Courage in the 1970s

I have very mixed feelings about Courage. Having ended up owning both of my hometown of Newark’s brewers, they owned almost all the pubs. All but one of which sold no cask beer. On the other hand, they brewed Russian Stout.

On the other hand, my first job after school was working in their Newark plant, the former Holes brewery. Filling kegs. It was so much fun. Not really. It was very heavy work. Which my 18-year-old body could cope with. Then there was all that free beer.

In the North and Midlands, Courage produced no cask beer at either their Tadcaster or Newark breweries. Drinkers in the South were luckier, with the London and Bristol plants producing some cask. Though Worton Grange, the replacement for the former Simmonds brewery in Reading, produced only keg beer.


London
Horselydown, the original Courage brewery on the South bank of the Thames opposite the Tower of London, was open all through the 1970s, not closing until 1982.

It produced at least some cask right up until its closure. Though it wasn’t always easy to tell which of their breweries the beer had been brewed in.

Reading
The former Simonds brewery in Reading was one of the constituent parts of the original group, Courage Barclay Simonds.

Having a good reputation for their beer, there was quite a bit of consumer resistance to its closure, orchestrated by CAMRA. Of course, this had no effect on the decision to close it.

Worton Grange
The replacement for Reading was a massive brewery, with a capacity of six million barrels. Designed as a keg beer plant, it never brewed any cask beer. It was never greatly loved and closed in 2010.

It was one of the megakeggeries built in the 1970s when brewers assumed that beer consumption would continue to rise and that extra capacity would be needed. When consumption started to fall in the 1980s, the industry was left with considerable overcapacity.

Bristol
The former George’s plant in Bristol had a long history and a good reputation. After the closure of Reading, it became home of Courage Bitter and Directors.

It was founded in 1781 and had grown to a decent size. When Courage bought it in 1961 it had almost 1,000 tied houses, which would have made it one of the largest independent brewers. It finally closed in 1999.

I’m pretty sure that I drank both Courage Bitter and Directors which had been brewed in Bristol. Perfectly serviceable beers, if not particularly exciting by that date.

Newark
The former Holes plant has a special place in my memories, being the only brewery I’ve ever been employed in.

Bought by Courage in 1967, it continued in much the same way as before. Except that, as the other Newark brewery (Warwick & Richardson) had also ended up in the hands of Courage and been closed, they went from serving half the pubs in Newark to virtually all of them.

It continued to brew the former Holes beers such as AK and Mild. But also brewed one Warwick & Richardson beer, IPA. One thing had changed, however: none of the beer was cask. It was all bright beer, filled into 50 and 100 litre kegs and served by electric diaphragm pump.

The beers weren’t terrible, not being heavily pasteurised. Definitely better than keg beer. But not a patch on decently-kept cask.

Fellow Newark exile John Clarke recalls of Holes AK:

After Holes had been closed I went on a CAMRA trip to Simpkiss whose head brewer at the time was the former head brewer at Holes up to closure. He told us that AK was only very rough filtered, so rough in fact that it was sometimes sold under its own pressure. How true that is, I don't know, but I definitely recall him telling me that.

Tadcaster
The former John Smiths brewery is the only Courage plant still in operation. In the early 1970s they phased out cask beer. And didn’t brew any again until the early 1980s. Which was frustrating, because, in cask form, their beer was pretty decent.

The Bitter was quite dark, dry and reasonably Bitter. Magnet was similar, but stronger. For a while, quite a few Courage pubs in Newark had cask again. And fairly good cask. Then John Smiths Smooth came along and fucked everything up again.

Barnsley
A much-beloved brewery, famous for its Bitter. Which was the first good beer I ever tasted. Having taken over Warwick & Richardson before being gobbled up themselves by John Smith.

A few pubs in Newark still served Barnsley Bitter when I started drinking in the early 1970s. But, as the Barnsley brewery was scheduled for closure, most had swapped over to beer from Newark.

When the brewery closed in 1976, only one pub in Newark, the Wing Tavern, was still selling Barnsley Bitter.

Plymouth
This was one of Courage’s latest acquisitions, happening in December 1970. The brewery soldiered on for a reasonable length of time, not closing until 1983.

I remember coming across their beer at the Great British Beer Festival. They were unusual in using cast iron casks which weighed an absolute ton. Heavy, their Mild, was top class.

