Of this trio of Whitbread breweries, I only ever got to drink beer from one, Flowers. And it was nothing to write home about. Positively dull, in fact. Not sure how they managed that. Probably through a huge technological effort.
Dutton
Blackburn,
Lancashire.
Founded: 1799
Closed: 1978
Tied houses: 784
Bought in 1966. No cask in the 1970s.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Trophy | Pale Ale | keg | 1035.1 | |
| B | Pale Ale | keg | ||
| BB | Pale Ale | keg | a stronger Bitter | |
| Mild | Mild | keg | dark | |
| Amber | Mild | keg | pale | |
| OBJ | Barley Wine | bottled |
Evan Evans Bevan
Cadoxton, Neath,
Wales.
Founded: 1846
Closed: 1972
Tied houses:
Bought in 1967. Great name for a brewery. I’d have kept it open, just for the name.
Flowers
Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire.
Founded: 1760
Closed: 1998
Tied houses: 1,275
Bought in 1963. They ended up brewing cask brands from other closed Whitbread breweries, such as Wethered. I wasn’t hugely keen on the beer they brewed.
| beer | style | format | OG | description |
| Bitter | Pale Ale | draught | 1038 | hoppy, full-bodied |
| PA | Pale Ale | draught | 1031 | subtle |
| Starbright | Pale Ale | keg | 1032.1 | low gravity |
Until I sell more copies, I'm going to keep plugging of my latest book, "Keg!".
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15 comments:
The Cheltenham brewery taken over in 1963 was in fact that of West Country Breweries (a merger of Cheltenham and Hereford Breweries and the Stroud Brewery). Whitbread acquired Flowers in 1962; the original Flowers brewery in Stratford on Avon was closed in 1968, and the former J W Green brewery in Luton in 1969. West Country Breweries was subsequently renamed Whitbread Flowers. When I first began to take an interest in beer in 1972, the only remaining beer badged as Flowers was Flowers Special Bitter – curiously, Trophy bitter didn’t appear to be available in the pubs in Warwickshire and nearby counties that sold Special Bitter. However, Special Bitter was discontinued a year or so later, to be replaced by Trophy (possibly the same beer, of course), and that was the end of the Flowers name until it was reintroduced in 1981. I seem to remember that Special Bitter was available only in keg form, but cask West Country PA was still pretty widely available.
The hoppy, full-bodied bitter would have been the best bitter from Tiverton (formerly Starkey, Knight and Ford) which also formed part of Whitbread Flowers.
Whitbread kept on producing OBJ (Oh Be Joyful) into the 1980's. I sometimes had it at the Travellers Rest in Glenridding on the way down from Helvellyn. It wasn't a barley wine though, it was a strongish brown ale, not dissimilar to Newcastle Brown or Double Maxim. Came in a pint bottle.
Regarding my last post about Trophy, I recall at the time the Trophy in Newcastle from Whitbread's Castle Eden brewery (Ex Nimmos) was around 1.040 which would account for it being a fuller and tastier beer, in the best bitter range, than the Trophy from Duttons I drank in Alston up in the hills, at 1.035.
How strong?
Oscar
How fizzy were keg ales then, compared to now?
Oscar
Difficult to say as I didn't drink keg then and don't drink it now.
Would be interesting to know whether the carbonation is not as high as it was then today.
Oscar
In the late 80's they had those oversized glasses and the barperson just pressed a button to deliver a pint. I'm not sure how big the glasses were but obviously more than 20oz, and they felt like you were drinking out of a vase. The extra head space would often be full of washing-up liquid like froth but the beer itself as I recall wasn't that fizzy; certainly not like a carbonated drink. I realise you're asking about the 70's though :-)
I don't remember that they were putting the ABV on bottles in those days, and of course CAMRA didn't deign to acknowledge its existence. I'd guess about 5% but it is a guess.
Trophy was my beer of choice when I was a student in Durham in the early 1970's. Mostly at the Dun Cow on Old Elvet which was the nearest pub to our digs.
I don't know exactly. It was before the abv was printed on bottles, I'd guess around 5%
Keg didn't have to be especially fizzy. It depended on the skill of the cellar man just like cask beer. Student union and college bar staff hadn't a clue about keeping it and the solution to every problem was to turn up the gas, so the carbonation could get wildly out of control. (I know, I was that barman... well some of the time)
Back in the early 1970's none of us knew anything about cask vs tank vs keg beer, beer was just beer. My dad advised me that the best beer came through hand pumps from a cold cellar, but there no concept of anything else. Some beer in some pubs was better than others, that was all we knew. And there were no hand pumps in Durham, in those days.
That Tiverton bitter was excellent, I had it a couple of times on another mountain hike I used to do, Caer Caradoc from Church Stretton. Pub was at Cardington.
Chris thanks. Funnily enough brown ale is 5ish here in Ireland.
Oscar
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