Bit of a contrast between the two Watney breweries. Webster, though not that many of its pubs sold cask, at least the beer was good in cask form. While Wilsons sold plenty of cask but it was rubbish.
I know the beers from Chiswell Street, on paper, better than any others. And better, i'm sure, than any brewer who ever worked there. Because I've pored over 170 years' worth of their brewing records. Which is a weird feeling.
Webster
Halifax,
West Yorkshire.
Founded: 1820
Closed: 1996
Tied houses: 288
Bought by Watney Mann in 1972. In terms of beers brewed, Webster was a typical West Yorkshire brewery.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Pennine Bitter | Pale Ale | draught | 1037.5 | sweetish and full-bodied |
| Best Mild | Mild, Light | draught | 1033.8 | smooth, slightly bitter |
| Nut Brown | Mild | draught | 1033.8 | |
| Green Label | Pale Ale | bottled |
Wilsons
Manchester,
Greater Manchester.
Founded: 1834
Closed: 1986
Tied houses: 1,124
Bought by Watney Mann in 1960. Can’t say I ever cared for their beer much.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Great Northern Bitter | Pale Ale | draught | 1037 | smooth, well-balanced |
| Brewers Bitter | Pale Ale | draught | 1033 | pale |
| Great Northern Mild | Mild | draught | 1032.2 | thin and malty |
Chiswell Street
City of London,
London.
Founded: 1742
Closed: 1976
Tied houses:
The original Whitbread brewery. I’m not sure if it brewed any cask in the 1970s. I think it probably did, but I can’t be certain. I did drink keg Best Mild in 1979, presumably brewed in Luton. It was pretty bland and forgettable.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Best Mild | Mild | draught | 1030.8 | |
| Trophy | Pale Ale | draught | 1035.8 | |
| Best Mild | Mild | keg | 1030.8 | |
| Trophy | Pale Ale | keg | 1035.8 | |
| Tankard | Pale Ale | keg | 1039.3 | |
| Export Pale Ale | Pale Ale | bottled | 1048.8 | |
| Forest Brown | Brown Ale | bottled | dryish | |
| Mackeson | Stout | bottled | 1038.8 | sweet |
| Extra Stout | Stout | bottled | 1055.7 | |
| Final Selection | Strong Ale | bottled | 1079.6 | dry |
| Gold Label | Barley Wine | bottled | 1101.3 | blended and matured |
Time for yet another plug of my latest book, "Keg!". From which this is an excerpt.
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14 comments:
I lived in Manchester for a few years, and frequently drank Wilsons, though it was far from the best beer in town. This was 1980-83. But the first time I ever had it would have been in the early/mid 70's. I was with my cousin Betty and a group of friends on a hike in the Bacup area and at midday we had to drop to valley level before following a disused railway track - well there was a pub, don't remember the name, but the brewery sign said Watney-Wilson and there was the chequerboard logo.
We went in thinking to have a swift one and carry on, but the bitter was so delicious that we stayed and had another, and another, and... and...
The rest of the hike got cut short. I don't know if Wilsons was better in the 70's than the 80's, or this was just one of those occasions when a cask ale, however nondescript, can be touched by angels and rise to a level of perfection.
I grew up on Wilsons, and except for three years away at university drank more of their beer than anyone else's from 1973 up to the brewery's closure. Better pints certainly existed, but it suited my taste at the time and never gave me a hangover.
I absolutely hated Websters; it tasted like homebrew which was being drunk before it was ready. A really nasty cloying taste. I could manage other sweetish beers perfectly well; I was rather fond of the much-despised M&B Brew XI.
After Wilsons closed the bitter continued to be brewed in Halifax for a while. Interestingly it was very little changed, and therefore still decent, whereas the native Websters continued to be nasty.
Wilson’s is where John Keeling of Fullers started his brewing career.
Interesting that Webster’s pennine bitter is described as sweetish while their light mild is described as slightly bitter.
Oscar
Ah, Gold Label!!! Yippee!!!
