Desert Island Pints

You have been marooned on a desert island and you are only allowed to take eight pints (a gallon) of cask conditioned ale with you. Each pint is contained in its own mini cask with a tap, hard and soft spile, and there is a linking water jacket over the casks to keep the beer cool, because it is quite hot on the island, and we don't want the beer going off. The casks are magical and each one will re-fill when you have drunk the ale contained therein.

So what ales will you take with you? Here is my top ten:

1 Bateman's Mild

Thus 3% dark beer is the best ever type of its category. It tastes a lot stronger than the ABV (alcohol by volume) suggests and it is thick with an oat taste where the hops shine through. George Bateman & Sons Ltd is based at Salem Bridge, Wainfleet, Lincolnshire and still exists nowadays after a family tussle in the 1980's to sell off the brewery. George Bateman, his wife Pat and their children Stuart and Jaclyn saved enough money to buy out the brewery from the rest of the family to ensure its continuation. I remember George and Jaclyn coming to an early Norwich Beer Festival and giving people a special Victory T Shirt. They specially brewed Victory Ale 6% for us and I bought 24 bottles. I lost my T shirt and I drank the beer. I can't find Bateman's Mild on the Bateman's website; I wonder if they still brew it?

2 Ma Pardoes Old Swan Bitter

This 3.5% session ale is brewed in house at the brewery and pub the Old Swan, Netherton, Dudley. It gently sits in my memory as one of the best beers of the twentieth century, although when I go to the website now I am not sure as to what it was called then, so I will call it Old Swan Bitter for convenience. Doris Pardoe died in 1984 at the age of 85, so she must have been dead when I visited at the end of the 1980's. Of course I visited by bicycle; I always used a bike. I had to cycle away from the central road of Netherton, a few streets back up a steep hill and eventually pushing the bike, but it was worth it. On this particular trip I was touring the pubs and breweries of the Black Country and I had a wonderful holiday. The Old Swan was myriad of little, unspoilt, historical rooms and it was a joy to visit. It is now listed as being owned by “Star (Heineken)” so that seems a shame.

3 Batham's Bitter

This best bitter comes in at an original gravity (OG) of 1043/1044 (approx.) with an ABV of 4.3%. These things are very important to know. When visiting the Bull and Bladder, I remember it tasting as full bodied and clear with much malt and an explosion of hops on the tongue: not hop extract or pellets, but the real thing, real powerful hops balanced by the strong body of the malt. It was as if I was tasting a fresh clean farmyard there, I could imagine the cows mooing and the pigs running around in it. Oh Look!! There goes a couple of clucking chickens.

The Brewery goes by a long list of names: Daniel Batham & Son Ltd, The Delph Brewery, at the Bull and Bladder, The Vine Inn, Delph Road, Brierly Hill, West Midlands. I visited by bicycle, of course. It was situated in a long line of pubs backing onto a canal, I hope that this is still the case. It is still independently owned. There are twelve tied Bathams pubs. I had a dream of going on a holiday cycling tour with the aim to visit each pub. I still haven't done it. I say to Mr DBA (Arthur) Batham “Blessings of thy art thou brew'st good ale”.

4 Landlord Bitter

This 4.3% award winning pale ale comes from the Timothy Taylor brewery in Keighley, Yorkshire. In Yorkshire cask beer is served through a tight sparkler to give it added natural body, so the brewery makes it very, very hoppy to counteract this. In my opinion this can coat the tongue unnaturally in gas and somewhat masks the flavour. But the advantage of this is that if you can get the beer where it is served by ordinary hand-pump, it can taste very hoppy indeed. Great, wonderful, I love it. Of course on this desert island it is served by gravity; the best way of serving cask conditioned ale.

5 Reepham Rapier IPA

This mid strength 4.2 % IPA was brewed by Ted Willems at the Reepham Brewery in Reepham, Norfolk. It was very popular in its time but is sadly no longer with us as the brewery closed in 2009. But this is a magical island where anything can happen and any beer can appear. Norwich CAMRA sometimes ran beer tents. We ran one at a Mousehold Heath Sunday afternoon fete and we were selling Reepham Rapier. This was before the modern miracle of all day opening for pubs on Sunday. They used to open only in the afternoon between 12 and 2pm; so everyone then used to chuck as much beer down their throats as they could before 2pm. For some strange licencing law reason we were allowed to run our CAMRA beer tent all afternoon. This resulted in the fete being invaded after 2pm with many thirsty drinkers legally taking advantage of the Reepham Rapier on offer. There was much happy, rowdy drinking, and also a few punch-ups. The year after this, the Norwich branch of CAMRA was not allowed to run another beer tent at the Mousehold Heath Fete.

6 Hopback Summer Lightning

A full bodied 5% IPA strongly flavoured with Goldings hops, the best hops in the world. You can keep your new fangled varieties, they can't touch the old originals. I Once visited the brewery and tap in Salisbury one late lunchtime, and sat around near the bar for ages while the bar staff flitted around and ignored me and wouldn't serve me any beer. I later found out from the CAMRA Good Beer Guide that the bar didn't open until 5pm. Wouldn't it have been polite if one of those flitting bar staff members had told me this? I felt a complete fool at the time. And I didn't taste any of the Summer Lightning; I was really looking forward to that!

7 Lees Moonraker

This is a 6.5% strong, fruity, dark ale made with celeia hops, first brewed in 1950 at the Greengate Brewey, Middleton, Manchester. The founder of the Brewery was John Lees who sold his entire portfolio of cotton mills to start building the brewery at Middleton Junction in 1828. Good man! This sixth generation-owned company now employs over 1300 people and has a large tied estate. Moonraker is a perennial beer festival favourite. Who hasn't finished off their festival tastings with a half of this? I remember working at the Great British Beer Festival in Brighton to see many people using this as “one for the road” or “one for the gutter”.

8 Sarah Hughes' Mild

This mild with an OG of 1058, 6% ABV is brewed at the Beacon Hotel, Dudley, by John, the grandson of Sarah. The Beacon Hotel was built in 1850 and was granted an alcohol licence in 1852. Sarah bought the hotel in 1921 at auction after inspecting the premises and reading the legal pack. She brewed there until 1957 when the hotel closed. It was opened again by John in 1987. I met John in 1990 when I was on one of my famous cycling tours. Again this excellent mild is a beer festival favourite, sought by beer connoisseurs everywhere.

So there it is, my gallon of cask conditioned ale. As well as this you are allowed to take a book and a luxury item (as well as the current CAMRA Good Beer Guide, which everyone can take). My luxury item would be a brewery, and my book would be “The Big Book of Brewing” by Dave Line, Amateur Winemaker Publications, Argus Books Ltd, ISBN 0 900841 34 6. Oh and don't forget to take some beer mugs!

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it.