Marston's Pedigree Amber Ale, 8 x 500 ml

Product Information

To today, where it feels like Pale Ale is truly fighting back; is challenging the hegemony of international ‘lager’. With most tourists being from the US, it was interesting to note their initial responses to drinking beer at cellar temperature, considering they’d been brought up on almost ice-cold dispense.

And I do agree with my brother, who thinks it’s a bit ‘barnyardy’, a bit rustic, compared in his mind with the Daddy. Me and my University mate Duncan, enjoyed a pint or three in ‘Ye Olde Shippe’ just off Exeter’s Cathedral Close, or in the Great Western near the station or best of all, at The Bridge in Topsham. To me, just as for Ben Keene who wrote in the preface to his brewery guide to the Northeast of the U. The pub was the local social club to meet mates who only drank Bass, they didn’t want to try alternatives.

Bass though, whilst also enjoying the Burton character, had better balance, a touch of sophistication.

As well as the Marston’s one, there’s also the Tennent’s-brewed Bass that’s still popular in Northern Ireland. Regarding the swearing;given the subject matter, I find your restraint little short of fucking staggering. A true cavalier, Export has been refreshing thirsty workers worldwide with its delightfully sweet, full-bodied and hearty character since 1856. If another Brewery were to take the same approach to it’s products , yet keep the same overarching brand design criteria would there be such a debate?Old Pedigree appears much paler in the glass than New Pedigree, but that is possibly because, surprisingly, it is not entirely bright (remember, this is the brewery-conditioned one).

The brewing business was put up for sale and ultimately sold unconditionally to Interbrew of Belgium. Short version: slight tweaks to the beers (bottle-conditioning, ABV boosts here and there, bump the bitterness up maybe) to send positive signals to those who are interested in such things; maybe revive an old recipe as a show-off premium product; update the graphic design, but subtly. Each month, a different beer blogger hosts The Session, chooses a topic and creates a round-up listing of all the participants, along with a short pithy critique of each entry (see link, posted to comments in due course).

Our book 20th Century Pub was released in 2017 and is an award-winning rattle through the development of the English pub from beerhouses to micropubs. Gone, too, is the claim on the old label that Pedigree is “matured in oak barrels”, a lie so outrageous that I meant to blog about it two years ago, but never got around to it.

Obviously this beer is a few months older than the new bottle (I bought it and then had to wait for the new version to appear on the shelves, which took longer than anticipated), but still well within the best-before date (31 July 2017). Perhaps a deal could have been struck between Coors and Interbrew to prevent this: but why would Coors help Interbrew protect one of the inherent strengths of a now-competitor brand? Meanwhile, those who prefer old-school beer are likely to give these a miss, or (see above) feel that their custom is not wanted.New is a generally cleaner and fresher-tasting beer, the sugary note on the nose has gone and although it is a lightly hopped beer, there is a fair bit of hop flavour and a decent bitterness. While we’re at it, let’s make Cornish pasties in Croatia, Roquefort cheese in Slough, and vintage champagne in Barnsley. A few years ago I did a conference presentation on how (and how not) to do innovation, and when I illustrated this with numerous examples of rubbish launches, it started to look like a vendetta against the world’s biggest brewery.