On leaving the bar, I felt a strong blow to the back of my head. Turning round, I discovered it was the pavement
I've had all of them over the years. Gold Label used to be really strong, 10% I believe. The last time I looked at in Tesco it was much weaker in fact Ratebeer has it as 7.5% so it's not even a barley wine.
I've had Gales Prize Old Ale on cask. There was a beer festival in Bristol called the Great Western which had a stall run by CAMRA members with two 18 gallon casks. One was Prize Old Ale and the other was an even stronger dark beer from Smiles brewery. I seem to recall the whole thing became disorderly.
I have had Courage Imperial stout at the Berlin beer fest but it was brewed in Latvia so cant tick it.Rocket fuel as far as I can remember.
At college in the early seventies we discovered that the nearby Marlborough Arms sold it so occasionally we would go there after the SU bar closed (14:00) to have some before closing (15:00 I think). It was rocket fuel and always had shambolic or disastrous results.
In later years the "thinking man's black and tan" was invented which was a pint of Directors with a nip guzzled out of it and topped up with IS.
Shambolic days!
It's interesting that he included Whitbread Gold Label rather than Bass No. 1, which I much preferred, although I suppose it all comes down to taste.
I also vaguely remember a bout of laryngitis for which I found the only cure was Courage Imperial Russian. Trouble was after a few you couldn't speak anyway...
On leaving the bar, I felt a strong blow to the back of my head. Turning round, I discovered it was the pavement
I've drunk them all, ESB and FES are possibly the only ones still available in a similar form to 1982.
I may be wrong but I don't think Courage (Barclay Perkins) Imperial Russian Stout has been brewed for about 14 years so no chance of tasting a newish bottle now. I used to be addicted to the stuff and a friend at Bristol University used to buy it by the crate, the picture shows my second last bottle (still full) of IRS, my last remaining Hardy Ale, my last Prize Old Ale "corker" plus a nip bottle of Guinness possibly bottled for an hospital (and it's a bottle conditioned version).
Harveys make an Imperial Russian Stout I believe to Albert Le Coq's receipe and it tastes to me very like the Barclay Perkins version.
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