Now, where was I? The title might mean nothing to some, ranking in topicality with Grendel's mum. To CAMRA it was the enemy flagship, the sum of all that was anodyne and nasty about keg beer. The thing is, a lot of Watney's beer was sold for a lot of years, with Whitbread's and others as an alternative. It was welcome when it was introduced, back in the fifties, I think. Two points here. The first is that the Dano-Anglo-Saxon has always wanted quantity in beer, traditionally and, latterly, with foundry-made thirsts to quench. For this, lots of fairly bland-tasting stuff was in order - try slaking a summer thirst with Fuller's ESB or such. Don't. The second is the state of traditional beer in pubs at the time, even more after wartime rationing compromises. Warm beer is now a thing of the past, with cellars equipped with massive coolers to maintain cellar temperature. The way to keep beer cool in the old cellars was to drape wet cloths over the barrels - nothing more could be done. So, in a heat-wave (cynicism about British weather is too easy) thirst-quenching beer would be tepid, verging on sour, leaving the heavy stuff - tepid and sticky. Compound that with regular drinkers thinking it manly to swill crap and it had to be shandy. Watneys Red Barrel! Straight out of the keg, no sourness, cool - tasting of nothing much but what did you know? So keg beer sold, pleasant as Kraft cheese, and if you wanted some flavour there where half-a-dozen bottles on the shelves. So, there we are. I won't blame CAMRA, in fact I think they're doing an excellent job, I think that the big brewers have been cynical in making beer bland and selling it on image - the manly tradition, 'if you're rooked it's your fault', but keg beer at least at first, was never as crappy as is made out. A Fistfull of Flavour!
