubs.
When I was a student in Manchester there was a Marstons pub Rusholme way that did a cheese buffet at lunch time - you paid 5 quid and could select whatever block of cheese you wanted - like, a full block of cheddar. Then they gave you half a loaf and you could help yourself to pickled onions, chutney, and the like. The Pedigree was like nectar, and matched with crusty bread and cheddar...heaven.
Marston and Bank’s bitters are the best value for money out of all of them.
Oscar
John, I notice in Les Howarth's recipe database, Springfield Bitter appears under Highgate Brewery (p.129 of the 3rd edition). Did M&B move production of Springfield to the Walsall Highgate plant at some point? Could explain why you'd find the two together in a tied house.
The Springfield recipe as given in Howarth's database is sourced from Protz's Real Ale Almanac 1993 edition.
Iain – yes, Springfield Bitter was brewed at Highgate for a while after the Springfield brewery was closed in 1991, though it was discontinued around 1994 before the management buyout at Highgate. However, selling Springfield Bitter and Highgate Mild in the same tied house was common long before Springfield closed.
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