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Many years ago, there was product called a Watney’s Party Seven. It was a giant can of bitter containing as the name suggested 7 pints. 7 pints of lovely keg bitter in a can. You don’t see them anymore. In the great bitter wars of the 70s the country was never more divided. If you think the current polarized political climate of hating an opponent is nasty, you’ve never experienced the great bitter war of the 1970s. A fight to the mortal death between advocates of cask bitter which went off quicker with that of keg bitter which lasted longer. The trouble with keg bitter is it took longer to develop that vinegary note drinkers of what they liked to call “real ale” craved. Craved to the core of their being. Father was turned against son. Beard against the clean shaven. Old against young. A neo terrorist organisation called CAMRA fought a hard dirty fight against keg bitter and it almost disappeared entirely, only to be saved by “smooth flow” One of the casualties of this long arduous fight was Watney’s and with it the party seven. Members of my generation were denied the opportunity to try a party seven and instead turned to regular normal sized cans of lager which the CAMRAs also hated but this time failed to kill as the bitter wars had burnt them out and they now preferred just being a cosy guardianesque middle class drinking club.




But the dream never quite went away. That of a large can of bitter, impractical to chill and equally impractical to neck in one go requiring a significant level of consumption as it wasn’t nicely packaged into individual portion units like regular cans of beer. The dream of an impractically large can of beer rather than box of smaller portioned cans is one that thankfully is returning. You can’t kill a dream.


The home keg lager market has been seeing draught pour options in various size formats for a number of years. A way of offering novelty whilst shifting the price out of the discount level cans and bottles often find themselves in. Something I will return to now Heineken are packaging more beers in this format.


The mini keg was purchased from the pub shop of the Stockport microbrewery Fool Hardy Ales and contains their 3.8% session bitter ravenous romp.



Precious cargo


The mini keg may not offer everything to everyone. Those liking growler refills may be disappointed to discover a microbrewery beer option that sees the beer maintain condition and not require immediate consumption before it goes stale. Price wise, what we looking at? £25 for 5 litres (So 10 500ml bottles at £2.50 each) Not outrageous but not at the cheap end. You can find cheaper decent mainstream bitter; you can find more expensive micro brewed draught beer options as per your want. Use by is a month away so it isn’t long life by any stretch, but it does offer a longer life than growler fills.


Is it real ale for those concerned with such terms? I would say it is real enough but I’m not the arbiter of such things. It is unpasteurised, uncarbonated and apparently unfined. I would guess conditioned in the brewery. I don’t think much if any secondary fermentation is occurring in the can, but the beer had all the condition you’d expect from a pint of draught beer. Real enough? Realish? To my taste buds it was no different from a pint of cask and unlike a pint of keg bitter. If you are bothered about such definitions, get a judgement off the CAMRAs about it, not me.



label, if that's what you'd like.


I already have a keg chiller for this size of can though, and while I rarely use it, lockdown has me missing the occasional pint of draught pub beer so I had a drive to the pub one sunny Saturday afternoon and I picked a keg up for a change from the usual pish I drink and dusted off the chiller. The keg came cellar cool if you did want to drink it that afternoon and the brewer manning his pub shop informed me it was immediately drinkable requiring no settling. Whilst unfined and unfiltered it had been canned brightish. Liking my beer colder I chilled it further. I am right about this and everyone that says cold ruins the taste is quite frankly wrong. Cold is better. Don’t be @ing me about it. You know in your heart I am right.


I didn’t plug it into my keg dispenser as years ago I found it worked well with the Heineken style of pressured keg but worked poorly with the unpressured variety. So, I only used it to chill it for 24 hours then I took it out of the dispenser chilled and used the tap on the side of the can. It vented a little beer onto a kitchen surface. No more than a splash. It wasn’t a spray everywhere and clean up the kitchen deal. A few dribbles of wasted beer. The beer had a similar condition you find pouring straight from a barrel you see at festivals.



Draught Pub Bitter, Lads.


But the taste? I happen to like this microbrewers beer but I’m not letting that colour my judgement. The brewery was already in my Tandleman “circle of trust”. I quite like the blonde ale they do. This beer didn’t disappoint. A cold tasty fresh pint of draught bitter. In the home. All the novelty of draught beer in a giant can. What tasting notes would you like? A solid bitterness backed by a hint of cereal. Not as malty as many mainstream bitters out there. Thirst quenching and refreshing. Moorish in a way that may have you intentionally polishing the whole can off in one go. That microbrewery taste you get with all micro brewed beer. I liked it. No noticeable off flavours. A well-made solid pint of bitter for a hot afternoon. All with the advantage of chilling slightly colder than pubs usually do because whilst they, like me, know beer is better the colder it is, the dark days of the bitter wars are remembered and the pubs are scared of the CAMRAs so all too often serve it at beard temperature.



Crack on.


Will I buy another? Depends how long this lockdown goes on for. I got it as a draught beer novelty as there’s no option of getting a draught bitter in a pub and 2 months of canned lager had me fancying a bit of a change. Next month, the pubs might come back, and I can get the occasional pint of bitter down spoons for £2.


But this pub isn’t really on my beaten track, it’s a bit out of my way, so there’s the option of buying a keg for a garden BBQ from a pub whose beer I get on with but rarely visit, so you know, if the pub continues with them I might be up for one or two now and again. Makes a change. Who can tell?





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