More Mablethorpe memories

There were two Bass Charrington pubs in town. The Eagle, a substantial detached Victorian building a bit outside the centre. I went in there at least once with my brother. Pretty sure they had no cask. As it’s the one and only time I drank Bass No. 1.

Just down the road, towards the seafront, was a rather good chippy. With an attached fish restaurant. A place where they served the chippy food, but on china with proper cutlery, accompanied by white sliced bread spread thinly with margarine and mugs of tea. It’s the only type of restaurant I’d eaten in before going to university.

The other Bass house was on the High Street. The Book in Hand. A pub whose narrow frontage shouted: fuck off, you’re not welcome. Just looking at it, you knew the atmosphere was shit, the beer was shit, the people were shit. They’d think you were a little shit and quite possibly kick the shit out of you.

I never visited it, oddly.

My memories are of walking past and being met by a waft of warm air. Caressing on the cheek but a frontal assault on the nose. A mixture of stale beer, fag smoke and other assorted odours I don’t care to think about too much. OK, it was much like any pub smelt at the time. Just in a more concentrated form. Perhaps on account of the narrow frontage not offering the foul air many routes of escape.

Just over the road was the was the far more salubrious Louth Hotel, a large and airy Home Ales house. In their plain, no-nonsense house style. But with cask Mild and Bitter served, as almost always in Home pubs, by electric pumps. The pubs could open crazily early – 10:00. And the Louth always seemed to do a surprisingly good trade in the two hours before midday. The democratically-priced beer might have been the key.

Much to my regret, unlike Skegness, Mablethorpe had no Shipstones pub.

Looking back (part five): 1970s Pubs

The first pub I ever entered was the Mermaid Inn. On the site where we had a caravan in Mablethorpe.

It was a Tennant's house when we first got a caravan there. There was a big red illuminated sign on the roof telling me that.

Initially, it had an outdoor patio - roof but no walls - where kids were dumped. Later they wrapped walls around it to make an enclosed room. Not having a bar in it, there was no problem kids inhabiting it. But what parent would want to drink in that barren space? The moon was atmospheric in comparison.

Then they started letting kids into the lounge. Only older, well-behaved ones. Totally against the law, obviously. This was 1969 and 1970. The pub had two rooms of equal dimensions: public bar and lounge bar. The lounge wasn't particularly flash. I'm not sure it even had a carpet.

The beer was Tennant's. From Sheffield and already in the hands of Whitbread. Whose branding it would later adopt. It might still have sold cask when we first got our caravan. By the the time I squeaking inside, it was most likely bright beer. Served through those electric pump glass cylinders. Pretty sure my Dad was drinking Bitter.

Even though I visited our caravan plenty of times after hitting drinking age, I can't recall ever having an alcoholic drink in the Mermaid. Well, they didn't sell cask, did they? And Mablethorpe had a couple of perfectly serviceable Home Ales pubs. With cheap cask. Why would I go anywhere else? 

The Mermaid Inn
Seaholme Rd,
Mablethorpe LN12 2NX,
United Kingdom

(No longer open.)

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1956 Tennant's Best Bitter

The mid-1950’s was a good time for British beer. Production was edging up a little and more stronger beers were available.

Tennant’s Best Bitter is an example of a stronger type of Pale Ale that was introduced around this time by many breweries. Relative to the watery stuff that was around in the immediate post-war period, it’s quite potent stuff. A high degree of attenuation leaves it with 4.3% ABV. Not bad for the time.

There are only two malts in the grist, one of which is a small quantity of enzymic malt, which is really just a special type of pale malt. The original contained four types of sugar, in addition to the No. 2 invert and lactose, there was SBS and CWA. I’ve substituted more No. invert for these.

The lactose is a bit of a surprise. I have seen it used in styles of beer other than Milk Stout -  Scotch Ale, Mild and Brown Ale – but never in a Bitter before. I’m not sure what purpose it’s serving as the quantity is pretty small. And the degree of attenuation is high.

The copper hops were Kent Fuggles (1954), Worcester Fuggles (1954) and Kent Goldings (1955) with Kent Goldings (1954) as dry hops. Tennant are one of the nice breweries that bothered to list the hop varieties. It takes out the guesswork.

It’s odd to think that this is a beer that my dad might have drunk. The pub on our caravan site was tied to Tennant. And he was a Bitter drinker. They had those horizontal measure half pint electric pumps that were popular in the North. Which were probably dispensing bright beer rather than cask when he was drinking there in the mid-1960s.

