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02-06-2017, 08:08
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David Bardallis (@allthebrews (https://twitter.com/allthebrews)) at*All The Brews Fit to Pint is hosting this month and the topic is*‘favourite beers that are no longer in production but you still pine for (http://www.annarborbeer.com/2017/06/the-session-124-late-lamented-loves.html)’.
This was a fun subject to chew over in the pub last night. The first beer that came to mind was local brewery*St Austell’s short-lived 1913 stout (http://boakandbailey.com/2012/10/stout-as-spacetime-anomaly/). Strong by cask ale standards and historically-inspired it unfortunately didn’t sell and slowly morphed into Mena Dhu — still great but a much tamer product. We’d go out of our way for a pint of 1913 which isn’t something we can say of many beers.
Another one that we always loved is Chiswick (http://refreshingbeer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/ill-have-chiswick-please.html), Fuller’s light, bracing ordinary bitter. It’s become a seasonal which probably means it will disappear altogether before long, like Hock, the same brewery’s lesser-spotted mild, which we did get to try once or twice but haven’t seen since 2009 (http://boakandbailey.com/2009/03/fullers-hock/).
https://i2.wp.com/boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/sainsburys_meantime.jpg?resize=650%2C663From 2004. SOURCE: Justin Mason (@1970sBOY (https://twitter.com/1970sBOY))We also thought fondly of the bottled beers Meantime brewed for Sainsbury’s in the early 2000s. Were they great beers? It’s hard for us to say with all these years passed. We certainly enjoyed them, though, a lot, time and again (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/what-meantime-means-to-us/). When we were just feeling our way into becoming beer geeks they made it cheap and easy to try examples of obscure European styles such as Vienna lager and Kölsch. They were fun, too — 330ml bottles designed for pouring into fancy glassware but also perfect for taking to barbecues and parties, when we still did that kind of thing.
Another Meantime brew we pine for is Golden Beer which we first tried in about 2003 and loved so much we went back to the brewery’s pub in Greenwich multiple times just to drink it. We didn’t know enough about beer then to really understand what we were drinking, and certainly didn’t take notes, but we*think it must have been some kind of bock. When they stopped producing it, we were confused and dismayed — perhaps the first*time we were ever made to feel emotions by a beer?
Overall, though, this was a surprisingly difficult exercise. Not many beers that we’ve loved have gone out of production. If anything, products like Goose Island IPA and BrewDog Punk — of enduring appeal rather than passing novelty — have headed the other way, towards*mass production and household name status. The market seems to be doing a pretty good job on this front.
But the next five years could be interesting with the health of beers such as Harvey’s Mild looking distinctly fragile, and breweries selling up with alarming frequency. Let’s see how we feel in 2022.
Session #124: Late, Lamented Loves (http://boakandbailey.com/2017/06/session-124-late-lamented-loves/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (http://boakandbailey.com)


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