Tuesday 28 July 2009

Fullers Pride

I'll be eternally grateful to John Keeling and Derek Prentice of Fullers. Something I didn't notice while I was being shown around the brewery. And left with their brewing records.

Occasionally a beer in logs reaches out and touches me. Russian Stout, obviously. Whitbread Mild. Whitbread Stout (you can still get a beer called that in Belgium). But none of those are still brewed. Apart from the Belgian one.

I'd hoped to find the Truman's logs from the 1980's, but was disappointed. Typically, it was just before they closed that Truman's suddenly took cask beer seriously and produced a Mild, Bitter, Best Bitter, Strong Bitter range. I liked all of them. But they don't have those years at the London Metropolitan Archives.

I'm very slow sometimes. London Pride was always my first choice in London. Unless they by some weird chance had Hock. (Have I told you this story before? Just tell me if I have. I don't want to go boring grandad on you.) Fate drew me towards the George & Vulture for two different reasons (hello Piers, if you're out there, it was just a joke, man, I was dead chuffed to see you after all those years). One was Piers. The other the arms factory. (I have told you this before, haven't I?)

LP, the brewhouse name for London Pride was all over the postwar logs. Often party-gyled with my favourite, ELP. I slurped down a stack of LP in the Sad Time (when I lived in London). Late 70's, so just a decade later than the last logs I've seen. Hock was great, when in good condition. Which, sadly, it often wasn't. That's in the logs, too, as X.

That's two Fullers beers, then. Seen in logs and drunk. Tonight time for number three. Something that was party-gyled with London Pride. Golden Pride. I'd really not tried it before about 20 minutes ago. I quite like it.

You don't want to read one of my shitty descriptions of how in tastes. Like concentrated London Pride. Nice. Exactly what I want to drink before eating my tea. (Ask Jeff to translate, if you don't understand what that means.)

Everything stops for tea.

3 comments:

Oblivious said...

I had my first Hock at The London Drinker Beer and Cider Festival, I did enjoy it.

Korev said...

ELP now theres an idea for a lets brew Wed Recipe!

Bailey said...

Some people don't like Pride. I really do. Shepherd Neame Spitfire: rubbish. London Pride: great.

On an aside, a mate of mine once drank Golden Pride all night when another mate misheard his order for London Pride right at the start of the evening. He didn't notice until he got up to leave and couldn't walk properly.