Also Rans Index

• Interbrew - Stella Artois
• Marston's - Owd Roger
• Holsten Pils
• Marston's - Pedigree
• Redruth Brewery's - Cornish Rebellion
• Adnams - Broadside Bitter
• Wells - Banana Bread Beer
• Heather Ale Company - Fraoch
• Robert Cains - Formidable Ale
• Hogs Back Brewery - Burma Star Association
• Batemans - Combined Harvest Multigrain
• Morlands - Old Speckled Hen
• Hampshire Brewery - Pride of Romsey IPA
• Coniston Brewing Company - Bluebird Bitter
• Fullers - Jack Frost
• Courage - Director's Bitter

The Also Rans

Interbrew's Stella Artois is the bootlegger's favourite beer. Purchased in vast quantities from wholesalers in the industrial estates of Calais, placed into grubby white Transit vans and distributed through the off licences of England. All done without the benefit of any Customs & Excise duty paid to the British Government. But who cares, the English were always a nation of seafaring

There are two funny things that need to be said about Stella Artois. Firstly, it is available in a "Brewed Under Licence in the UK" version¹. This comes in smaller cans, isn't as strong, tastes dismal and is more expensive than the smuggled original. Yet people still buy it

The second oddity is the way that Stella Artois is advertised. The drink is positioned in the market as a "reassuringly expensive" premium beer. The adverts are filmed in French and based in Provence in the south of France around the turn of the 20th Century. The truth is that Stella Artois is a bog standard Belgian lager brewed in a vast brewery just up the road from Rotterdam. Still, it gets you pissed though

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Marston's Owd Roger a strong country ale from what is normally a first class brewery in God's own county of Yorkshire. My problem with this brew is that because its brewed to 7.6% alcohol () they have had to sacrifice so many of the subtleties of the ale to get to that strength.

There is masses of fruit flavours in the beer and a strong hoppy finish on the palate, but I believe that it would be a far superior beer if it was only brewed to about 6%. Perhaps we should start a campiagn to get the brewers to try a milder version?

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Where did it all go wrong for Holsten Pils from Hamburg?

Well I'll tell you. It all started to go wrong when they decided to muck about with the recipe and cut the alcohol content from 6.0% down to 5.5%. Oh they said it was the same beer 'n' all that, and that nothing had changed, honest guv...

Liars! I could tell. The taste changed completely. It went from being a refreshing meaty drink to something rather insipid with just a pretty yellow label for comfort. Straight away I stopped drinking it and have never been back.

All in all, the recipe change was a complete disaster for the company. Prior to this they were the unassailable UK market leader for Premium Bottled Lager. The order in a pub of, "a bottle of pils please." was instantly met with a nice cold bottle of Holsten. So much so, that if by any chance you were served with a bottle of say, Kaltenbrau or Lowenbrau instead, you would take this as a personal slight and never frequent that bar again!

The company was on a roll. It produced some of the most inventive advertising ever seen on British telly; you must surely remember the Griff Rhys Jones & Marilyn Monroe advert ; or the one with Humphrey Bogart? Its sales were through the roof! It was an icon! It could do no wrong...

...And then it did. Well, today Holsten Pils is still a successful and widely drunk beer, but it has lost forever that allure and magic it once had

[Back to Also Rans Index]

At the request of my good friend Gosho I have added a muse on Marston's Pedigree, and I am sad to report that I am most underwhelmed with the quality of the beer

Whilst the label goes banging on about the beer being the only pale ale that is brewed in oak casks, and that it is made in the home of brewing, Burton Upon Trent, etc etc etc. I can't get away from the fact that the beer tastes, well, "thin". Maybe its just me, as in my drinking histroy this beer had to stand up against Timothy Taylor's Landlord² which is an impossible task for any beer to do. Perhaps it has something to do with Marstons nearly going bust and being taken over by Wolverhampton & Dudley in 1999. Who knows, what I do know is I won't be drinking another Pedigree until I know it can live up to its name

[Back to Also Rans Index]

The Redruth Brewery's Cornish Rebellion is a really rather disappointing ale. (Well at least in my opinion it is.)