1956 Tennant's Best Bitter
pale malt	6.00 lb	70.88%
enzymic malt	0.25 lb	2.95%
flaked maize	1.00 lb	11.81%
No. 2 invert sugar	1.00 lb	11.81%
lactose	0.09 lb	1.06%
malt extract	0.125 lb	1.48%
Fuggles 95 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 40 mins	0.375 oz
Goldings 20 mins	0.375 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1040
FG	1007.5
ABV	4.30
Apparent attenuation	81.25%
IBU	20
SRM	6
Mash at	146º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	95 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1972 Whitbread Gold Label

Today is a very special day. Not because it's Christmas, but because I'm finally publishing a recipe for a beer that's fascinated and intoxicated me for years: Whitbread Gold Label.

Though that isn't the name it started out with. It was originally brewed by Tennant in Sheffield, who were later taken over by Whitbread. When introduced in the 1950's, it was something of a sensation. Why? Because of its colour. At a time when Barley Wines were a dark shade of brown, Gold Label was, er, golden. Or at least a pale amber. About the colour of Bitter.

The Mermaid, the pub on the caravan site in Mablethorpe where I spent most summer weekends as a child was a Tennant's pub. Come to think of it, probably the first pub I went in. They used to allow children in the lounge, something not exactly legal at the time. I can remember they had horizontal cylinder diaphragm electric pumps. Something that was pretty common in the Midlands in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Was it cask or bright beer they dispensed? No idea, I'm afraid.

The Mermaid must have sold Gold Label. Funnily enough I can remember drinking another Barley Wine in Mablethorpe: Bass No. 1. In a Bass pub whose name escapes me. It's now closed, so it doesn't really matter.

"Strong as a double scotch less than half the price." was a slogan I can remember seeing on posters as a teenager. They wouldn't get away with that now. It certainly got my attention as a 14 year old. Sounded like the perfect drink.

Sadly, the ABV has been dropped and Gold Label is only available in cans.  Do you know what it reminds me of? A strong, early 19th-century Mild. Something like an XXX Ale or XXXX Ale.

You can't believe how excited I was when I first spotted it in the Chiswell Street brewing records. They must have been churning out a lot of it in the early 1970's because I believe that Whitbread made it in more than one brewery. They brewed it reasonably frequently at Chiswell Street and it decent-sized batches of around 350 barrels.

Let's have a look at the beer itself. By the early 1970's Whitbread had gone all proprietary in the their sugars. In Gold Label it was SLS, a sugar not used in any of their other beers. What was it? No idea, really. It could stand for "Special Liquid Syrup". Not that that really helps much in working out what it was like. Kristen has gone for a combination of No. 1 and No. 2 invert, which looks like a pretty good guess to me.

The hopping is interesting. All the examples I have contain Styrian hops and all but one Hallertau. Styrian hops turn in many of their beers, but only one other beer used Hallertau: Brewmaster. The thing that looks quite like a Lager. Taking into account the hop extract, I make the total weight a little more than Kristen, about 5.5 ozs in all.

I think it's actually pilsner malt that Whitbread used. A bit tricky to tell for sure as they mostly used funny abbreviations, in this case FPM. It's a malt that was only in two of their beers, Gold Label and Brewmaster. I've guessed that FPM is pilsner because on one of the logs for Brewmaster it's specified as pilsner.





That's me done, over to Kristen . . . . .

Kristen’s Version:

Notes: This beer really did change my life. Heading to my cousins wedding in ??? I took the boat from Calais to Dover. Sat in Dover harbor getting turned into a milkshake for 3 hours because it was to rough to dock. Feeling queasy I made it to the train and was out of sorts, which is unusual traveling for me. Then the old drunken git gave me a gob of something magical. I don’t mean magical in the sense that it was amazingly ‘good’. I mean that it was something I had never had before…something so different it made me question everything I ‘knew’ about beer. Plus, what looks cooler than luggin around a jar of Gold Label. “Hey ladies, yeah, Gold Label, that’s right, you know I’m classy.” It wasn’t until later I was told it was plonk for the drunkards…I still like it.

Malt: A single pale malt of your choice. I’d choose Optic or something meaty for this baby for sure. A decent amount of maize is used that would be missed if you left it out. The sugar is another blend of some sort so I used a combination of #1 and #2 invert to get the SRM listed in the log by using the percent sugar and their colors.

Hops: Lots of German and Austrian hops. Pretty sweet. Goldings work really well for bittering in that you’ve got to use a good amount of them and will get the greenery that’s required from low alpha hops IMO.

Yeast: Whitbread yeast. Two choices. Wyeast 1098 (more tart and dry) or Wyeast 1099/Safale S04 (more fruity and malty). Which ever you’ve done before, do the other.

