My Rarest Scoops!  

his section will relate the mildly engaging tales of how I came to scoop some of my rarest ticks.  Please feel free to send me your stories, they can't be much worse than these.  Just choose a yarn and read on .....

Hartley's Fellrunners - by Gazza 

Brains MA - by Gazza

Valhalla White Wife - by Gazza

Aldchlappie 1707 - by Gazza

Beer Engine 11:11 - by Gazza

Valhalla White Wife - Blackfriars, Glasgow 14th October 1999.

t was a dark and stormy night ... well, maybe not.  Wrong story - it was quite a nice day actually. I was working up in Glasgow and drinking various beers in Clockwork and the Three Judges, but one of most satisfying scoops happened in the city centre and was not just a huge brewery but was totally unexpected - as all the best winners are.

I had visited various pubs around town and scored 2 beers, both in the Three Judges - Beowulf Eomer and Rebellion Old Trout. After finishing the "scooping" pubs, I went for a few beers in the other bars that sold good beer, mostly in the "merchant city" around the Firkin. I had some decent beers and ended, as I usually did, in the Blackfriars where good Scottish beers were guaranteed, although winners were almost unknown - although at this point in the evening I was purely after good beer and the thought of any more winners had drifted off and mingled with the fag smog in the Mitre.

I trolled into the Blackfriars giving the beer board a casual glance, and suddenly felt as though someone had applied a large wet herring across my face. It's always amazed me how people can go from laid back chilled out geezers into raving twitching desperados and up to then this had not really happened to me. With my now staring eyes I re-read the board, but concluded I'd been right first time. Valhalla Auld Rock. 

I suppose I'd better mention that at the time Valhalla was the holy grail - the brewery so far North it must be staffed by polar bears and whose whole production was swilled by RAF men at RAF Baltasound - I had briefly thought about joining up to score the beer, but concluded that I'd have the stuff eventually without having to join up to perpetuate the British fascist war machine. 

Anyway, it was allegedly available and I hardly dared look at the pumps lest it was a cruel joke, but there it was. I had become a sort of regular in the Blackfriars as I'd been working in Glasgow for the last month, and this stood me in good stead now. The barman recognised me (probably as that mad Englishman who drinks the micro beers) and wasn't surprised when I ordered the Valhalla. I watched mesmerised as the amber fluid cascaded into the glass. He handed it over, and I had one of the most massive winners around in my hand. I retired to a table to enjoy my good fortune.

Getting something you've wanted for a long time is usually an anticlimax. My first sexual encounter certainly was, likewise my first joint at Poly reduced me to a corpse like object fast asleep in the room whilst my mates enjoyed themselves and laughed into the small hours, eventually waking me up with their cavorting. So it was with Valhalla Auld Rock, which had a slight cardboardy taste and little flavour. Nevertheless, I drank it with pleasure wondering what other scoopers would do to be in my position. It was then, half way down the glass, that I had one of my rare inspirational ideas; I would ask my mate the barman if they had anything else in the cellar.  I briefly thought about the alleged new beer from Valhalla, called White Wife, but the thought of this was just ridiculous.

I can't remember much about the conversation - it seems like it was someone else asking the questions and I was sort of listening in, but it went like this - 

me : "Do you have any other Valhalla beers coming on then?"
barman : "Oh aye, we've the White Wife in the cellar"
me : "eeerm ..... when will that be on?"
barman : "Ye can have some noo if ye want"
me : "What, from the cellar?"
barman : "Aye. a pint is it?"

I watched speechless as the barman sauntered off down the steps with a pint glass in his hand and returned with a full pint of pale beer. I bought him a drink for his efforts, and returned to my table in a daze where I stared hard at the glass, but it was stubbornly still there. I took a swig, and again the cardboard assailed my tastebuds, but I didn't care - I was sat there with a big stupid grin on my face - I was the first scooper to have Valhalla White Wife.

