With hindsight
this wasn’t very logical. If disagreement with some of an organisation’s policies
was an impediment to joining, I would never have signed up to the Liberal party
back in the day nor have spent much of the last four decades campaigning for
the Lib Dems and serving as a councillor.
Anyway,
having gathered that CAMRA had adopted a more broadminded approach, this year I
did join and have received the first copy of the excellent Beer magazine
that is a benefit of membership.
It brings
the sad
news, however, that the famous Worthington White Shield pale ale is being
discontinued by its owner Molson Coors.
Back in the
day, White Shield was celebrated as the one bottle-conditioned beer on general
sale – even if it was not easy to find. I learned about it because it had been
adopted as a favoured beer by the rugby club where my dad played. On one occasion
he turned up just as the delivery driver arrived and was told that the club was
the largest customer in the country for White Shield. The second biggest was a hotel
in Devon where club’s players stayed on their Easter tour.
Over the
years whenever I’ve seen White Shield on sale, I’ve never failed to buy a
bottle or two. Yet in truth it was more its uniqueness as real ale in a bottle
that made me buy rather than anything exceptional about the taste – nice enough
though it was. It was always a rare find, never properly promoted, each time it
seemed to have been brewed at a different location and its specialness was reduced
with the explosion of craft and micro breweries, many of which sell live beer
in bottles.
Still, it
is sad to see it go and if it really is not to be revived the CAMRA article is
a worthy obituary.
1 comment:
Oh how sad! One of the happier memories from my teenage years was sitting alone in a pub in Leicestershire, minding my own business, when two men appeared and asked me if I would like to join them for dinner. Apparently, they were the Quality Control Team from Worthington’s White Shield brewery in Burton on Trent, and they were out for their Christmas dinner. There were twelve of them, but someone had invited the minibus driver to join them, and they were superstitious about having thirteen people around the table.
Well, I promptly cancelled all my other engagements (!) and joined them. They had sent several crates of their own product ahead, and I was given a master class in how to pour and enjoy the beer by the world’s greatest experts in the subject. We had steak (very unusual for me at that time) and I also had a lesson in the differences between English, Dijon and Grey Poupon mustards.
It was a truly memorable evening. I was at a pretty low ebb, and it was a treat (in more ways than one) to be allowed to join a civilised bunch of adult men who were interested in talking about interesting adult men things rather than the angsty world of teenagerdom.
I got them to write their names down on a paper napkin, but sadly it had disintegrated by the time I got it home. I sent a Christmas Card to the White Shield Quality Control Team, Worthington’s Brewery, Burton on Trent, but I am not sure if it ever got there. I always had a bottle if ever it was on offer; either I am not a connoisseur or they changed the recipe, because it never tasted as good as it did in the Fallen Knight, Ashby de la Zouch in December 1972. Thanks for the memory.
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