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Fullers to exit the brewing industry.

Britain's oldest brewery? Never keen on shep nor strong ales, just a plain, ordinary best. Another fave would be landlord or Harvey's best.
 
May I respectfully suggest you get yourself down to the Hogs Back Brewery ( Tongham , I think) and try a pint of tea. It's quite drinkable.

:)

do they still do hop garden gold? not seen it around for a while (although asking for a 'hogs back hop garden gold' when you've had a few is not so easy...)
 
Went on a tour of the old youngs brewery back in the early 90s. They said they used horses to deliver locally as it was cheaper than lorry and just as quick due to the traffic. So there was an economic reason for it too. They had ducks and rams in there too , well cool place , sad its gone now.
 
Went on a tour of the old youngs brewery back in the early 90s. They said they used horses to deliver locally as it was cheaper than lorry and just as quick due to the traffic. So there was an economic reason for it too. They had ducks and rams in there too , well cool place , sad its gone now.

The the traffic was only bad cos some fucker was crawling up Battersea Rise with a horse and cart laden with kegs...
 
Bastards; I never got to go round the brewery, though I can proudly say Sir John Young sent me some money when I ran a nearby sheltered scheme.
The brewery tap is still there but no longer open; I have no idea what is going to happen to it. I drank in there once with the floor covered in drip trays
as there were leaks from the brewery above.
 
They could have done far worse than Asahi. As a very occasional lager drinker they make a decent pint. The uk version is made by shepherds neame so dont know what is going to happen to that version. Sambrooks is without doubt one of the best largish scale london outfits at the mo. Obviously fullers is on a far larger scale. The real challenge is keeping the quality up at that scale and not cutting corners as has happened with Bass etc. Doom Bar have managed to do it so hopefully fullers will still manage. HSB in conditioned bottles is still a dream...
 
No, not Doombar; yuk!
Green King are a brewers who appear to have taken over the world with their pubs; if anything there are more Greene King places than spoons.
They have and manage some great places like the George in Borough High Street :);):cool:
 
No, not Doombar; yuk!
Green King are a brewers who appear to have taken over the world with their pubs; if anything there are more Greene King places than spoons.
They have and manage some great places like the George in Borough High Street :);):cool:
I rarely drink the doom but it is a good pint..... Green King IPA does really well considering its low ABV. Landlord is one of the best in terms of relatively low ABV and excellent finish. Currently finishing off a 5 litre keg of Budvar bought for 10.99 from waitrose...
 
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No, not Doombar; yuk!

festivaldeb and I permanently boycott Doombar :mad: -- bland, boring, and infuriatingly ubiquitous, in our view :(

We actively seek out ESB -- very rarely seen here in South Wales, but an amazing pint :) :) :cool: ... can only hope that Asahi don't fuck about with either the recipe or the brewing location :hmm:

I always respected/liked Fullers and its beers much more than I liked Youngs even in its Wandsworth days (I do agree that Sambrooks is a fine replacement though).

But weirdly, after Fullers took over Gales and shut doen the Hampshire Gales brewery ( :mad: ), the once-classic Gales HSB deteriorated badly IMO ....
 
We boycott Greene King products too -- I never liked Abbott for some reason, and GK IPA is even blander than Doombar, if that's possible .... :confused:
Really? I think Abbott and GK IPA are fine drops with the flavour of much stronger beers. GK IPA I'd put up there with Tim Taylors Landlord in terms of a good session ale, and now that Greene King have Morland and brew Old Speckled Hen, I'd say they have a better stable than Fullers, who are only saved by LP and ESB.
 
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Really? I think Abbott and GK IPA are fine drops with flavour of much stronger beers. GK IPA I'd put up there with Tim Taylors Landlord in terms of a good session ale, and now that Greene King have Morland and brew Old Speckled Hen, I'd say they have a better stable than Fullers, who are only saved by LP and ESB.
Nah, you can keep all that insipid East Anglian pelt, and you forgot one of Fuller's finest...

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Fuller’s are ok, I’d never go out of my way to track them down though. The brewers I never got on with are Sam Smiths, never liked their stuff.

Young’s in Bedford alongside Charles Well’s Eagle brewery meant that we kept our brewery. It’s on the original Victorian site and, despite being next to the river, has its own three mile long pipe bringing spring water across town from the hills on the side of the slough of despond. Eagle is a decent pint, but you don’t see it much away from their footprint, and their pubs tend to be very nice if a bit ‘Farrow and Ball’ They do an excellent tour with samples at the end and to take home which far exceed the price of the tour.

Charles Wells did build a new bottling plant on an edge of town industrial estate after the Young’s merger. But we did lose Red Stripe, which was made here until 2014. They make Kirin here, another Japanese larger, which in slightly prefer to Ashai- though I like both. Interestingly (?) Charles Wells are the distributors for Estrella, which is an ok lager in my opinion, but that is still all made in Barcelona and imported.
 
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festivaldeb and I permanently boycott Doombar :mad: -- bland, boring, and infuriatingly ubiquitous, in our view :(
I will go with the majority on this one. Have to admit I last drank it quite a few years ago in a pub where it was the only cask and was pleasently suprised. I dare say if you regularly drank in a pub where it wss the only cask you would start to get pissed off. Interesting about GK Abbotts being a bit of a marmite beer. Has never agreed with me although the reserve is a good drink if you chance upon it. Better than the Fullers vintage imho. Although the fullers 8.5 ABV golden is well worth it on cask if chanced upon.

(meanders into some real ale mumbling corner for a while.)
 
I saw some Brains SA for sale in Nottingham recently. I didn't think it travelled past Newport :eek:

SA is pretty poor (IMO) these days even in Cardiff!! :D

If you want a decent Welsh pint, look out for beers from either Greytrees (Aberdare) or Heavy Industry (Flintshire). Their beers are probably (?) not at all easy to find outside Wales, but both are well worth trying if you get lucky :)
 
SA is pretty poor (IMO) these days even in Cardiff!! :D

If you want a decent Welsh pint, look out for beers from either Greytrees (Aberdare) or Heavy Industry (Flintshire). Their beers are probably (?) not at all easy to find outside Wales, but both are well worth trying if you get lucky :)
One (amongst many) reason(s) to go to Green Man...the Courtyard bar.
 
Off to Sainsbury's now to start stockpiling.
Asda & Tesco's are still operating the 4 for £6 pricing AFAIK (Morrison's recently dropped it:mad:) but around me Sainsburys are absolute pants with £1.75/£1.85 per bott the norm...thieving fuckers.
 
Interesting about GK Abbotts being a bit of a marmite beer. Has never agreed with me although the reserve is a good drink if you chance upon it. Better than the Fullers vintage imho.

Spymaster : we're just going to have to agree to differ about Greene King, I can't ever be doing with them :hmm:

I’ve always found all of their beers a little bit ‘soapy’.

I have a theory that certain beers are like coriander in that different people are genetically disposed to tasting them completely differently. I honestly can't understand why any cask beer drinker wouldn't like Abbott, and I can even enjoy a couple of pints of Doom Bar.

It's sour, over-hopped, stuff that gets my goat; Shepherd Neame are a frequent offender here although Spitfire's ok. Fortunately over the last 20 or so years it seems that the fizz-piss makers have wrestled the over-hopping baton from the cask outfits so it's easier to avoid. Everything produced by Camden Town Brewery, for example, tastes to me like it's made of lemons.
 
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