Looking back: Newark breweries

I was thinking about the questions I wished I'd asked older people when I was younger. Not about anything really important. Just what beer had been like when they were young.

Then I jumped forward. Maybe I should do that. Answer the questions I would have like to have asked. But about my experiences 40 or 50 years ago. Because things have changed a lot.

The former Warwick & Richardson brewery

Let's go back to my childhood.

When my family moved to Newark in the early 1960s, the town boasted two decent-sized regional breweries: Warwick & Richardson and Holes. As well as several substantial maltings. Both breweries owned 200 or so tied houses. Including almost all the pubs in town. We'll be gt5ting back to that later.

In 1962, John Smith bought Warwick & Richardson. After brewing ceased in 1966, the pubs were rebranded as Barnsley, another brewery owned by John Smith. Holes was snapped up by Courage in 1967. But the cataclysmic event was in 1970, when Courage took over John Smith. Leaving Courage owning 30 of the 35 pubs in Newark. And all four of the pubs in Balderton, the village bordering Newark where we lived.

When I started visiting pubs around 1972, most of the pubs in town were supplied by the former Holes brewery. But a couple were still supplied by Barnsley: the King William IV and the Wing Tavern. The latter being the only pub in town with handpumps. Well, working ones. It served one cask beer, the magnificent Barnsley Bitter.

The only other pubs selling cask were the four Home Ales pubs: Newcastle Arms, the Ram Hotel, the Clinton Hotel and the Cardinal's Hat. Though the last named was in the middle of a post-war council estate and, because of the weird street pattern, quite difficult to find. All of their pubs served cask Bitter and Mil through electric pumps.

If you've been paying attention you'll have noticed that I've only got to 34 pubs. The 35th was a former Steward & Patteson pub, the Olde White Hart. Which was in the hands of Watney. Meaning the town had no free houses whatsoever. Every pub was tied.

The vast majority of pubs sold bright Holes beer. That is, rough-filtered, but not pasteurised and served through electric pumps, without extra CO2 pressure. The result was a halfway house between cask and keg. Poorly handled cask beer was often hard to distinguish from bright beer. The confusion being increased by most cask being served through electric pumps.

The Courage beers served in most pubs were AK, the main Bitter of Holes, and Mild. I'm sure the Mild had a name, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. A couple of former Warwick's houses sole IPA, which had been the flagship Bitter of Warwick & Richardson.

Other than Skol, then the main Lager of Courage, and Tavern, their premium keg beer, only seven draught beer were available: Courage AK, Mild and IPA; Home Bitter, Mild and whatever their Lager was; Barnsley Bitter. Oh, and whatever shit was on offer in the Watneys pub. Probably Red Barrel. I don't know for sure because I never went in the Olde White Hart. Still never have been.

Not exactly spoilt for choice.Newark was one of many local monopolies, of varying sizes, which were found around the country. Usually where one of the Big Six had bought up all the local breweries. The situation was totally different in many of the towns around Newark.

Nottingham, for example, was dominated by the three local breweries: Home Ales, Shipstone and Hardy & Hanson. The owned the lion's share of pubs in the city. And 99% of then sold cask beer. Though only a handful of pubs retained beer engines. The vast majority of beer was served by metered electric dispense.

I've looked for an image of a typical electric pump, but can't find one. These things used to be so common, but I suppose have totally disappeared. If you have an image, please let me know.

I'll be continuing these reminiscences until, well, I get bored or my memories run out. Which probably won't be long, as I can recall so little.

John Smith acquisitions (part two)

The map of Simonds brewery purchases was so revealing, I’ve decided to do the same for John Smith.

And blow me, as soon as I looked at it, I noticed something. Again, it’s to do with major transport routes. While Simonds takeovers followed the Great Western Railway east to west, John Smiths mostly went north and south. Approximately following the A1 and East Coast mainline. Take a look:

Black: original brewery

Green: <= 1920

Red: 1930 – 1945

Orange:  > 1950

Though in addition there’s a little leakage over the Pennines to Lancashire.

I’m definitely going to continue with this. It’s so revealing.

John Smith acquisitions

John Smith was one of what I call the nearly men. Breweries that expanded rapidly in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but didn’t quite make the Big Six.

Though in a way they did. Because these large brewing groups became important chunks of the eventual winners. When Courage, Barclay & Simonds took them over in 1970, they brought 1,800 pubs with them.  That was around a third of the 6,000 tied houses the whole Courage group owner after the merger.

