Franconian Beer Message Board
Film „Aus Tradition Neues - Bierstadt Bamberg“ |
| Posted by barry on 2015-11-10 12:18:45 |
| Just as a matter of interest - and proof that any brewer can brew good beer if they try - a short story from my time as a publican around 1984 in Bath. As, essentially, a Courage tied house of which there were many in the area, we suffered badly from competition with out of the area breweries such as Wadworths, Devenish, Eldridge Pope, Hall & Woodhouse, etc. At that time, Jihn Smith's (part of the then Courage group) had a small campaign of promoting a hand pulled version of their notorious keg bitter, mainly in the north. One of our lagers was brewed by John Smiths and trucked down to the West Country (the other was Hofmeister - ugh), so I suggested to my area manager that a couple of barrels of JS real ale could be put on the lorry and we would have a go at selling it. Surprisingly, upper management agreed and, thus, kilderkins of JS bitter started arriving, complete with promotional material. It was a really nice beer, much hoppier than Courage best bitter, certainly far more to my Northern taste! Anyway, sales went pretty well and soon we selling as much of JSB as of CBB. Upper management got a bit emboldened with this success and asked me whether I would like to try a non-Courage group beer. Of course, I jumped at the idea and what should I be offered but Wadworth's 6X - amazing! This sold pretty well, even though there were a couple of proper Waddie's pubs in town (I must have kept it better than them!). Such was the situation when I left the company in August 1986 and I believe that it carried on until Courage sold the pub and it became a freehouse. The Bell Hotel is now owned by a co-oerative formed by its regulars. |
| Followups: |
 Film „Aus Tradition Neues - Bierstadt Bamberg“ by Steve T on 2015-11-11 14:45:48 |
| Film „Aus Tradition Neues - Bierstadt Bamberg“ by barry on 2015-11-12 03:36:59 |