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Thread: Yet another list

  1. #361
    Fully paid up beer belly Farway's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oldboots View Post
    The Sun was a dump of a Courage pub if I recall correctly,.
    You recall correctly, pre M3 days it was just another roadside pub serving mediocre pints + bag of Smith's crisps with blue salt bag and perhaps dried up cheese roll if lucky, drinkers & travellers had no choice really, especially as in the area every pub just about was Courage, brewery at Alton as I recall, with the hop fields nearby
    I drink to make others more interesting

  2. #362
    Old & Bitter oldboots's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Farway View Post
    You recall correctly, pre M3 days it was just another roadside pub serving mediocre pints + bag of Smith's crisps with blue salt bag and perhaps dried up cheese roll if lucky, drinkers & travellers had no choice really, especially as in the area every pub just about was Courage, brewery at Alton as I recall, with the hop fields nearby
    Apologies for the thread drift but....

    The brewery at Alton stopped brewing in the early 1970s I believe, it was the original home of Alton Directors Bitter (ADB) later shortened to Directors Bitter when it was brewed at Southwark (which shut in the late 1970s) then moved on to the ex-Georges of Bristol brewery. The Courage Best round Hampshire was brewed at the ex-Simonds brewery in Reading then that also moved to Bristol when they shut Reading. Worton Grange by the M4 never brewed a drop of cask, some might say it never brewed any beer

    Further south it was all Whitbread from either Strongs or Brickwoods, sadly Gales only had 90 odd pubs so was harder to track down before that got ruined about 1980 (long before Fullers).

    I actually quite liked the Courage Best from Reading and the Directors from London, the Bristol stuff was awful and was probably a result of watering down a high gravity brew to make both BB and ADB after fermentation in tall, thin cylidrical tanks. I also remember a fawning article about the Bristol brewery at that time in What's Brewing which showed how much Camra knew about beer, another case of "as long as it's out a handpump all's well"

    I'll get me coat....

  3. #363
    Still about Mobyduck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oldboots View Post

    I actually quite liked the Courage Best from Reading

    I'll get me coat....
    I cut my drinking teeth (), drinking Reading brewed Courage Best, it took a major downturn when it moved to Bristol,I try not to go anywhere near it now despite it still being a mainstay in my local, a former Simmonds pub (before my time).
    "Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
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  4. #364
    This Space For Hire Aqualung's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oldboots View Post

    The brewery at Alton stopped brewing in the early 1970s I believe, it was the original home of Alton Directors Bitter (ADB) later shortened to Directors Bitter when it was brewed at Southwark (which shut in the late 1970s) then moved on to the ex-Georges of Bristol brewery.

    1970 according to my Ancient Tome, too early for me to have known about it! It doesn't mention the closure of Southwark.

    Quote Originally Posted by oldboots View Post
    Sadly Gales only had 90 odd pubs so was harder to track down before that got ruined about 1980 (long before Fullers).
    It was closer to 130 before they sold out to Fuller's. I've just checked the 1992 GBG and it says 150! I did make a half hearted attempt at doing their pubs. I think I got to about 50.
    I was never aware of it being "ruined" in 1980, although it was often said that the brewery was falling to bits.

  5. #365
    Old & Bitter oldboots's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Aqualung View Post
    1970 according to my Ancient Tome, too early for me to have known about it! It doesn't mention the closure of Southwark.
    Known variously as Anchor Brewery (or brewhouse), Butlers Wharf, Horsleydown, Bermondsey or Southwark, it closed in 1981.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aqualung View Post
    It was closer to 130 before they sold out to Fuller's. I've just checked the 1992 GBG and it says 150! I did make a half hearted attempt at doing their pubs. I think I got to about 50.
    The 130 pubs was presumably after the pub swap with Bass, I have an old advertising map they issued about 1977 listing 96 pubs, Frank Ballie (1974) says 88 mostly along the A3.

    Quote Originally Posted by Aqualung View Post
    I was never aware of it being "ruined" in 1980, although it was often said that the brewery was falling to bits.
    In 1979/1980 Gales swapped from whole hops to pellets and the beer was never the same afterwards.

  6. #366
    This Space For Hire Aqualung's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oldboots View Post
    Known variously as Anchor Brewery (or brewhouse), Butlers Wharf, Horsleydown, Bermondsey or Southwark, it closed in 1981.
    I remember it now! I was looking at Barclay Perkins.

    Quote Originally Posted by oldboots View Post

    The 130 pubs was presumably after the pub swap with Bass, I have an old advertising map they issued about 1977 listing 96 pubs, Frank Ballie (1974) says 88 mostly along the A3.
    It says in the 1992 guide that they increased their estate the previous year by over 50 with bulk sales from Allied and Whitbread.
    I'm not sure that their pubs in Brighton (Basketmakers and Prestonville) were their original pubs but I'm sure they preceded any mass expansion (I would guess late seventies).

    Quote Originally Posted by oldboots View Post

    In 1979/1980 Gales swapped from whole hops to pellets and the beer was never the same afterwards.
    Fullers were using hop pellets around about that time as a brewery visit there was the first time I'd seen them. I don't recall an outcry against them but maybe there was!

  7. #367
    Pub researcher (unpaid) rpadam's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mobyduck View Post
    I cut my drinking teeth (), drinking Reading brewed Courage Best, it took a major downturn when it moved to Bristol,I try not to go anywhere near it now despite it still being a mainstay in my local, a former Simmonds pub (before my time).
    ...and now brewed in Bedford by Charles Wells?

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpadam View Post
    ...and now brewed in Bedford by Charles Wells?
    Even worse.
    "Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
    -W.C.Fields

  9. #369
    Spritzer Swallower Moonraker's Avatar
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    Courage (Reading) Best Bitter was a great pint. I never knew the A in ADB stood for Directors! I always thought it stood for A Directors Bitter. The Sun might have been a dump, but I find it rather appealing!

    I had no idea Charles Wells now brewed Best. The Haunch of Venison in Salisbury sells it and I still find it a pleasant pint.
    Nigel Rowe

  10. #370
    This Space For Hire Wittenden's Avatar
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    I was brought up on Courage-must have been from Southwark, as the old Style and Winch brewery was a bottling stores.Never too keen on it, a third behind Sheps-good then- and Fremlins. When all three pubs in the village were all Courage and all keg, I quite liked PBA , a light mild. Dunno where they brewed it.
    "At that moment I would have given a kingdom, not for champagne or hock and soda, or hot coffee but for a glass of beer" Marquess Curzon of Kedlestone, Viceroy of India.

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