IT’S made in a tiny Gosport brewery with just seven staff – but a lager that is brewed like a bitter has been crowned the top speciality beer in Britain.
Despite being fairly local not one I have come across on my forays
IT’S made in a tiny Gosport brewery with just seven staff – but a lager that is brewed like a bitter has been crowned the top speciality beer in Britain.
Despite being fairly local not one I have come across on my forays
Hondo also mentioned it on this threadOriginally Posted by Farway
I used to like Brickwoods Best, twice the strength of Red Barrel and about fifty times the flavourI even liked it after they renamed it Pompey Royal in 1977.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that Red Barrel was despite itself real ale. It all went wrong(er) when they kegified it and dropped the 'Barrel'. "Watney's Red, the best thing you've said."
I was using a Grottny's pub-the Firs on the Cromer road in Norwich- in Autumn 1972 The (fizzy) offerings were Watneys Norwich Mild and Bitter, Watneys Special Mild and Watneys Red Barrel. All in keg. RB was too dear for us
at 14 0r 15p/pint. MILD was 12p. Bliss.
"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.
According to this it was keg in the Thirties.
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Perhaps the most well known beer of the 60s and 70s, the much maligned Watneys Red Barrel, can trace its origins back to the 30s; in fact Watneys claimed 1931. Red Barrel was originally developed as an export beer that could be transported for long distances by sea.
Red Barrel, like all keg bitter, was filtered, to remove the yeast. It was then pasteurised and carbon dioxide was added. The "keg" was linked to a tank of carbon dioxide which effectively forced the beer up from the cellar. There was no need for the traditional long-handled beer pump. Keg was usually served chilled and was fizzy, with froth on the top.
Red Barrel was tentatively trialled at the East Sheen Lawn Tennis Club where Watneys' Master Brewer, Bert Hussey, was a member. He was convinced that once sampled it would be instantly popular. By the early sixties, Watneys were able to claim that it was the country's most popular keg bitter. It was also the first.
A pub is for life not just for Christmas
I car'nt ever remember Red barrel being in real form and the same goes for Norwich bitter which we drank loads of in Great Yarmouth in the early 80s.
On the subject of Fizzy beers up our way the worst culprit was Ansells their electric dispensers had a squirrel on it which warned you that the beer was going to be very fizzy.
We used to have a competition to see who could keep their tongue in the beer the longest the record was about 6 seconds because all the bubbles burnt your tongue.
The things you used to get up to in days gone by. Can't remember drinking Red Barrel although I remember the barrel, like the Worthington E that used to sit on the bar. Can't remember seeing the squirrels, although they might not have travelled up north. When I started on beer it was 1965/66 and it was all Vaux and Newcastle beers. Nimmos and then Whitbread had the brewery in Castle Eden. Can't remember any others offhand.
They had cask Worthington E at the GBBF yesterday (I got in for free!). It was very wishy-washy but did have a decent taste underneath, quite sweet.
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