Franconian Beer Message Board
BBQ coming to Bamberg |
| Posted by Barry on 2016-12-15 09:59:34 |
| I need an break from the eternal (and infernal) packing - will it never end? Probably not until the day we are moving! The rise of 'lager beer' in Britain would be a great subject for a university thesis - someone may have done one already, for all I know. People think that it started in the 1960s but there were lager breweries in Britain in the 19th century. Two that I know of (and there may be more?) were the Wrexham Lager Brewery and the Red Tower Lager Brewerry in Manchester (I used to pass it eveyday on the bus on the way to school in the 1950s and always loved the smell - not a good sign for a schoolboy!). Around 1960, Red Tower became part of the Guinness empire and started brewing Harp - I believe that it is now owned by Heineken. Both were subject to the vagaries of brewing and went bankrupt at different times but rose to fight again. The Wrexham effort wan't a feeble attempt but the idea of German emigrees - they tried to do the job properly with ice houses to maintain the lagering process. In time, they expanded and, during the 1920s, had quite a few pubs ariound the Wrexham area (you can detailed histories with a bit of searching). Just how popular lager was nationally or even locally is hard to know; equally hard to know is what the stuff tasted like. Although both Heineken and Carling arrived in Britain in the 1950s, the main surge in interest came in the 1960s with the arrival of many familiar names, such as Carlsberg, Skol and Tuborg, along with home brewed beers such as Harp, Carling, tennants and the aforementioned Heineken, in draught form. I remember bottled lager in the early 1960s - it was considered a 'girly' drink (sorry to be none pc, just reflecting the language of the time) and usually drunk with a shot of lime. Well, it was pretty tastleless after bitter and mild! Why did they gradually become more and more popular? I think that it was for a variety of reasons. Firstly, as you say, British people started going abroad on their hols at that period and began to sample the beers of other countries, particularly Spain, which gave some people a taste for them. Secondly, it was a really lousy time for British cask beer, with the big brewers rapidly turning to keg beer - let's face it, anything was better than Watney's Red Barrel, Courage Tavern or Ind Coope Double Diamond. In their fizzy, cold and tasteless way, they weren't a lot removed from contemprary lager. Thirdly, lager (and keg beer) were mercilessly promoted by the big brewers in search of a quick profit. They promoted them as stylish, modern drinks, equally suitable for men and women, and particularly aimed at young people. I've written here before about the opening of the Löwenbrau keller in Manchester in the 1960s, where the beer sold for 7/6d (old money, about 35 p - don't know with inflation); anyway, you could buy cask beer for less then a third of the price but many young people jumped at it and it became a trendy place to go (but not for yours truly, always a old curmudgeon!). Four, a lot of cask beer was pretty awful at that time. I used to drink in Wilson's pubs. Wilson's became the Manchester arm of Watney's and so sold Red Barrel. Wilson's beer was often so bad that me and my mates thought that Red Barrel was the bee's knees and so we started drinking it. But we soon got tired of it and started wandering around looking for the more obscure (Robinson's, Hyde's, Holts, etc.). So I agree, lager was not really an immigrant product but the product really of a whole shift in culture. Remember Britain was still recovering from the second world war in the 50s/60s, rationing didn't finally end until 1954, while the state management scheme pubs in Carlisle lasted until 1973. Britain was quite a gloomy place until the 1960s, when it began to change - lager beer was one of the products of that change. Your comments re Germany are, I think, very perceptive. However, if we consider craft (i.e. new breweries brewing keg stuff) against micro, I don't think that the same situation exists in Britain. The micros have thrived in addition to existing older breweries and, apart from in trendy pockets (parts of London?), I can't see craft keg really taking off. But, I'll know better when I've actually lived in Britain again for a little time. |
| Followups: |
 BBQ coming to Bamberg by Mark Andersen on 2016-12-15 10:15:37 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by Barry on 2016-12-15 11:15:00 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by Mark Andersen on 2016-12-15 11:49:34 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by Nick B. on 2016-12-20 01:58:34 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by Barry on 2016-12-20 05:08:47 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by John ratcliffe on 2016-12-20 19:11:19 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by Barry on 2016-12-21 02:49:27 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by Nick B. on 2016-12-21 02:49:50 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by John ratcliffe on 2016-12-21 04:14:04 |
| BBQ coming to Bamberg by Barry on 2016-12-21 12:29:13 |