It has a strong hoppy taste and all of the rest of the things that you would expect from a real ale, but nothing really there to mark it out as being special in any meaningful way. This is a pity as the Cornish are the only people in England to have their own language and to be in rebellion against their English rulers - both of which things I approve of. Yet it is sad that this is celebrated with such a non descript ale.

Really I suppose on my recommendation this beer ought to go into the "Sinners " section, but as it was bought from The Dram Shop³ which, as all local students and Real Ale aficionados know, is Sheffield's finest off license. Well then there must be something there with this beer that I am missing as Linda, the shop's owner, would never stock a truly duff beer

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Adnams brewery of Southwold on ths Suffolk coast produces a wide range of fine beers in both cask and bottled form. Regretably their Broadside Bitter isn't one of them

The stuff is brewed to celebrate the English victory in the Battle of Sole Bay against the Dutch in 1672. A battle that was fought off the Suffolk coast near to Southwold. As for this celebratory beer, well it is dark and hoppy ale, brewed up to a very strong 6.3% abv. This strength I feel is where its problems lie. Too much effort has gone into uping the alcohol quantity and hence any subtleties in the beer are gone. It hits you like a smack in the chops, and that ain't nice all the time.

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Wells' Banana Bread Beer is a new invention from the family run Charles Wells brewery. Its beer made with bananas. Yes, that's right bananas, those funny bent yellow fruit what grow on trees

So what do I think of it? Hmm...interesting. Its got a strong malty taste and a pleasant dark amber colour. It has also got a very strong smell of ripe bananas which follows through to the taste. The after taste being more the traditional bitter beer.

So why is it in the also rans? Well I don't much like bananas

[Back to Also Rans Index]

The Heather Ale Company's Fraoch beer is supposedly a resurrection of a centuries old Scottish brewing tradition of including flowering heather into the mash whilst brewing. I don't know why they do this, I guess it must be something about wild yeasts on the heather flowers to ferment the beer etc, etc. The end result is a standard looking ale of around 5.0% with a bit of a tang of heather to it (well, what a surprise!)

All in all its nothing much to write home about, just like almost all other Scottish Beers. But it does come in a bottle with a very pretty label - all Celtic crosses and runic thingies

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Robert Cains Formidable Ale is an average looking and, to be frank, an average tasting pale ale in the IPA tradition.

I decided to sample it as a bit of an experiment as it comes in 1 litre cans () and this feature rather intrigued me as I was walking around my local Sainsburys, so I bought a couple of cans. After drinking it, I bet that that is how they make most of their sales. All a bit of a con really

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Carrying on the Sainsbury's connection, I was just recently wandering around the Reading branch of Savacentre with my latest squeeze⁴, LighthouseGirlUK, when I came across a bottle of what at first appeared to be an intriguing beer from The Hogs Back Brewery by the name of B.S.A. Now I've heard of this company, but have never really tried many of their ales owing to the fact that they don't spread them about much beyond their Surrey home. So I thought I'd give it a go.

The first thing to work out was what was the beer names after. At first glance, B.S.A. means to most B.S.A. motorcycles and the heyday of the British motorcycling industry before they all turned shiny and Japanese.

Well if you thought that, then you'd be wrong. The beer's name is in fact in honour of the Burma Star Association, who represent the interests of the brave men who fought the Japanese army in the Far East during World War 2. Which makes it all a shame when you discover that the beer is rather disappointing. True it has a pleasant colour and a powerful punch at 4.5% alc, but there is little subtlety to it. The main theme is a big blast of hops and not a lot else. Also the beer throws a rather unpleasant tasting sediment. Ho-hum...

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Batemans is one of the finest breweries in England. It supplies draught beer to the county of Lincolnshire and bottles to the supermarkets and off licences of the nation from its Wainfleet base. It went through many a struggle back in the 1980s to maintain its independance when it was threatened with take over by a big brewery. This all came about because some members of the family wanted to sell up their shares and get out of the brewing business. The Chairman, who didn't want to sell, realised that this would bring to an end the tradition of craft brewing that the company had built up over its history. There was a massive public campaign, sponsored by the local branch of CAMRA⁵. Eventually it raised enough money to buy back the shares and keep the brewery independant

Now to their beer that I'm about to slag off...

