Can you still get Newcastle Exhibition? Cos that was proper nice if kept right.

Coors lager. Used to be lovely. Especially with green Pringles which are also not as nice

Is there also a connection between the old days when a lot of real ale was only to be found on tap (where properly served and stored it would be great), and now where a lot are to be found in the supermarket in bottles?

This is still the case with most *varieties* of real ale (not by volume sold) you can only find them in decent pub, where they are looked after, because bottling requires a lot more money and investment.

There are now more breweries in the UK than there have been for 70 years or so, more than 1000, they supply small amounts on a very local basis, and you need to keep your eyes peeled.

Good Beer in the UK (despite punch taverns, despite, green king, despite Shepherds Neame, despite Marstons) is in a better state now than it has been in decades, and it’s something we should be thankful for.

There is stacks of crap, stacks of dull, but passable beer, but there is also stacks of excellent beer as well.

Carling Premier if anyone remembers that? Dont think you can get it now?

went down really well and it felt like someone had put an axe through your skull in the morning 😀

wrexham lager,
no hang on – it was shit,
can’t believe it’s been resurected.

Cask Speckled Hen has actually gone down in strength where bottled is still at the old strength as are others such as Adnams Broadside. I believe it was done to try to keep the price from rising too much due to excise charges for alcohol level.

Bass – can still be found good in some pubs on cask,Pedigree – even the best pubs don’t sell the same Pedi it used to be but that is cos it ain’t made the same. Courage Directors – used to be lovely in the 80 when the brewery was smaller and tended to serve a smaller area – same goes for Boddingtons.

Stella used to be nice and I don’t think it was just an age thing, I think it was when it was still being imported rather than made under license.

Old Peculiar is still ace but isn’t the mind number it was 30 years ago.

Oh Christ, Kilkenny beer. Delicious, but the hangovers nearly killed me. Pure headache in a glass

Furstenberg. Used to be me my drink of choice 20 odd years ago. It had a very distinctive taste and smell that it seems to have lost. Maybe it’s me though.

tetleys used to be the drink of choice in wakefield and leeds,
it now smells of vomit. nasty sour nondescript stuff.

Oh Christ, Kilkenny beer. Delicious, but the hangovers nearly killed me. Pure headache in a glass

I used to love that, and Caffreys.

Bass

Used to like Labatts Blue, need to hunt some out!
Edit,
Just googled it and it looks like they ruined it, down to 2.8%

Old Speckled Hen. Used to be pretty good. Now tastes grim.

And all the smooth flow beers – John Smith’s, Boddingtons, Caffrey’s. I used to like them, but they are now just insipid nonsense now.
Not sure if that’s my taste changing or the actual drinks?

+1 Coors – one of the latest victims to be watered down to a piss-like strength.

I’d suggest those bemoaning the alleged decline Speckled Hen seek out Old Crafty Hen. Tastes better than the original ever did, and will make you fall over.

You’re welcome.

Belgium brewed Stella is still a good drink. The UK brewed Stella is tasteless.

+1 for Caffrey’s. Used to love it, then in the early 2000’s they started marketing it as ‘new, improved taste’ Caffrey’s, which was only half right 🙁

Double Maxim

Skol 1080. Back in the 80s we used to drink this in our local. I think it was £1.20 for a 275ml bottle but it was good gear. 1080 being its original gravity – about 9% abv. Pub propofol!

Lowenbrau on draught was an awesome lager. Don’t see it any more.

And it is true about UK-brewed lager. The generic ones are generally pale imitations of their continental versions.

Yes. For example, as mentioned above, Stella. When I-were-a-lad I went to Sunderland Poly and there used to be an offie specialising in imported beers – I don’t know if it exists now, I haven’t been back for 20 years!

They stocked all sorts of interesting stuff and were probably the reason why I don’t remember much of my time there! One beer they did stock was Belgian Stella – it was sold in gold cans rather than the white one’s were used too. Bloody lovely it was too.

Another beer I discovered in that shop was EKU28. One of these was an interesting way to start an evening.

Paulosoxo – +1 for Double Maxim. I spotted it in a supermarket recently and it was a shadow of its former self. Oh how I miss Vaux’s beers. Samson. Sunderland. 😐

McEwans Export & Plus 1 for Watneys Red Barrel

…… and whatever happened to the sophistication of a light and bitter??

