Author: Ian Webster

Happy second birthday to The Last Heretic

by Ian Webster -

 

This weekend marks the second anniversary since the opening of The Last Heretic on Station Street. They are celebrating in style with a beer festival which runs from Thursday to Monday.

“We have a range of beers, strong to pale, to fruit beers,” explains landlord Pete Spittles. “If the weather stays good, we will shift more beer which means more will be on. I’ve got about eighteen on at the moment and at least another ten ready to go.” The current beer list can be seen at the end of this article.

Prior to becoming a publican Pete worked as cabin crew for Thomas Cook: “I’d got knowledge of beer from drinking it, I’ve never drunk lager, even when I was sixteen / seventeen; too cold too fizzy.”

Before settling on The Last Heretic, Pete did his homework: “I went to around six micropubs, some I liked and some I didn’t. I think you need a bar,” he muses. “It’s a focal point especially when people come in on their own, also if I hadn’t got a bar and I was busy I’d be spilling more beer on the floor as I wouldn’t be able to get through people to serve the drinks!.” There is also a practical reason, “I wanted to keep down the staffing costs, if you’ve got a bar near the cool room you haven’t got to leave the area; three paces I am pulling a pint, three paces I am back in the bar. The glass panels work well as people want to see the barrels, 99% of pubs you won’t see a barrel as it’s down in the cellar. The flipside is you have to keep it really clean as there are people looking in and taking pictures so it’s always spotlessly clean in there! Most pubs wouldn’t want you to see inside their cellar, there are bags of potatoes and all sorts!”

Pete serving Ricky

The Last Heretic is situated right next to the railway station and attracts a lot of the visiting football fans.

“It is always busy with the football crowd. When Bristol City came we sold more cider than real ale, six lots of twenty litres in a day! That’s a lot of pints,” he laughs. “I’ve just learnt how to use Twitter in the last six months, the football fans tend to be into Twitter more than Facebook, so they just re-Tweet where they are meeting. I am the first pub open on a Saturday at eleven o’clock, so they all pile in here; before you know it there are five … ten … twenty and then thirty in. Will it be that busy next season if Burton go down, I don’t know.”

Pip in the cool room

Pete has his eye on a second micropub: “I am looking at trying to open another, not too far away from here, probably five or ten miles. I’d looked at one in Stretton but I backed out. I’ve heard that someone else is interested and they’ve asked if they can use the plans I had drawn up, it’d be good for Stretton to have a micropub.”

Lisa and Pip

As well as a wide range of beers, there is a barbecue on Saturday and Sunday, so what better way to enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend?

 

 

 

 

 

CURRENT BEER LIST

Black Hole Brewery Milky Way 6.0% Pale ale, honey & banana notes, dry spicy finish

Dancing Duck Duck A L’orange 6.4% IPA infused with orange peel

Dancing Duck Dark Drake 4.5% Oatmeal stout

Blue Monkey Evolution 4.3% Golden Ale, fruity & dry hopped

Blue Monkey Funky Gibbon 4.1% Copper session ale, hoppy finish

Blue Monkey Infinity + 1 5.6% Pale ale, citra hopped

Fernandes Brewery Dragon’s Breath 4.3% Golden, spicy ale from Yorkshire

Kinver Brewery Over The Edge 7.5% Golden strong winter ale

Leatherbritches Brewery Bohemian Dark 5.9% Dark ale, coffee, malty, dried fruit flavoured

Leatherbritches Brewery Lemongrass & Ginger 3.8% Pale ale with real lemongrass and ginger

Lincoln Green Tuck 4.7% Full bodied porter

Muirhouse Brewery Shopping For Hops 3.9% Pale, fruity, hoppy session ale

Tiny Rebel Stay Puft 5.2% Marshmallow porter

Titanic Brewery Iceberg 4.1% Pale, citrus & hoppy

Totally Brewed Punch In The Face 4.8% Amber ale, fruity, packed with American hops

XT Brewery XT8 4.5% Porter, rich, smooth roasted coffee flavour

XT Brewery XT13 4.5% Red Ale using US/NZ/Oz hops

@Micropubheretic      https://www.facebook.com/The-last-heretic-480571588810654/

Bass from the dead

by Ian Webster -

Famous brewer Michael Thomas Bass was resurrected for Staffordshire Day on 1 May, with a video shot at the National Brewery Centre. Acting as a quick introduction to the town and the excellent work of NBC, Bass looks pretty good for a man who has been dead for 109 years!

