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13-11-2015, 17:11
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In Exeter the other week we got talking to*a bloke leaning on the bar in the pub.He told us that he goes to the pub most days because, being single and in his fifties, the alternative is an empty flat: ‘The pub is like Facebook for me.’ He told us an excellent story about being in a Glasgow pub while Shane McGowan of the Pogues held court.
Eventually, though, we got on to the subject of beer and we trotted out our usual line: that Devon’s a bit of a weird case because it doesn’t have a big trad-family-regional brewer like Adnams or Wadworth.
‘Well, there’s Heavitree,’ he replied.
Heavitree does have pubs across the city and the region, often branded ‘Heavitree Brewery’ — we saw one in Teignmouth, for example — but the firm hasn’t actually produced any beer of its own since 1970 (http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/_commercial/heavitree-brewery.php). The brewhouse was demolished ten years after that.
How could he not know this?
Which made us wonder how many people don’t realise their own ‘local’ brewery no longer exists, or is now a subsidiary of another firm (Ringwood), or a ‘zombie brand’ (Mann’s, Gale’s), or is a completely new brewery using an old one’s trademarks (Truman).
Hardcore beer geeks like us obsess over details of ownership and history but, barring the odd scandal, most people*(generalisation klaxon)*don’t, just as we don’t keep tabs on who owns which car firms these days, or which chocolate bar brands.
Do People Realise Breweries Have Gone? (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/11/do-people-realise-breweries-have-gone/) from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Over-thinking beer, pubs and the meaning of craft since 2007 (http://boakandbailey.com)


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