Whitbread’s brewery in Chiswell Street was closed in April 1976, and it did indeed brew cask beer until shortly beforehand. I can’t now remember whether I ever had the mild, but the Trophy was my favourite London-brewed beer in the early 70s – at least until the recipe was changed a year or so before the closure. I much preferred it to the Wethered’s that replaced it. As for Wilson’s, I drank a fair bit of the bitter, which was a pale, pleasant pint that slipped down very easily, even if it didn’t taste particularly distinctive (I certainly wouldn’t have said it was rubbish). I did have the odd pint of Wilson’s Mild, though it wasn’t particularly memorable either before or after it was given a new recipe for Wilson’s big relaunch in 1983. I only drank Webster’s a few times in the 1970s, but found it fine when I did – it was a different matter when Webster’s Yorkshire Bitter (which was pretty dire stuff) became ubiquitous in Watney’s pubs in the south of England in the 1980s.
My memory of Websters, and I drank enough of it, was that it set out to be the great local rival of Tetley's. There was no rivalry really, Tetley's won hands down among the general drinking public, but Websters (when you could get it in cask form) was a very decent beer, both the light mild and the bitter (you had to go to Halifax for the dark mild, if you could be bothered).
Then in the 80's, Websters changed the recipe entirely, the new beer, 'Webbo's" as it was marketed was a clear attempt to make Websters taste like Tetley's. Of course this was a complete misfire, Webster's loyal supporters, od who there were a substantial minority, were left adrift, and Tetley's drinkers couldn't have cared less. They would never have been seen dead in a Websters pub anyway.
That was the beginning of the end for Websters. Of course the way the British brewing industry was going, they were doomed anyway. Even Tetley's were doomed, a thing I could never have imagine, but there it was.
Not giving you a hangover was a positive selling point. When I was living in Manchester, Robinsons always gave me a hangover. I don't know if it was just me, but it was so.
Chris do you know why Webster’s dark mild was only sold in the Halifax area?
Speaking of mild ale I am going to some Irish mild ale today.
Oscar
I had wonderful pint of Wilson's mild at a country pub near Manchester Airport when I was a teenager in the late eighties. I wonder if the move from north Manchester to Webster's in Halifax actually improved the beer, which as we know from John Keeling was heavily adulterated when it was brewed at Wilson's.
Anon. I only ever saw it in cask form in Halifax, keg was probably more widely available. But in the late 70's only about 10% of Websters pubs were cask. I think there were three of them in Bradford and none of these sold dark mild, as far as I recall. Lots of keg pubs but I mainly avoided those.
Most Yorkshire breweries in those days had a light and a dark mild. In Websters case the light was much more popular. Maybe not enough demand to make cask dark mild viable in most areas.
There was a Webster's pub not far from the Star in Armley that I'm sure sold cask Dark Mild in the late 1970s.
Webster’s dark mild was called Nut Brown. It appeared to be available in only a few pubs (at least in cask form) in the mid-70s and was last listed in the GBG in 1975; however, it mysteriously reappeared in the 1979 GBG, and was apparently available in a pub in Bradford. What had happened in the interim is unclear: was it discontinued and reintroduced (which seems unlikely), or was it available the whole time? (What’s Brewing might have a clue, though my back numbers are a bit inaccessible at present.) The 1980 GBG shows it as available in the Royal Oak in Silver Royd Hill, Leeds (not too far from Armley) – could that be the pub recalled by Ron? Nut Brown continued to be listed in GBGs until 1981; thereafter it appeared as Yorkshire Dark – presumably the same beer – for a couple of years until the 1984 edition, which listed it as Dark Mild, with its last appearance in the 1986 edition.
I recently read a paper by David Gutzke on Bass Charrington failed Runcorn brewery who made a beer called Brew Ten that was fermented at higher temperatures to speed up fermentation. Apparently even a small this beer was sure to give you a hangover due to the fermentation temperature.
Did you or anyone else reading this ever try Brew Ten? If so, did you get a hangover?
Thanks Chris, it seems that of all the Yorkshire breweries only Timothy Taylors brews both a light mild and dark mild. Ballykilcavan in Stradbally in County Laois does the same.
Oscar
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