Mind you it got The Beertonian thinking about what Mr. Bass would say if he really had returned from the other side?

“Nice statue outside the Town Hall, well the birds seem to like it anyway. What I’d like to know is who knocked down my empire? Where is Grandfather’s brewery on High Street, and my beautiful Maltings at Shobnall, is that awful grey tower really doing the same job? And Americans brewing in Burton at Bass?! Return me to my grave, I have some spinning to do!”

 

Have a few beers on The Beertonian!

by Ian Webster -

Welcome to the first subscriber only competition which will run until 31 May 2018. The winner will be picked at random and will be the lucky recipient of a £10 voucher to spend at Brews Of The World; Burton upon Trent’s premier bottle shop.

You could spend it on some old favourites or perhaps be adventurous and try something completely new, either way Brews Of The World have an impressive array of bottled beer and cider, literally from all over the world! To learn more about the shop click here http://thebeertonian.com/2018/04/18/brews-of-the-world-feature/

To enter simply Subscribe to Blog via Email on the front page. No email address means no entry sorry.

You will need to make your own arrangements to collect the prize and the voucher cannot be exchanged for cash.

Good luck!

Marston’s early advertising (part one)

by Ian Webster -

Dating from July 1938, this is the first ever advertisement for Marston’s P Quality Best Pale Ale; P Quality would be renamed Pedigree in 1952. The origin of the name Pedigree is contested; some say it was named by then Head Brewer George Peard (his face appears on the recently rebranded label), others say that an employee Marjorie Newbold won the right to call it Pedigree in a competition..

Dual Diamond works wonders

by Ian Webster -

There has been much written about Burton Old Cottage Brewery Company’s Dual Diamond on The Beertonian. Last weekend I posted about the history of Double Diamond and over 1,900 people read the post in 24 hours! Judging by the multitude of comments on Facebook, talk about the Ind Coope’s Double Diamond has sparked a lot of memories! Well Double Diamond is back, albeit called Dual Diamond and brewed by another Burton upon Trent brewery Burton Old Cottage Brewery Company. For those who fancy a taste from the past, here is all you need to know.

Of course the reinvention and recreation of old beers is nothing new, not even in Burton; the Heritage Brewing Company based at the National Brewery Centre produce the defunct Derby brewers Offilers’ Best Bitter and Charrington’s Oatmeal Stout and their IPA . There is even an organisation dedicated to the process, the excellently named ‘Dead Brewers Society’, although their Twitter feed has gone worryingly quiet after Molson Coors tried to register the exact same name last year.

Reading the pump clip Dual Diamond is ‘Lovingly brewed to the original Double Diamond recipe.’

“We can’t use the name outright,” explains Head Brewer Alan Christie. “Although we did toy with using the strapline ‘still working wonders,’” he confesses.

So there is no fear of any comeback from whomever it is who owns the name Double Diamond nowadays? Alan is confident that they have done enough to avoid any problems, “It refers to it but it’s not using any logos.”

Anyone familiar with Ind Coope / Allied Breweries’ history will recognise the colour scheme on the pump clip; the brown and orange are taken from directly from the company identity circa early ’70s.

“We took the Dual Diamond design from last time and kept the theme,” says Alan alluding to the fact that Dual Diamond has been brewed before at his brewery. Alan is still new to the game, starting his brewing career last summer but Burton Old Cottage Brewery Company was founded in 2000 by Kev Slater and Ray Orton. Dual Diamond, the named coined by Kev Slater in 2015, was originally produced as a one off to mark the publication of a book about the history of Ind Coope and Samuel Allsopp, although the author’s name escapes me …

The recipe itself has an interesting history too, Kev Slater who was the General Manager and Brewer at the Samuel Allsopp Brewing Company before his Old Cottage days takes up the tale,

“’The Tapsters Choice’ program introduced guest ales in to the estate on a two week rolling basis across the whole of the country,” he says explaining how Ind Coope, then part of Carlsberg-Tetley Ltd., had responded to the success of Marston’s Head Brewers Choice.