Sundries: This beer is a Christmas beer if I’ve ever seen one. One you can get proper pissed with…Familial obligations be damned…you’re not running for Jesus anyway…

Cask: Standard procedure:
1) let the beer ferment until finished and then give it another day or so. For me right around 5-7 days.
2) Rack the beer to your vessel of choice (firkin, polypin, cornie, whatever).
3) Add primings at ~3.5g/L
4) Add prepared isinglass at 1ml/L
5) ONLY add dry hops at 0.25g/l – 1g/L.
6) Bung it up and roll it around to mix. Condition at 55F or so for 4-5 days and its ready to go. Spile/vent. Tap. Settle. Serve at 55F.

The Lancet and Bass's Barley Wine

Bass No. 1 Ale, the original Barley Wine, is a remarkable beer for many reasons. If only because it's still clinging on by a thread. Another top-class brand that's been abused and neglected by its owners over the last 50 years.

I love the way medical men used to recommend booze to their patients. Even during Prohibition "medicinal" whiskey was available on prescription. This isn't quite as bad as that, but it's still odd recommending a beer of 10% ABV for health reasons.

THE "LANCET" AND "BASS' BARLEY WINE."
The beer known "Bass' No. 1 Barley Wine," which the medical profession are now recommending as a sustaining and nourishing food-beverage for the winter months, and for such persons as need a safe pure malt liqueur, is mentioned the pages the '"Lancet" of the 23rd January. After giving the figures arrived at by the able chemists who conduct the analyses for the journal, the following interesting comment is appended. - "It cannot be doubted, therefore, that the beer possesses a decidedly nourishing value, and more so than many so-called nourishing stouts which have examined. The beer was in excellent condition, free from hardness or acidity, and from excess of gas. It a very palatable malt liquor, having an attractively rich malty flavour." We understand that Bass and Co. guarantee that this "No. 1 Barley Wine," like their Pale Ale, is brewed solely from malt and hops, and of the best that can be procured.
Aberdeen Journal - Saturday 13 February 1909, page 3.

I wouldn't be doing my job if I couldn't come up with some numbers to match the newspaper article. And they demonstrate something very unusual about Bass No. 1. Its gravity didn't drop across the two World Wars. That's only true of a small number of very strong beers, for example Barclay Perkins/Courage Russian Stout.

Bass No. 1 1870 - 1953
Year	Beer	Price	size	package	Acidity	FG	OG	colour	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1870	Barley Wine	5d	pint	draught	0.23	1032.3	1114.8		10.84	71.85%
1879	No. 1		pint	bottled		1029	1104		9.83	72.12%
1896	Strong Ale				0.288	1034.9	1101.9		8.56	63.64%
1921	No. 1		pint	bottled		1032	1094		8.06	65.96%
1927	No. 1 Barley Wine		pint	bottled		1035	1105	70	9.13	66.67%
1935	Barley Wine		halfpint	bottled	0.07	1023.3	1109		11.32	78.62%
1952	Barley Wine	21.5d	nip	bottled	0.08	1035.6	1104.1	10 + 40	8.93	65.80%
1953	Barley Wine	20d	nip	bottled	0.08	1036.3	1104.6	10 + 40	8.90	65.30%
Sources:
British Medical Journal 1870, vol. 1, 1870, page 68.
Wahl & Henius, pages 823-830
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11
Younger, Wm. & Co Gravity Book document WY/6/1/1/19 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002

I can remember drinking Bass No. 1 way, way back in the 1970's in a Bass tied house in Mablethorpe. I can't remember much about it. Though I seem to recall it being amber rather than dark brown. Could be my memory playing tricks.

the English are the greatest beer-drinking people in the world

It wasn't me who said that, but an American visitor to London in the 1860's. As you'll see in a moment.

Yes, I've been down the Golden Cockerel allotment again and picked me a few veg. Not sure if they're cabbage or carrots. See what you think:

"IT IS AN UNDENIABLE FACT that the English are the greatest beer-drinking people in the world. The assertion may be disputed in favour of the Germans but who can compare the thin resinous beer of Munich and Vienna with the heavy bodied, soporific, and sinewy London Ale, Edinburgh Ale, or Guinness Brown Stout.

To believe in his native beer is a necessary part of the Englishman's religion. English literature and English poetry are full of beer and redolent of malt and hops, from Chaucer and Shakespeare down to the present day. Tom Jones, Roderick Random, the Spectator, the Tatler, the Guardian, Fielding, Hume, Smollett, Pope, Addison, Dryden, Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson, never let slip a chance to prove the virtues and efficacy of beer, and 'Alf and 'Alf.

Barclay and Perkins, the brewers, employ a capital of £2,000,000 annually in their trade and 300 huge horses, brought from Flanders, at a cost of from £60 to £100 each. There are five partners in the house; the firm being worth £8,000,000, and the head brewer receives a salary of £2,000 a year.