I'm sure it was indeed White Wife as the next week, back in Glasgow, it appeared on the pumps with correct clip. I had another pint to be sure, but it had lost it's magic - it just tasted of cardboard. I doubt I'll ever recreate the feeling of that night 400 miles from home scoring the biggest beer in Britain, but I was there - or was I? I've never really been sure on that one - can you count beers in a dream?

White Wife remained a huge beer for several years, and one of my abiding memories is it being on Nottingham's list. When we arrived on Friday, it had already gone - and most scoopers missed it, and how I laughed! Of course it's relatively common nowadays, but whenever I see it on a list it must be a strange sight - I go all misty eyed and a massive grin appears on my face; I'm back in the Blackfriars blagging the largest beer in Britain from the cellar.  I'm sure the barman never knew how much that meant to me, but if you're reading this, then you really should be the next pope.  Cheers mate.

< Back to Top >

Aldchlappie 1707 - Aldchlappie Hotel, 23rd February 1997

gain, this one was one of the Holy grails of the beer world.  It never went anywhere, the entire production was sold in the hotel to the guests.  How we scored it was a spur of the moment decision brought on by some Traquair beers....

We were at the Traquair beer fest.  It was my first time there, and although I had scored a few beers, I was gutted that the festival ale wasn't on - infection or something, although in my opinion that could apply to all their beers!  The trip was running a bit "off the cuff", and we had nowhere booked for doss that night when somehow the subject of Aldchlappie came up, and an idea manifested itself; what about staying at the rarest brewpub in the UK?

Steve rang the pub, but bad news was heading our way; they only had one room left and we decided that it would be a bit rude to blag 3 in it.  I even toyed with the idea of sleeping in my car outside, but I decided this was too much beyond the call of duty - looking back now, maybe it would have been worth it! Despite the bad news on the doss, there was better news on the beer front - there was a beer on! The lure of this huge winner was now irresistible, so off we went on the long trek to the Highlands.

When I think of the daft moves I used to do driving over 100 miles for 1 winner must come pretty high on the list, but these were the days when I was desperate and to be honest I'm glad we did - not many people had any beers at all from Aldchlappie.  We decided to break the journey at Moulin, about 10 miles short of target, just in case they had done anything new.  To my amazement Moulin Light was on the bar, only a few weeks old! Scoring a beer here was the icing on the cake.

The road from Moulin to Kirkmichael is very windy and very hilly as the few who have travelled it will know; It breaks free of civilisation just past the Moulin brewpub and heads up into the surrounding mountains.  This is golfing and shooting area, which was why the Aldchlappie was full up as we found later.  My resentment of the "shooting set" grew even more when I found out I'd been deprived of doss by a bunch of toffee nosed wildlife murderers; cheers then!

Just when I was thinking we must have missed it, there it was; a pale grey building with a hint of fairytale Gothicism about it, and nothing else in sight.  It was nothing like I'd imagined it but it looked superb; it really felt like this was the remotest brewpub in Britain, and after this even Moulin seemed distinctly bustling.  Outside the car, the silence of the Highlands lay thick all around. 

We hardly dared to enter the pub in case the journey had been in vain.  The bar was surrounded by pumpclips, and the familiar throng of single malts crowded the shelves but all this was just a distraction as there, on the pumps, was Aldchlappie 1707, 5%.  Caley Deuchars was also on, but at this point this was about as irrelevant as you could get; there was only one thing we were here for, and I honestly couldn't believe it was still on.  We ordered 3 pints and I fully expected the pump to splutter and cough out a few drops and the clip to be turned round with the familiar "sorry, it's gone. Would you like anything else?".

The gods were smiling on us that day.  A winner at Moulin, then Aldchlappie 1707 drunk at source.  To be honest, it tasted like malt extract homebrew, and poor stuff at that, but to grade the beer by this simple method would be missing the point; we had driven over 100 miles to the Scottish Highlands to sample one of the UK's hugest beers that just happened to taste like bad homebrew and I think our dedication to the cause should have deserved a better beer, but just being there drinking it in the bar knowing that we were some of the first - if not the only - scoopers to drink it was something special.