When conglomerates get involved it tends to result in a more bland product probably trying to appeal to the younger drinker with more pocket money. I guess the answer is to seek out and encourage the development of more interesting beers made by craft and micro brewers. I much prefer it if they get my money anyway and it’s not easy to make lots of money running one of those small businesses.

esselgruntfuttock – Newcastle Exhibition was a fine beer, I would say I grew up on it but thats sounds a bit wrong. Hardly seen it on draught anywhere in the last 5years if not longer, same with McEwans Export, great on draught but as pointed out above the multis are ditching beers in favour of bland fests to appeal to those with no tastebuds and little care to what they drink, I give you pub after pub offering Fosters, John Smiths and Strongbow. I was in Newcastle after Christmas and just about every bar I was dragged around had not much else to offer.

I was talking about how strongbow was to strong a session drink for me and had to resort to woodpecker (at this point I should mention I cant really stand cider but due to gluten issues can no longer drink real beer )

You should try drinking real cider, rather than the cider equivalent to Heineken / Carlsberg etc. Admittedly it’s not easy to get hold of anything other than that in most pubs, but well worth finding a pub which does sell good stuff, or investing in some bottles.

When conglomerates get involved it tends to result in a more bland product probably trying to appeal to the younger drinker with more pocket money. I guess the answer is to seek out and encourage the development of more interesting beers made by craft and micro brewers. I much prefer it if they get my money anyway and it’s not easy to make lots of money running one of those small businesses.

This^^^

Real Ale is becoming “cool” well coolish, which is no bad IMO, but in order for people to get into beer from larger (the generic tastless crap) they tone it down, then they think they’re ale drinkers….. But essentially to try to appear to a wider market.

There are loads of new Mirco Brewerys setting up each year and some brilliant beers on offer, ditch the main stream crap and go enjoy some good beer!

And to all those people who are complaining about the loss of Caffreys etc, why not try a Porter, just a British version of the Irish Stout. There are loads of Porters just make sure its a proper Ale on not the mass produced rubbish.

McEwans 80/-
Once just about the only real ale you could find, now chemical pish
Which is funny because it survived the “death” of real ale, then became fizzy pish after the real ale resurrection.

Cobra aint as nice now its down to 4.8 from 5 same goes for bud stella and becks
Not that they were ever my first choice

Aracer – I tried some at a cider festival last year and it didnt like me too much, and normally if stuff doesnt like me it doesnt stick around to long!
In the safety of my own home I tried budweiser as its mainly rice and I can handle that, otherwise my local got in gluten free beer and lager in bottles as the manageress has the same issues as I do.

Ive tried Aspalls when i’ve been out and found that easier to drink that strongbow, I dont find it as harsh. Strongbow and woodpecker jsut leave my mouth feeling like I’ve been chewing sandpaper.

Boddingtons

John Smiths

Tetleys

Stones

Worthingtons

No; this is a thread about beers that used to be good. Not beers that have always been crap.

Aspalls is real cider (just checked and I have some of that in my “wine” rack) – hence the advantage over the mass-produced pish you mention. Not sure what you tried at a cider festival – some stuff is still notorious for being hard on the stomach, but it doesn’t have to be cloudy scrumpy to be real cider – I don’t drink stuff like that, just nice clean stuff like the aforementioned Aspalls (or quite often Westons – which is admittedly mass-produced, but still made properly rather than industrial chemical rubbish, and is also local for me). Got some cider out of a barrel from the local farm shop a while ago – that was also rank, and mostly went down the sink, despite the other stuff they sell being generally pretty good, proving that not all small scale stuff is good.

I should mention that I am a reborn cider drinker – hadn’t really drunk it at all for nearly 20 years until I was bought a Westons crate for Xmas a couple of years ago.

Used to like Firkin pubs Dogbolter
just collecting together the kit to brew beer and found the recipe on a forum
gonna give it a try .

I can’t think of any that have got worse as you don’t generally get to try them back-back… so any likes from the old days tend to be through rose tinted specs. I can say with certainty that the latest version of Brewdogs Jackhammer which has just come out of the new Ellon Brewery is better than the older version from Fraserburgh

mines Hobgoblin. Used to love it years ago. But find it a bit meh now

Always used to think it was pish – served in the Hobgoblin pub in Brixton it was guaranteed to taste bad and leave you feeling like shite the next day. Had a pint somewhere the other day and it was lovely.

Almost doesn’t matter that a lot of older beers have turned to pish when there are so many new breweries with quality ales. The only time I used to be able to break out from a Fullers/Youngs and other mainstream brewers was beer festival time or out of London. I’ve got three pubs within walking distance that serve a wide, continually changing, range of craft ales now. It’s great.

i used to swear by kronenburg 1664,…Grolsh, Murphy’s, Molsen

All varieties of Theakstons, relative to pre-Scottish and Newcastle ownership.