This was made possible by the discovery of old recipe books which sadly now seem lost.

“One of the ales produced in spring/summer of 1996 was Triple Diamond, based on Double Diamond. I used Pale Malt, Torrified Wheat and Crystal Malt, the only difference in the recipe was the hops as the original recipe called for a variety that was no longer available, so I used Fuggles for bittering and for dry hopping.”

It is exactly this recipe that Alan has used for his brew, so Dual Diamond is indeed Double Diamond in all but name. Before those who only remember the beer as the 3.8% keg version much maligned by CAMRA, this is the bottled Double Diamond; a different jewel; that bit stronger, fuller of body, cask conditioned and much much nicer!

“As with anything nostalgic people recall things differently. Many of them won’t have been old enough to have drunk it originally,” Alan certainly wasn’t! “Those that did probably can’t remember what it tasted like anyway!”

Opinion was canvassed on his Dual Diamond by inviting ex-Old Cottage brewer Mick Machin to try it. “His feedback was that this is a good likeness of the last Dual Diamond brew.”

There are plans to bottle Dual Diamond says Alan, “It will form part of our ongoing line-up and I am keen to do at least a one off bottling run, this will enable us to expand our business with bottled beers. We are looking putting it into Brews of the World and the National Brewery Centre. We have been doing gift packs with three different beers which have been doing well.”

“It’s nice to see some of the ‘old established of the day’ recipes coming back to life,” surmises Kev. “The 1996 brew was one of the best sellers in England and Scotland and if the Old Cottage market it right I think it will sell nationwide, especially with our generation growing up with such a popular brand.”

The final and most burning question is where can you try this new Wonder Worker? It is on sale or about to be at The Weighbridge Inn, The Old Cottage, Stretton Social Club, Rolleston Social Club and The Roebuck in Burton upon Trent, Mushroom Hall in Albert Village, The Black Lion in Swadlincote and the Chip & Pin at Melbourne.

And as the old Doiuble Diamond advert once said “… so drink one today!”

https://www.facebook.com/burtonoldcottagebeerco/

Burton Bridge Inn has wood!

by Ian Webster -

Burton Bridge Inn have released more details about what to expect at their forthcoming Beer & Bangers Festival on 10 to 12 May.

The sausage flavours are: Farmhouse, Spanish, Smoky BBQ, Black Pudding and Cumberland Ring.

Beer wise although the list has yet to be made public, there are two very special treats lined up. Old Expensive and Stairway to Heaven are to be made available from wooden barrels. One will be opened on the Friday and the other on the Saturday. Both ales have been barrel aged and dry-hopped. Can’t wait!

@BurtonBridgeInn

eBay Watch: Thomas Salt & Co. Ltd. Jug

by Ian Webster -

Burton upon Trent related breweriana is a regular sight on eBay, often fetching a very good price. The Beertonian always has an eye on the market and will report on the truly outstanding pieces put up for sale.

This jug from Thomas Salt & Co. Ltd dates from around 1920 and was made by Minton; it just fetched a whooping £180.00!

We are not amused!

by Ian Webster -

A pump clip is just a pump clip right? It displays the name of the beer, the brewery and as long as it isn’t called Dizzy Blonde or something equally sexist then there’s nothing to see here; or so you’d think.

The Heritage Brewing Company recently came up against an unusual objection to their innocently named regal 3.8% Victoria Pale Ale.

“We had a strange situation with a customer,” exclaims Heritage Brewing Company’s Terry Boland. “They really wanted the Victoria Pale Ale, they’d tried it, loved it but wouldn’t take it because of the pump clip! They were anti-royalists and didn’t want Queen Victoria on their bar. So within ten minutes we’d changed it to the Good Ship Victoria and lo and behold he took the ale and is still selling it to this day.”

Up to me I’d have put this actress on the clip, as the publican was certainly sticking to their principles.

 

www.hertitagebrewingcompany.co.uk
@Heritagebrew
https://www.facebook.com/Heritage-Brewing-Company-743494845782073/