The water used for brewing purposes is that of the Thames, pumped by a steam engine, on the same ground where Shakespeare's Globe Theatre stood three hundred years ago. One hundred and fifty thousand gallons of beer can be brewed from this water, daily, The malt is carried from barges at the riverside, by porters, and deposited in enormous bins, each of the height and depth of a three-storey house. Rats are fond of malt, but to keep them off a staff of sixty large cats are constantly employed on the premises and all these cats are under the supervision of a big-headed or chief cat, with a long moustache and Angola blood.

It is quite a sight to witness the anxious solicitude of this Chief Cat for the honour ofthe house of Barclay and Perkins, and for the discipline of his subordinate cats, the chief being a Thomas of the purest breed. In London it is calculated that about 6,500,000 barrels of ale, beer, and porter, are brewed annually, valued at about £20,000,000, and I think I am therefore correct in calling the English a beer-drinking people.

Everybody drinks beer in London. You can see labourers and dockmen sitting on benches outside of public houses, swilling what they call swipes, at two pence a pot. So if you drink at a Club you will see men as eminent as Mr. Bright, or Mr. Disraeli, calling for a 'pint of Bass' East India Ale' or 'a bottle of Stout' Even in workhouses beer is kept on tap and were the paupers to be deprived of their beer, they would, I believe, rise and annihilate their masters. A quart bottle of good beer or porter can be got anywhere in London for sixpence, and of all the beverages that I have ever tasted, I never found anything to equal in fragrance a drink of good London 'Brown Stout' on a warm summer day. A man may procure as much good beer as he can drink at a draught, for three pence, in London, at any public house or restaurant, and it is the common custom with the Cockneys to have it at every meal, and also between meals.

They have also a fashion in large parties among the working and middle classes, of ordering what is called a 'Queen Ann,' which is simply three pints of beer in a large, brightly burnished metal pot with a handle, and the man who calls for it having paid, takes a drink, then wipes the edges of the pot with the cuff of his coat-sleeve, to remove the foam from his lips—then passes it to his wife, sweetheart or his eldest child, who each in turn drink and wipe the edge of the measure; then it is passed to the stranger, and all around the board, each person being careful to wipe the 'pewter' in the same fashion. This custom seems rather strange and savage at the first sight to an American, but it is the custom of the country, and therefore cannot be quarrelled with.

Any foreigner passing through a London street which is inhabited by working men and their families, or in the neighbourhood of factories between twelve and one o'clock, or just after twelve, cannot fail to notice a sudden commotion and rush of adults and half naked children with jugs to the neighbouring beerhouses. All this large multitude are in quest of beer for the noon-day meal.

At noon and night the pot boys of the innumerable beer-shops may be seen carrying out die quarts and pints daily received by those families who do not choose to lay in a stock or store of their own beer, or the mothers and children of the same families, to whom the half-penny given to the pot boy is a matter of consequence, may be seen journeying to the beer-conduits themselves, and the drinking goes on from morning until night, among truckmen, coal heavers, street pavers, mechanics in the 'skittle grounds,' medical students in the hospitals, law students in the Inns of Court, and 'swells' in taverns.

From the gray of die morning until the hour of dark, you may see in the London streets those large drays, larger horses, huge draymen, and large casks of beer, ever present and never absent from the Londoner's eyes. Go down to the Strand, and you will see the same drays and Flemish horses emerging from the huge brewery gates, preparatory to carrying barrels of beer to tap-houses, and nine-gallon casks, the weekly allowance of a private London family to dwellinghouses.

A competent authority has estimated that each and every inhabitant of London wall drink, averaging young and old — 80 gallons of beer in the year. The population is 3,500,000. Therefore, Great is Beer, and Barclay and Perkins are its prophets.


An extract from 'Palace and Hovel' by Daniel Joseph Kirwan, by courtesy of the publishers, Abelard-Schuman Ltd., published at 21s. net."
"Golden Cockerel Vol.3 No.8 Summer 1964", pages 4 - 5. (The original book 'Palace and Hovel' by Daniel Joseph Kirwan, published 1870, pages 337 - 343.)

Love those old company propaganda mags. You should see the features about new pubs. Celebrations of formica and plywood.

I remember places like that. The Mermaid on our caravan site in Mablethorpe. A Tennant's pub. Looked just like the ones in the Golden Cockerel. Except it had electric metered pumps. The horizontal glass cylinder type. The Courage pubs, funnily enough, mostly featured rather natty counter-mounted sets of handpumps. Proper three-stumped wickets.

He's not right about Thames water being used for brewing, of course. They couldn't have used that filthy stuff. New River water or wells. That's what they really used.

"I never found anything to equal in fragrance a drink of good London 'Brown Stout' on a warm summer day." Well said, mate. Hot weather, strong Stout, marriage made in heaven. Good to have the support of the 19th century on that one.

A potato shaped like Charles de Gaulle's head. That'll be me next vegetable garden special.