I have mixed feelings about John Smith. They closed one of the Newark breweries (Warwick & Richardson) and one of my all-time favourites (Barnsley). Then they phased out cask beer in the mid-1970’s. When I lived in a town where they owned 90% of the pubs. I say John Smith owned them and not Courage because they didn’t sell any products from the latter’s breweries.  I virtually never went in any of their Leeds pubs when I lived there. Because they didn’t do cask.

John Smith had quite a limited geographical spread. If you look at the breweries they bought, all are North of the Trent, except Warwick & Richardson which was on the river’s southern bank. It looks from their acquisitions that they traded in the North of the Midlands, Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Northeast.

I can see why Courage bought them. Until then, Courage was pretty much exclusively southern, with the exception of the pubs that came along with Hole’s of Newark. How ironic is that? The only place they overlapped was Newark, where I grew up. Otherwise, the two tied estates were complementary: Courage in the South, John Smith in the North. In my experience, the two parts of the company operated pretty separately all through the 1970’s.

I’ll finish with a nice table.

John Smith acquisitions
year	brewery	address	tied houses	closed
1919	Fernandes & Co	Wakefield	42	1919
1925	Warwick & Co	Boroughbridge	42
1926	Bentley’s Milnshaw Brewery Co	Accrington	12
1934	Haughton Road Brewery Co	Darlington	41
1941	H Shaw	Dunkinfield	60
1958	Whitworth, Son & Nephew Ltd	Wath upon Derne	165
1961	Barnsley Brewery Co Ltd	Barnsley	250	1976
1961	Yates Castle Brewery Ltd	Manchester	175 pubs in 1896
1962	Warwick & Richardsons Ltd	Newark		1966
Sources:
"The Brewing Industry a Guide to Historical Records” by Lesley Richmond and Alison Turton, 1990, page 303.
A Century of British Breweries plus by Norman Barber, 2005, pages 29, 66, 94. 160, 163 and 172.

I think I’ll continue the Courage theme with a look at the growth of Simonds.

Coronation Beers (part three)

As promised, if a little later than expected, the best brew since 1914.

Thinking about it, 1953 was only 39 years after 1914. There must have been plenty of older drinkers around who could remember the powerful Ales from before WW I. What an odd experience it must have been to have a few years of drinking full-strength beers, then see them become ever more watery as your drinking career progressed. Not so much odd as depressing, I guess.

But I digress. We’re looking at Coronation beer again. See if you can guess which brewery it is. For some reason the article is coy about naming the name.

“Coronation beer, best brew since 1914,
to be 1s 6d bottle
Evening Post Reporter
TODAY, somewhat prematurely. I admit, I drank the health of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II a fully-matured mellow heavy beer, brother to the famed Coronation beer.

While I talked to Mr W. E. Harbord. director of a Tadcaster brewery which has made this taste of "the good old days." the liquid Itself was busy maturing in huge tanks in preparation for the end of February when it will flow into "nip" bottles, ready for distribution to the public during the Coronation celebrations.

Although I was unable to sample the "beautifully fragrant and aromatic" taste of the Coronation beer. I can lay many of the rumours rife about it. Firstly it will be sold in the now familiar, small old-ale bottles, with special Coronation label.

Each contains a third of pint, and will cost 1s. 6d., not 2s. 6d. as was rumoured.

Says Mr Harbord. The Coronation is an opportunity for to give the public something which we are not normally allowed to produce."”
Yorkshire Evening Post - Friday 02 January 1953, page 10.

I’m pretty sure the brewery is John Smiths. Which is dead handy, as we’ll see in a minute. To put that price into context, a pint of Mild would have cost around 1s. 2d. and a pint of Ordinary Bitter 1s. 4d. A nip bottle of Guinness, which at the time was a bit over 5% ABV, was 1s. Making 1s. 6d. not unreasonable for a really strong beer.

The bit about not normally being able to produce a beer like that is a reference to gravity restrictions. I’d tell you what they were, but I’m having a devil of a time tracking them down. There seems to have been an upper limit on gravity that was abolished sometime around this period. I’ll need to do some more digging.

This sounds like something I would have liked:

“Victory ale
To get some Idea what Mr. Harbord meant this I was given glass of Victory ale brewed in 1945 to celebrate the end of hostilities.

