.....a really cheesey title but I'm not at my creative best at the moment.
Jaap suggested this thread after we were reminiscing about Red Stripe Crucial Brew and Matthew Brown's Slalom D Strong lager on another thread.
Can I throw Breaker Malt liquor into the ring at this point? That stuff really used to fuck with my head (and liver).
Any more?

I liked Devonish bitter, which you could get in Exeter years ago. I worked with homeless people in a night shelter in Exeter, and spent many a night in the Ropemakers Arms drinking bitter and watching them getting up to mischief in the bar.

Another beer I drank was Brain's Tudor Light in the Custom House, in Cardiff. A legendary boozer full of ladies of the night, unfortunately now demolished, along with most of Cardiff's best pubs.

As a student in the 70s I drank lots of Whitbread light mild in my local. It was cheap.

Talking of 'light' beers of yesteryear, Les; what happened to Newcastle Amber? I remember preferring it to the brown. Used to come in a similar bottle with, if my memory serves me correctly, a pale blue label. I haven't seen it in decades, even in the North East.
As far as Whitbread, they bought out a lot of smaller breweries; Duttons, Threlfalls and Chesters around here. I'm not sure how widespread the availability of the 'brands' of their various subsidiaries went but remember preferring Chesters' Dark Mild to the light one they had.
They also had a choice of bitters. Gauntlet was superior (I think) to the more 'standard' Trophy (I still remember the crap advert "Whitbread, big-head, Trophy bitter - the pint that thinks it's a quart").
Also, it was only Whitbread that, back in the day, did Stella.

Watneys red barrel!

Just joking.

Whitbread did both a dark and a light mild as well as what was known by Leeds students as 'Titbread Wankard'. I also used to drink Webster's Pennine Bitter (awful) and Double Diamond (works wonders - but really awful).

Amber was a nice beer but was phased out as lager became more popular and people turned away from dark beers in the 80s. More crap lagers: Vaux 'Norseman' and McEwan's 'Kestrel'.

Was wandering around Bristol yesterday - lots of great boozers there, really recommend the Bunch of Grapes, in the side street near the Hippodrome. Excellent pint of Otter Ale, then the Myrtle Tree in Hotwells, excellent Bass. On to the Old Fish Market, and reasonable Fuller's ESB, finishing off in the Long Bar and Thatcher's Dry (scrumpy), before meandering back to Temple Meads, and the train home. Mmm, not looking forward to work now though ...

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Remember 'Party Seven' huge fuck off cans of awful beer? I think there was a less hardcore 'Party Four' as well. Who made them? Watney's?

I remember one of my mates at a party in Charlie Morris HOR in Leeds Uni opening one with a can opener and drinking it like a regular beer glass.

Continuing the theme of awful lager.... 'Ayingerbrau' rings a bell, can't remember the brewer though.

On a similar theme to the "Party 7" mentioned above, we recently had a 5 litre mini keg of Edinburgh Gold from the

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. Very, very nice.

And back to the original topic of beers that aren't around any more. Just got back from a long weekend in Arran where we discovered that the Arran Bewery has gone into administration and is currently not in production. I always enjoy their Blonde ale - if you see it on sale grab it as you might never have another chance.

GeordieLes wrote:

Continuing the theme of awful lager.... 'Ayingerbrau' rings a bell, can't remember the brewer though.

I only seem to remember Ayingerbra being served in Samuel Smiths' houses so it could well have been one of theirs.

It probably wasn't available nationwide (thankfully) but you may have been acquainted (from your link with Warrington - the largest town in England not to have a football team in the four profesional divisions incidentally) with Greenhall-Whitley's dreadfull 'Gruenhalle' lager.
If you think that shabby little 'play on words' is bad, Holts of Manchester used to brew a lager called 'Regal' which is obviously just lager spelt backwards!

Shakers wrote:

GeordieLes wrote: Continuing the theme of awful lager.... 'Ayingerbrau' rings a bell, can't remember the brewer though. I only seem to remember Ayingerbra being served in Samuel Smiths' houses so it could well have been one of theirs.

I think they still do it. We have a Sam Smith's pub in Edinburgh - the Cramond Inn. It's in a wee village suburb by the seaside, so it's always heaving on sunny days with daytrippers out of town. We're not used to pubs up here only selling the produce of a single brewery so it's always entertaining to watch guys asking for " a pint of stella/guinness/whatever" to be told, " we don't have that but we do have this own brand lager/stout/whatever that you've never heard of". Resulting in a perplexed look on the face of the punter. Even the cola is their own brand! Disappointingly they don't do cask real ales. When they took it over all the Camra types got really excited at the prospect of their real ales, but the brewery said they didn't think it would travel very well - read "we can't be bothered"

Bhachgen wrote:

On a similar theme to the "Party 7" mentioned above, we recently had a 5 litre mini keg of Edinburgh Gold from the Only registered users can see links on this forum! Register or Login on forum! . Very, very nice. And back to the original topic of beers that aren't around any more. Just got back from a long weekend in Arran where we discovered that the Arran Bewery has gone into administration and is currently not in production. I always enjoy their Blonde ale - if you see it on sale grab it as you might never have another chance.

When anufc, Billingham Chris and myself were in Augsburg for the St Pauli away game recently we were in a brew pub called the 'Konig von Flandern' where we had a three and a half litre bottle of beer between us.
It took both me and Chris to lift and pour the thing into our glasses!

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Another beer from the past - and one I quite liked - Carlsberg Export Hof on draught.

Marston's Merrie Monk.

I'm at a wedding in Horndean this summer...I understand Gales is no more, too?

From Nottingham I have to say I do miss Home Bitter and Home Mild. Wasn't a great fan of Shipstone's. The current Mansfield Marksman is nowt but an imposter, much in the same fashion as the dross being churned out by Green King masquerading as Hardys & Hansons. Certainly miss Kimberley Classic.

Also Darleys, which I think was from the Doncaster area.

Really liked Mansfield Old Baily too.

Home Mild was good.

Shipstones was strange!