Does Anyone Remember "Jungle-Juice"?

[sparkyfred 10]

what can i say never liked English beer ,apart from Everhards best bitter quite fair,but I did have a liking for I.P.A, back in the 50s the bars kept a little 12by12 fridge with a sm amount just for the lady's (real men drink pints) and I got my share of very strange looks when getting my bottle, so I had a choice order with a limp wrist or move to Canada where 95% of beer is bottled and ice COLD being a bit of a chicken I took the easy way & the beer is just great

 

the beer here is way better now than it was 40 years back, and you wouldn't get funny looks drinking from a bottle nowadays

[chrishall 10]

The world's finest beer was English pre First World War, spoilt by new strains of high yield crops which necessitated legalising the adding of sugar to maintain strength and clarity without resorting to expensive continental decoction brewing methods. To remove cloudiness in beer brewed with inferior barley it was stored for a long time to enable it to settle. Lager is the German verb for 'store'

[OWDTOM 10]

William Stones head brewer in 1968, when I left them to join James Hole's of Newark, was a man called Bert Smout.

Bass Charrington had recently taken over and Bert from then on had to brew with flaked maize which didn't meet with his approval. After that date Stones Best Bitter took on a distictly different taste.

 

The last thing to go into wooden barrels of beer before being loaded up for delivery were 'finings' made from isinglass i.e. dried fish bladders.

When the barrels were gantry mounted in pub cellars they were tapped then spiled with a porous wooden peg to allow the finings to clear the cloud and let the sediment settle to the bottom of the cask. This took about twenty four hours, prior to the beer going on sale. Casks not yet in use were hard pegged until they were needed.

T.

Edited March 7, 2010 by OWDTOM

[Briny Reck 10]

The world's finest beer was English pre First World War, spoilt by new strains of high yield crops which necessitated legalising the adding of sugar to maintain strength and clarity without resorting to expensive continental decoction brewing methods. To remove cloudiness in beer brewed with inferior barley it was stored for a long time to enable it to settle. Lager is the German verb for 'store'

 

Are there any beers around today that are similar to pre First World War ones? I would imagine that there are considering the number of small breweries and ever growing interest in real ale.

[Briny Reck 10]

William Stones head brewer in 1968, when I left them to join James Hole's of Newark, was a man called Bert Smout.

Bass Charrington had recently taken over and Bert from then on had to brew with flaked maize which didn't meet with his approval. After that date Stones Best Bitter took on a distictly different taste.

 

The last thing to go into wooden barrels of beer before being loaded up for delivery were 'finings' made from isinglass i.e. dried fish bladders.

When the barrels were gantry mounted in pub cellars they were tapped then spiled with a porous wooden peg to allow the finings to clear the cloud and let the sediment settle to the bottom of the cask. This took about twenty four hours, prior to the beer going on sale. Casks not yet in use were hard pegged until they were needed.

T.

 

I wonder how it was discovered that you could clarify beer by adding fish's bladders and how many other things were tried before.

[Plain Talker 11]

who's was the beer/wine they called King of ale's had a tartan front to the little 1/4 pint bottle i know the "lady's "would drink in a little wine glass had one hell of a punch(said my mum)the name Younger's just came tto mind

 

I remember a "Younger's Tartan Bitter", but I doubt that is the same stuff, though..

 

( odd thing was, YTB was the same colour as my dad's Magnet and Stones' bitter, and not Tartan at all *scratches head* )

[chrishall 10]

Are there any beers around today that are similar to pre First World War ones? I would imagine that there are considering the number of small breweries and ever growing interest in real ale.

 

Don't think so as I doubt the old grain crops are available now. Any beer that relies on added sugar to get alcohol levels up is a bit of a con really. English methods of brewing in open vats were only really possible in this country because of our superior grain, since they disappeared beer brewed with sugar has lost it's character. Nowadays it's chilled, filtered, aerated and buggered about with to make it commercially viable, or should I say cheap?

[Texas 10]

There's some really interesting stuff on this thread, especially about the additives, 'fish bladders, flaked maize etc; etc.' Nothing to do with beer, but I remember reading somewhere that there hadn't been any decent cider brewed in England since we stopped going to war with the French. The reason being, a dead Frenchman in a vat of cider added a certain refinment to the brew. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but what I do know is that I told the above anecdote to an old friend of mine one time. He used to dabble in home brewing, beers, ciders, still liquer, a real piece of work he was. He loved the story. I'd forgotten about it, and months later on the '****' with the above mentioned friend, a gang of us went back to his gaff to partake of some of his home brews. One of them was cider. I had some, and it tasted fine. He told me later that he'd put a dead rabbit in the mix. What can you say, some people eh?

[hillsbro 28]

... I remember reading somewhere that there hadn't been any decent cider brewed in England since we stopped going to war with the French. The reason being, a dead Frenchman in a vat of cider added a certain refinment to the brew...

Dead right - Old English cider was a drink with body in it..

[flyer 10]

Dead right - Old English cider was a drink with body in it..

1950 Devon cider was 4p a pint and you could never drink two,in fact the landlord's was told never to sell anyone in uniform more than two, if you was going into battle that was another story two made you fighting mad:hihi::hihi:

[flyer 10]

P.S poor mans black velvet half rough Cider and half stout, knew a girl in Colchester knock them back like water, I'd be staggering at one

[Gormenghast 58]

William Stones head brewer in 1968, when I left them to join James Hole's of Newark, was a man called Bert Smout.

Bass Charrington had recently taken over and Bert from then on had to brew with flaked maize which didn't meet with his approval. After that date Stones Best Bitter took on a distictly different taste.

 

The last thing to go into wooden barrels of beer before being loaded up for delivery were 'finings' made from isinglass i.e. dried fish bladders.

When the barrels were gantry mounted in pub cellars they were tapped then spiled with a porous wooden peg to allow the finings to clear the cloud and let the sediment settle to the bottom of the cask. This took about twenty four hours, prior to the beer going on sale. Casks not yet in use were hard pegged until they were needed.

T.

 

Yes I remember Bert from when I worked there in the late 60s till the early 70s, and the assistant brewer Glynn Bradshaw. And Eddy Kidger the cooper, Ernest Murray the chief engineer and many more.

 

Do you remember alpine Albert?