You'll be telling us next about how you used to be able to get a really good pint of Vaux, grandad

Long time since I've had a pint of Tetleys, I tend to go for the smaller independent brewery stuff these days.

Nicest pint I've had recently was Moorhouse's Black Cat in the Birchwood Farm at Glasshoughton.

You drove home because the beer was straight out of the river Calder and had no alcohol content.

Any sign of drunkeness on said afternoon was down to a placebo effect.

I used to work in Websters pub in the late 80s. I must say a pint of it looked great. Looks could be deceptive. It tasted like I'd put a half pint in a pint glass and topped it up with tap water. I remember a regular who used to come in and ask for a "pint of Yorkshire" and I always used to ask what he meant as it was an insult to give that name to such a poor excuse for a beer.

Andy, never mind the Vaux, it'll be Whitbread Trophy next or something about how Watney's Red Barrel was much maligned.

Senile.

Who produces beer in quantities of seven pints FFS - unless there's either one or seven of you someone was always going to miss out?

You cheeky buggers.

For the record I've never had a pint of anything that was even half-decent in the north east, I was once introduced to Vaux Heavy and almost puked right there on the bar top after the first mouthful.

As for Whitbread, back in the day The Woodman at Headingley (now Woodies) served two types of mild, light and dark for about 5p a pint (yes really), from 14 years of age we always went for the dark mild because it looked like Guinness but thats where the similarity ended.

I can still taste Whitbread Dark Mild if I try hard enough, it has a taste of puke because nearly every pint of it that I drunk came back that way, indeed most "good" Saturday nights consisted of drinking seven or eight pints of Dark Mild, going out into the car park and puking it back up, then going back for more - I can take you straight to the drain in the middle of the car park at The Woodman because at around 10pm every Saturday night thats where I could be found.

Oh yes, it had chewy bits in the bottom too, if you forgot about the chewy bits and drank the last inch straight down it would be like drinking someone else's sick.

AND

Change from £1 note, your bus fare home a fish and chip supper and a stone of monkey nuts...

McLaren Field is the new William Hague.

"I drank 18 pints."

William Hague never puked his back up though.

I'm proud of that.

Surely that coinstitutes criticism of the moderation process. There is a line...

He'll be offering you outside for a fight next. Watch out if he does, all those years working in the North East will have given some handy pointers if it gets tasty.

Oh yes, one more thing...

We lived in a bungalow at that time so it was easier for me to nip out the bedroom window and have a slash or a hockle on the garden rather than have to walk to the bathroom, so thats what I did.

By complete coincidence my dear mother had planted a big bed of Mint outside my bedroom window and it thrived on my saturday night offerings of slightly used Whitbread Dark Mild.

I used to dread it when we had lamb for sunday dinner, she could never understand my fear of mint sauce.

Pointers mostly involving wearing a mini-skirt when it's minus 30 and sprouting lots of blue veins on his pale, blotchy legs if my memories of the North East are accurate...

And that's just the blokes...

www.aletalk.co.uk/search/display ... rne+Island This is a good beer from the North East, not had any others mind.

www.aletalk.co.uk/search/display ... rne+Island This is a good beer from the North East, not had any others mind.

I'll have you know young Gilder, that back in the day, if you turned up uninvited at a very loud party with one of those Red Barrel Party 7 cans, you were welcomed in like the proverbial son!

It might have been pish, but after downing it there were some dammed attractive ladies at said party!

Mr McField is correct in that the Boddigton's to which I referred was the pre-1980 version, a light golden bitter with a slight tang in the finish, not entirely dissimilar to Timothy Taylor's Golden Best (which, for some unfathomable reason, is classed as a mild).
Post 1980, Boddington's has been and still is (as has been observed above) dishwater masquerading as beer.

Compared with Vaux, Titbread Wankard, Red Barrel or ... wait for it ... Brew Ten (excuse me while I stop retching) ... Tetley's was top class stuff.

I had a farewell pint of Tetlley's in the Palace a two/three weeks ago.
I later found out that I had been too late, production had already moved to bloody Wolverhampton or some other foreign field.