Aldchlappie beers never got about very much, and although the landlord planned to expand the brewery, I seem to remember he grew Ill and sold up and brewing ceased.  I know a few people who have trekked up that lonely lane from Moulin to be confronted by a blank handpump, and know few scoopers who actually had any beer from here.  It's a safe bet that in any scooper's list of huge beers or elusive breweries Aldchlappie will rear it's head, which is why I'm just happy that we were there and, more importantly, so was the beer!

We went to Aldchlappie again, in August 98, and had the same beer but at a lower gravity and new recipe. It was still a special place, but I don't think anything could beat the feeling of scoring the beer that first time at the brewpub in the middle of the Highlands and I feel sorry for anyone who never went; it was an experience that is lacking in scooping today. 

There is a brewpub even more remote than Aldchlappie now, near Thurso at the far North of Scotland, but the magic of going there and scoring the beer has been ruined by it appearing at the Smithfield's festivals several times.  I know that now I'd probably never get round to going there, but that's not the point; there should be some holy grails to aspire to, and this one is tarnished.  At least Aldchlappie never went to a festival; you had to be hardcore and actually go there!

< Back to Top >

Beer Engine 11:11 - The Beer Engine, Newton St Cyres, 11th August 1999.

he coming of the solar eclipse in 1999 was a day to remember for many people.  I had decided that I had to witness this event, but the best move was causing concern. The path of the eclipse covered Cornwall and South Devon, and just clipped Dorset, leaving the best choice for a day trip to be Devon.  I reckoned that I knew the perfect site too - a stone circle high up on Dartmoor with wide views of east and west horizons to see the thing coming and going.

An old mate of mine, Big Feller, decided to accompany me so we set off overnight on the trip down to Dartmoor. Traffic was lighter than I had thought it would be, and we made good time on the M4.  Driving across Dartmoor was a little more fun as the sheep seemed determined to inspect the underside of the car and some ethereal mist curled across the road from the numerous adits that cut across the moor, sometimes forming patches so thick you could slice them onto toast. Not the best driving conditions with the kamikaze sheep milling around and big ditches on each side of the road!

We eventually made it to the chosen site at about 6am and found a few crusties in a camp about a mile away, but hardly any normals around. We had a wander around the moor and eyed the clouds that were building up overhead, and I was sure that we wouldn't see anything of the eclipse itself although the darkness was what we wanted to see.  By about 10:00 the little road was filling up with cars and people, and the surrounding tors had small knots of sightseers perched on top.  The sun was occasionally visible, and by 11:00 there wasn't much of it left to see - a strange and slightly spooky sight. 

We made our way to the stone circle and waited for totality.  I had no idea what to expect, but what happened I will never forget.  It was getting colder and colder, and very dull like under a thunderstorm except without the rain.  Suddenly, on the western horizon, what looked like a cloud of ink was rushing towards us and just before it was a ripple of camera flashes. 

I just stood there totally gobsmacked as this thing rushed towards us.  Then, it was pitch black.  And I mean pitch black - like being out on the moor at midnight, but it was ten past 11.  The northern horizon was lighter, being the edge of totality, but I just remember standing there in the blackness in a state of mild terror wondering if it would ever get light again.  Of course now this seems a stupid thing to think, but if you had been stood there you'd have felt the same thing.  I can see why the ancient peoples of the world were so in terror of eclipses, it certainly scared me.

All too soon, the same process happened in reverse - the western horizon became light, and the daylight rushed towards us at over 1000mph, followed by the ripple of camera flashes and was gone eastwards.  I watched it go, again open mouthed. Then, totally unprompted and spontaneously, everyone started to clap and cheer.  Great cheers went up from the tors and everyone's face wore a massive grin.  It seemed like the event had stripped the 20th century veneer from everyone and transported them back thousands of years, stood on a moor just as our ancestors must have done millennia ago, and with the same terror that the sun may never come back again.  I don't think anyone who was there will ever forget that feeling of pure elation of having seen something very, very special and, dare I say it, spiritual? Even Big Feller was enthusing about the experience which was praise indeed.

