We finish off Scottish & Newcastle today with a brewery few seem to have known about, the former Red Tower brewery. Funnily enough, one of the first two Watney breweries Crowley, was fairly obscure, too. The other one was the last big industrial brewery in London. Though not a much-loved one.
Moss Side
Greater Manchester.
Founded: 1933
Closed: still open
Tied houses:
Bought by Scottish Brewers in 1956. Originally called Red Tower, it was an early specialist Lager brewery. And the only one still open. And the only one of the Scottish & Newcastle breweries still open and operated by Heineken.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Harp Lager | Lager | keg | 1032.4 |
Mortlake
Mortlake,
London.
Founded: 1840
Closed: 2015
Tied houses:
Bought by Watney in 1889. The main Watney brewery in London. Loathed by CAMRA for brewing no cask, they confounded them by reintroducing cask in the end of the 1970s. I can’t say that Fined Bitter impressed me much.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Fined Bitter | Pale Ale | draught | 1044.2 | well-flavoured, clean, tasty |
| Special Bitter | Pale Ale | keg | 1037.9 | |
| Red Barrel | Pale Ale | keg | 1036.6 | well balanced |
| Red | Pale Ale | keg | 1037.1 | replaced Red Barrel |
| Starlight | Pale Ale | keg | 1032.5 | cheap and light |
| Special Mild | Mild | keg | 1030.4 | sweet |
| Pale Ale | Pale Ale | bottled | 1031.3 | traditional Pale Ale |
| Manns Brown Ale | Brown Ale | bottled | 1030 | |
| Cream Label Stout | Stout | bottled | 1035 | |
| Watneys Brown Ale | Brown Ale | bottled | 1030.9 | |
| Watneys PA Export | Pale Ale | bottled | 1060.8 | |
| Yorkshire Stingo | Strong Ale | bottled | 1086 | |
| Export Gold | Strong Ale | bottled | 1076 |
Crowley
Alton,
Hampshire.
Founded: 1763
Closed: 1970
Tied houses: 248
Bought by Watney in 1947. I assume to brew Pale Ale, as Alton has Burton-like water.
Still plugging away my latest book, "Keg!". If you want me to stop, buy a copy.
One of my clearest memories as a child in the late seventies/early eighties is driving into Manchester city centre along Princess Road through Moss Side and going past the Royal Brewery with the McEwan's Laughing Cavalier on the side of it.
ReplyDeleteI quite enjoyed Fined Bitter when it first came out. It may not have been spectacular but it was a big improvement on what was available before. Later on they seemed to replace it with Combe's Bitter, which I didn't think was as good.
DeleteWhen I last went past it (2002) it was festooned with Fosters regalia. As I was travelling with my Australian wife to be it certainly caught her interest.
DeleteI have a Watneys red barrel ROI market pint glass and half pint glass which are dimpled mugs.
ReplyDeleteOscar
Were Yorkshire Stingo and Export Gold any good?
ReplyDeleteChris I only tried Fined Bitter once, when I was in London in the mid 70s waiting for my plane to emigrate to Aus. Not bad to my Northern Taste, even.
ReplyDeleteIt was served on hand pump but the CAMRA What's Brewing mag explained that it was fined but not filtered and run into standard kegs, so it would have come up through the dip tube to the beer engine.
I don't know if they replaced the headspace with a CO2 blanket or just sold it quickly.
Or maybe they had a cask breather sort of gas injector, as it wasn't till a lot later that CAMRA got fussy about cask breathers.