Beer

[Captain Deadpool]

And Tennent's Special

[clashpar]

Result! Just back from Cowden and Mrs Clash has bought me birds and bees beers by williams bros

 

 

[average white par]

"TENNENTS SPECIAL,TENNENTS SPECIAL!"

 

Sorry,I just had a mid 80's backing singer moment...

It happens sometimes..

[Fu_Manchu]

Once you've tasted Tennents Export, nothing else tastes quite the same.

So said the advert for Tennents Export and, do you know what? They were spot on. Worst. Beer. Ever.

[Chicken Wing]

That's up there with cans of Miller in the utter wash stakes!

[Buffy]

I brought back a Skye Brewery Tarasgeir ale from my holibobs. 

It was braw.  

[Teuchter]

This is a cracking thread and a great reminder as to how the brewing industry has changed for the better over the last 20 years. 

When I go back to Forres now there are guest beers in abundance in the boozers and even local brews on tap (Speyside). Contrast this to the mid 80s - up North at least. Tied houses, one or two lagers, Tartan Special / and or McEwans Export and not a lot else. The only Indian Pale Ale was the McEwans variety (now rebranded as 60/) that could be only found in the public bars - presumably because few people under the age of 60 drunk it. It was anything but pale, being close to the colour of Guinness, and was ordered by asking for a pint of light.

The only downside - and it is minuscule when compared to the positives, as this thread illustrates - is the trendy PR ******ry that has attached itself to the industry. First up the term " Craft Beer" - thankfully absent in this thread until now, but unfortunately incorporated in the name of the otherwise splendid Speyside brewery in Forres. I believe this to be one of those unwelcome imports from America. Cooking up millions of gallons of yellow liquid and sticking a big red T on the tins is still a craft, albeit an industrial one. It is just an attempt to give a homespun image to something, presumably to differentiate it from beer produced by "the man".

Brew Dog beers are something I will happily carry on drinking despite the fact that their publicity machine gets on my mammaries and the owners do come across as twats in the You tube videos that they make.

Finally, can you guess what this describes:

This is one for those golden afternoons when the sunlight slants through the windows and gleams on the rows of glasses. When every joke gets a laugh and every one of the old gang makes it in through the brown wooden door.

It is the aforementioned McEwans IPA, now 60/. A more accurate description :

Doggedly stayed part of our product line thanks to a whole generation of Albert Tatlocks for whom it formed one part of the hauf n hauf. It is a decent enough brew, the production line is still there, but we just need to find a new niche for it now that it's core customer base is gone.

[Fu_Manchu]

The 80s was bad, the 70s was worse. The Belleville had two beers on tap. Special and lager, both absolutely bogging. Dunfermline was a real ale desert. I can honestly say that I never had a decent pint in the toon in my teens. I had to go to Edinburgh for a decent pint...

[Teuchter]

The first out of town pint that I had that made an impression was during the late 80s in Alloa. The beer was Maclays, brewed in Alloa, and at that point I had tasted nothing like it. I have managed to have a few pints since elsewhere since, but from what I have read, they gave up brewing - or sold out to Belhaven - just prior to the revival in independant breweries.

In Edinburgh, not done it for a while, but a pint of 80s in Diggers was always a pre/post match treat on a trip to Tynecastle.