I felt like I was walking on air and we decided that food and a celebratory pint were in order.  This may sound strange, but I'd never considered getting any eclipse beers in the book but now it seemed like a very good idea indeed.  Such was my euphoria that I totally forgot about Princetown (although I don't think they did one) and as I studied the map an idea came to me.  What about Beer Engine - they used to do specials for various things, why not this? With Big Feller navigating, we stormed off northwards to Crediton.

On arrival at the Beer Engine, we found it packed with eclipse spotters all tucking into the top fodder served there.  I approached the bar with trepidation, and eyeballed the handpumps and I think it's fair to say I almost passed out with disbelief.  Beer Engine 11:11 was on, and the day was complete.  I ordered 2 pints of it, along with 2 massive sausage and mash platters and we settled down to discuss the morning's events.  The beer was malty, sweetish and just what I needed after being awake for 10 hours and I could have happily settled down there for the day and scored a gallon of it.  Unfortunately, I was driving so a pint it was, but I enjoyed every drop.

I don't think I've enjoyed many beers as much as I did this one.  As far as the eclipse beers went, this was probably one of the rarest ones about and, unusually for a beer so huge, it was supremely drinkable.  Roll on the next eclipse, I need more 11:11!

< Back to Top >

Brains MA - Crown Inn, Skewen, 14th December 1991, £1.06 a pint.

hen I was getting into beer scooping at University this was one of the first house beers available in the UK and, so, a very desirable scoop for anyone's book.  Maybe it showed the way for brewers to mix whatever beer they felt fit to create the multitude of house beers which now infest pubs up and down the land but, whatever it's widespread repercussions might be, in 1992 it was a massive winner that was only served in one Brains pub - the Crown at Skewen, near Swansea - and if you wanted to scoop it you had to go there; that was the only way.  The pub had this beer as the locals, being more used to Buckley’s bitter, complained the Brains Light on sale was too pale and somehow the landlord persuaded the brewery to mix it for him… or did he just do it himself?  Perhaps we’ll never know.

It might seem strange to those of, shall we say, the "modern era" who expect to see every beer at a beer festival near them some time soon that to scoop a beer you needed to go to the place it was served.  Well, in those days, there were some beers that wouldn't come to you; you just had to go to them! Examples were Brains MA, Min Pin Inn and many more which have mostly long since closed the doors of their brewhouses for the last time leaving the beers only a memory for a few old-guard scoopers and as entries in faded, dusty old GBG's.  A few survive from those days but not many.

I was getting more into drinking new beers whilst at the Polytechnic of Wales, ten miles to the North of Cardiff, but the problem I had will certainly raise a chorus of "yeahs" and "I know what you mean" from a lot of readers - it was difficult finding pubs which sold guest beers in the Valleys.  Even when you did find one, the beer was more than often Brains Bitter than not!  I was struggling to find winners even though my scoops total was under 500; this was what it was like in the dark old days my friends! (Although I suppose that being in a bit of a real-ale desert didn't help either) but frequent trips away enabled me to edge my total slowly towards the magical 1,000... (this would come in 1993 in the King's Arms, Salford, and would be Dobbin's Old Soporific but that's another story).

Anyway, back to the tale.  It was a miserable Saturday night as only miserable Saturday nights in the Welsh valleys can be and I was killing time in my house, doing nothing in particular, when Fletch appeared at the front door looking very agitated.  Could it be a daisy working the "all-line" diagram, I thought to myself, as I trudged down the stairs and opened the door.  Fletch was indeed agitated but it turned out with very good reason - a friend from our days in the halls of residence had called round and he was now working locally and had that magical thing which, at the time, none of us had - a car!  Well, when I say a car, I use the word in it's loosest possible sense; it was really a shitty old works van with a most amusing attachment, a flashing orange light on the roof!  Fletch and I grinned - with this vehicle we could do some serious scooping... all we needed was a self-sacrificing driver…and it looked like we had one in the form of Glenn!