This, although not as strong the Coronation beer, was brewed in the same way and has a taste and bouquet, after seven years, unknown except to those who were drinking before 1914.

While telling me of the delights of the Coronation beer, head brewer Mr. W. Gall, handling the Victory ale with the touch of an expert wine taster - glass held by the base and sniffing appreciatively — said: "This is a lovely beer and the Coronation beer on the same basis has had a lot of care taken with it.

"It will mature for about two months, giving it its quality and character and then be put into the several thousand dozen bottles awaiting it. It has a fragrant and delightful bouquet and will be half as strong again as the present heavy beer sold as old ale."”
Yorkshire Evening Post - Friday 02 January 1953, page 10.

Two months was quite a long maturation period by then. Very few beers were given any sort of long time to develop, with only a handful of true Stock Ales still being brewed.

The last sentence is dead useful. Because I’ve two analyses of John Smiths Old Ale from that very year:

John Smiths Old Ale in 1953
Beer	Price	size	package	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
Magnet Old Ale	1/1d	nip	bottled	0.07	1068.5	1024.5	5.70	64.23%	11 + 40
Magnet Old Ale	1/2d	nip	bottled	0.06	1072.5	1022.9	6.44	68.41%	11 + 40
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

As brewers usually meant gravity when talking about strength, that would make John Smiths Coronation Ale around 1100º. Or about as strong as beer came.

So I believe them when they claim this:

“Stronger than all
Mr. Gall was responsible for the final composition of the Coronation beer and has put the best of his 20 years' experience into the final product.

The brewery has made several special heavy beers for special occasions — the last Coronation, victory days, and the brewery's centenary - but this Coronation beer will stronger than any of them.

With the wistful look of a connoisseur, Mr. Gall said. "In the fermenting room there was lovely aroma the whole time we brewed it. It will be a grand beer."

If it is anything like its mature brother, the Victory beer, it certainly will be”
Yorkshire Evening Post - Friday 02 January 1953, page 10.

I’m sure it was stronger than anything they had brewed for a long while.

Next time: another Yorkshire Coronation Ale.

John Smiths beers 1960 - 1967

This is a totally unscheduled post. Something that sort of created itself out of a Facebook conversation.

It started when someone posted this John Smiths price list from 1971:

I remembered that I had a wealth of analyses of John Smiths beers from the Whitbread Gravity Book.

John Smiths beers 1960 - 1967
Year	Beer	Style	Price	size	package	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1960	Pale Ale (sold in Belgium)	Pale Ale			bottled	1055.5	1013.7	5.22	75.32%	17
1961	Golden Keg Ale	Pale Ale	22d to 24d	pint	draught	1039.1	1009	3.76	76.98%	19
1964	Double Brown	Brown Ale	24d	pint	bottled	1047.3	1016.7	3.82	64.69%	80
1964	Milk Maid Stout	Stout	16.5d	half pint	bottled	1042.2	1022.2	2.50	47.39%	325
1964	Golden Keg	Pale Ale	24d	pint	draught	1039.1	1009.4	3.71	75.96%	23
1964	Draught Magnet	Pale Ale	20d	pint	draught	1043	1007.4	4.45	82.79%	35
1964	Bitter	Pale Ale	18d	pint	draught	1038.3	1007.6	3.84	80.16%	23
1964	Mild Ale	Mild	15d	pint	draught	1030.9	1008.5	2.80	72.49%	30
1964	Magnet Pale Ale	Pale Ale	14.5d	half pint	bottled	1043.5	1007.2	4.54	83.45%	16
1964	Light Ale	Light Ale	10.5d	half pint	bottled	1031.9	1009.6	2.79	69.91%	29
1965	Pale Ale (sold in Belgium)	Pale Ale			bottled	1056.1	1011.8	5.54	78.97%	13
1967	Magnet Pale Ale	Pale Ale	24d	pint	draught	1043.5	1008.7	4.35	80.00%	33
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.

There's a personal connection with one of these beers. Milk Maid Stout was a Warwick & Richardson brand. And the beer my Mum used to drink. The label appers prominently on the cover of  The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer.

There's not a huge difference between the prices in the two lists. Take Golden, for example. 24d = 10p, meaning it had gone up 4p between 1964 and 1971. But that would soon change. The early 1970's were a time of high inflation.

That's it. Just a pile of random crap. Oh, except one last thing. Golden and Bitter were probably the same beer. Note how much worse value the keg beer is.