They have recently produced a 'specialty beer' by the name of Comnined Harvest Multigrain which is brewed using all manner of grains such as wheat, rye and oats in addition to the usual barley. My gripe with all of this is that it produces something of a dog's dinner of a beer that is neither one thing or another. It is all a bit disapponting as their usual beers such as XB or the amazing XXXB⁶ are amongst the finest in the land. Lets hope that they soon see the error of their ways and sweep this mild embarrassment of a beer into the dustbin of history.

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Morland's Old Speckled Hen is a fine and malty beer originally from the town of Whitney in Oxfordshire. Once upon a time it was very much a local brew and never seen outside of its home county. But then the brewery oweners were bought out by the regional brewing 'Superpower' that is Greene King of Bury St.Edmonds. They kept the brand name and the old Brewery name of Morland, but moved production to their main brewing HQ back in Suffolk. From this base the Old Speckled Hen brand has been ruthlessly promoted as a premium English ale and the beer is now available in practically every off licence and supermarket in the land.

So, if I'm saying that it is a "fine and malty ale... etc". What on earth is this muse doing in the 'Also Rans' section? Well its there because I don't like the company's advertising. They come across as being just a little bit too pleased with themselves, and that rankles. So its demotion for you dear hen...

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Hampshire Brewery's Pride of Romsey IPA is really rather a dull and disappointing drink. If it was pushed as just another beer, then things wouldn't be so bad. But this is styled as an 'IPA' or India Pale Ale, and with such things come responsibilities. You know you can't just bottle any old crap and sell it as a premium beer (well you can I suppose, that is the whole point of this rant - sorry, I'm getting confused ) but this company manages to.

Well worth avoiding

[Back to Also Rans Index]

The Coniston Brewing Company now have an ale for sale in my local branch of Sainsburys called Bluebird Bitter which I presume is in celebration of Donald Campbell and his half-arsed attempt to go at over 300mph in a wooden boat along Coniston Water⁷. Well fair enough, but the real question is it any good? And should I shell out my hard earned cash for this beer?

Umm... well, no actually

Now I'm sure that the 'original' draft beer is absolutely wonderful. The blurb on the bottle tells me so, so that must be true. It tells me to drink it out of a straight sided glass in the Black Bull Inn in the village. Well that isn't a whole lot of use to me as I'm not in the village, I'm in a large seaside town in the South of England made famous by Mad King George's eldest Son⁸. Now the real McCoy, brewed in the village is loaded up with Challenger hops and Maris Otter malt, and all manner of nice things, but I've just noticed that this doesn't apply to the bottled stuff. In very small printing on the back of the bottle, it says, "Brewed & bottled by Breakspear, Henley on Thames". Oh dear, someone is not who they claim to be. So it is in to the sin bin with you

(Actually my tasting was probably not helped by the fact that I was smoking Marlboro Menthol cigarettes at the time )

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Fuller's Jack Frost is their attempt at producing a 'winter warmer' ale. The USP on this particular creation is that it is brewed with blackberries in the mash to give it a sweeter and fruity tang.

Does it work? Well, yes after a fashion. The first blast of the beer does have a distinct and pleasant taste of blackberries, but after that it settles down to being a rather sweet and unremarkable ale. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad about this beer. Just there are many other better beers out there.

* shrugs *

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Courage Director's Bitter as now brewed by Scottish & Newcastle plc is nothing at all to write home about - so I wont...

[Back to Also Rans Index]

Click below for the other Beery Musings

| The Saints |
The Sinners |

Return to 'Muse on Bottled Beers' Index

¹See the Sinners section for the full story of these travesties.²See the first entry in the Saints section.³Which used to have a really good website at www.thedramshop.co.uk but sadly that seems to be no more ⁴As of 19th December 2002 an ex-squeeze⁵The Campaign For Real Ale⁶A past winner of the CAMRA award for best beer in England.⁷This wasn't a great success and he wound up dead for many years.⁸...and you, dear reader, may be more distant still