"Well then lads!" said Glenn, "What do you feel like doing then?  Is there anywhere you want to go, like?" (He was a Geordie!).  Fletch and I, funnily enough, had been talking about the massive beer Brains MA the previous day and how much we’d love to get it in the book as we’d had all their other beers (this was the time before breweries did special beers, remember!) and this seemed like too good an invitation to turn down – maybe Bacchus, the god of beer, had heard us bemoaning our empty scoops books and, in a spirit of munificence, was smiling on us and had sent Glenn with his crusty white van (complete with flashing orange scoops-alert light) by way of answering our prayers?

Whatever the explanation, we couldn’t turn this gift down - this was one move that just had to be done. 

“How about a little trip over to the the Swansea Valleys?” Fletch suggested with trepidation, but we needn’t have worried as Glenn was up for the move wholeheartedly. 

“Sounds like a top move, lads!” he enthused.  “I canna drink much as I’m driving, but I’ve never been there!  Let’s Guuur!” 

As we made for the door, my housemate Parry appeared in the entrance looking curious.

“Where you off to, boys?” he asked, “and whose is that shitty old van outside?” he continued, eyeing Glenns’ van with a look of unmitigated distaste.  “It’s fucking minging, mun!” (He was Welsh if you hadn’t guessed).  Before Glenn could take umbrage with these comments, I introduced my mate and asked if he could come too.  “Course he can!” beamed Glenn, “but he’s in the back with you!” 

We all piled into the van and off we went.  Fletch sat in the front with Glenn, whilst me and Parry did our best to perch in the back which was, as Parry had said, “minging” and full of all sorts of tools and bits of wood which were presumably used for whatever job Glenn did – I can’t remember if I even asked him but if I did I can’t remember now!  As we growled onto the M4 westbound I felt as if Bacchus was indeed grinning down on us and we’d soon have the full complement of Brains beers in our books.  Glenn wasn’t a scooper and neither was Parry although, being acquainted with Fletch and myself, they had heard all about it ad nausea and knew exactly why we wanted this particular beer so badly.

We were soon roaring along the M4 with, on my request, the orange scoop-alert light flashing away.  Soon we passed Briton Ferry with the huge Port Talbot steelworks festooned with lights and the sky above turned orange by the blazing furnaces inside; even inside the van the pungent reek of acrid sulphur crept in through the many dodgy seals and made us all cough.  I don’t know if the steelworks is even there nowadays, but this summed up south Wales for me; heavy industry, coal and steel, was the heartbeat of the land and now it’s almost all gone.  When I started Polytechnic in 1988 there were still ten “proper” deep pit coal mines in the Welsh Valleys – when I left there was only one, the last mine in Wales.  I saw villages turn into ghost towns as all who could get out departed and those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, leave turned to drugs and drink for something to do.  A friend of a good mate hung himself out of depression in one of these once proud pit villages.  Thatcher has a lot to answer for.

We were soon turning off the M4 into Skewen and as we pulled up outside the pub I was buzzing – all this way without checking if the beer was even on – were we mad?  As we entered the pub I craned my neck to see the pumpclips and a huge wave of disappointment crept over me as I saw only Dark, Light and SA clips on the pumps.  “Bollocks!” I cursed to Fletch, “Do you see what I see?”  Fletch had already seen the bad news, but we were here now and a beer seemed much in order despite there being no winners on although thinking back I’m not sure why I expected there to be a pumpclip; after all, this was just a mix done for one pub so why should there be a special clip made just for this one outlet?

I approached the bar, resigned to no winners.  “Do you sell MA?” I asked the barman. 

“Sell what?” he replied, looking very confused.  Bollocks, I thought, are we in the right place here? 

“Brains MA, the mixed beer?” I implored desperately and then, to my elation, I saw a spark of understanding and the barman’s face crack into a smile.  “Ah, you mean our special bitter!” he explained, “The one Brains make just for us!” and indicated the Brains Bitter pump.  “That’s it!”

