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30-06-2014, 09:55
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Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Writing about beer and pubs since 2007 (http://boakandbailey.com)
What can we learn from the small book*Real Ale in Devon published by the local branch of the Campaign for Real Ale in 1984?http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/real_ale_in_Devon_1984_200px.png1. It is evidence of the increasing availability of*‘real ale’ in this period.*With a hundred pages, this volume is as big as the*first edition of the national*Good Beer Guide,*published ten years earlier. The introduction notes a huge boom in the number of ‘real ale outlets’ since the*previous edition, and there 1050 listed in total.
2. Beer agencies were important players in the development of a beer geek culture.*That is, distributors (middle men) who brought interesting outside beer into the region (Samuel Smith, Wadworth, Fuller’s, Theakston) at a price. Businesses of this type still exist, notably supplying kegged beer to the emerging*‘craft beer’ market currently neglected, or misunderstood, by larger distributors.
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/sheppard_and_mason.pngNote cut-and-paste Letraset fail at bottom right… And here’s Mr Sheppard on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ExeValley).3.*Bass is an honorary West Country beer. Since veteran observer*the Pub Curmudgeon (http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.co.uk/) pointed it out to us, we’ve seen lots of evidence to support the idea that, beyond Bristol, Draught Bass was the traditional ‘premium’ alternative to poor quality locally brewed beers. This book describes it as ‘one of the commonest real ales in Devon’.
4.*It was easier to get strong dark beer than pale’n’hoppy.*There are several ‘strong winter’ ales listed, but nothing described as straw/golden coloured. Small brewers back then seem to have staked their reputations on producing heavier, headier beer than the thin, weak products turned out by big brewers. Marston’s Owd Roger old ale/barley wine had people rather excited.
5.*There were several stand-out exhibition pubs. Where most pubs in the guide hada single real ale on offer (e.g. Whitbread Bitter),*several leap out of the text with long lists. The Royal Inn at Horsebridge had nine ales, including some brewed on the premises; and the Peter Tavy at, er, Peter Tavy, has*fourteen in its listing. There are quite a few others with similar numbers, and many more with six or seven.
6.*The phrase ‘guest beers’, so important in the 1990s, was in use by this time. It is the antidote to the big brewery tied house model and an expression of a certain type of beer geekery, perhaps stimulated more by*novelty and variety than a simple ‘decent pint (http://boakandbailey.com/2013/04/the-decent-pint/)‘.
7.*We need to think a bit more about cider and its place in the ‘real ale revolution’. Devon’s CAMRA activists were evidently particularly keen to*defend and promote ‘real cider’, but, by this stage, seem to have had more success bringing beer from Yorkshire and London than in preserving the true native drinking tradition.
8.*Blackawton was the trendiest brewery in the county. It was Devon’s first microbrewery, and one of the first in the country, founded in 1977. We wonder if the presence of Blackawton beer in a pub wasn’t*a kind of Bat Signal for beer geeks, rather as a Magic Rock pump clip is today.
9. If you didn’t like Courage, Plymouth was not the city for you.*See also: Bristol.
(And a personal footnote: Bailey’s parents’ pub in Exeter sold Whitbread Bitter on hand-pump. Described as a ‘Town local’ in the text, it also, sadly, features in the addendum:*“[The] following pubs should now be deleted…”)
We’re very grateful to Neil Bowness (http://www.plain-creative.co.uk/)*(@neil_bowness (https://twitter.com/neil_bowness))*for sending us a copy of this book which he tells us his mum bought for 20p at a church fair. Bargain!
Dissecting a 1984 Local Beer Guide (http://boakandbailey.com/2014/06/dissecting-1984-local-beer-guide/)


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