“That’s it, the dark bitter!” I almost shouted with exhilaration, “Four pints please!”  We were soon each in possession of a pint of this most prized beer and we admired it almost reverently.  It was indeed darker than the very pale Brains bitter and we sipped the brew deferentially – and it was pretty good too, with the gentle hop taste of the light but with the chocolatey, nutty character of the Dark.  And, best of all, we’d scooped it – and not many other tickers we’d met (admittedly not many at that point) had!

On the way home we visited a few more pubs – the White Horse in Coychurch which was apparently the home of Brains’ top cellarman – well, on the evidence of our visit it was his week off, as the Dark was rather like a well-known brand of fermented malt condiment.  The Tynant at Morganstown was better with a decent pint of bitter but there was only one beer of the night – the excellent MA in Skewen.

I vaguely remember both Parry and myself having rather bad flatulence on the way back and the rancid effluence we emitted rendered us incapacitated with fits of laughter on the floor of the van whilst all windows were wound right down in a feeble attempt to expel the appalling smell from the vehicle.  I think Parry attempted to help by opening the back doors to create a through draught – but when we looked at the M4 shooting past at 90mph we soon closed it again and the van was consigned to reek the rest of the way back to Treforest.  To quote Fletch “I can’t say what the beer was like as my senses were dead due to horrendous farts” just about sums it all up; that and scooping one of the rarest beers in the UK sums up one surreal night in a crappy old van with a flashing orange light.

As a postscript to this story, three years later I visited the Evening Star in Brighton where, as soon as I’d walked through the door, Geoff handed me a half pint of beer with a smug look on his face.

“What’s that, then?” I enquired, taking off my coat.  “It must be rare for you not to ask me!”

“You’ll need it” stated Geoff as if it were an incontrovertible fact writ in stone.

“Yeah, but what is it?  I need to know what it is first!” I pried, getting a bit tetchy.  I’d just travelled an hour and a half to get here and Geoff was playing games with me!

“You’ll need it – just drink it and I’ll tell you after.  Everyone who’s been in has needed it” Geoff replied with finality, watching to see what I’d say about it.  “That’s 80p, please”.

“I’m not paying nowt until you tell me what the bloody hell it is!” I shouted.  “Just tell me!”

Geoff looked hurt.  “Well, if you don’t want it I’ll just take it away” he said, removing the glass to the back shelf.  When he returned, he wore a smirk.  “You need Brains MA, don’t you? Everyone does.  It’s only sold in one pub near Swansea, you know…”

 © Gazza 3/10/05.  V1.0

 < Back to Top >

Hartley's Fellrunners - Black Horse, Preston, 14/09/1991, £1.10 a pint.

ery early in my scooping career I suddenly realised that breweries were subject to takeover and closure when Robinsons, a brewery which I respected at the time (told you it was a long while ago), announced they were to close the Hartley’s brewery in Ulverston which they’d bought a good few years previously.  Hartley’s were famous for their “beers from the wood”; all their production was dispatched to the trade in oak casks and didn’t travel that well so, to catch it in peak condition, a trip to Ulverston was required – consequently in September 1991, just a few months before the big wooden brewery gates were due to close for the last time, I set out for the lake district knowing that this would be my one and only chance to scoop their rare brews.

At the risk of stating the obvious – as I’d only been scooping for a couple of years at this point – my scoops book was somewhat empty and as a result I’d accept anything reasonably worth drinking; at that point I wasn't particularly militant and therefore the category of “worth drinking” encompassed just about every beer available in cask form!  My scoops tally in 1991 could be numbered in the hundreds rather than thousands and so I was well whipped up for a few scoops before I reached Ulverston, just to get me in the mood, and the old traditional brewery of Mitchells in Lancaster, where I conveniently had to change trains, sounded just the ticket to get the day’s scooping underway.

Having graduated – like many “old skool” scoopers – to beer from the extreme railway hobby of “diesel bashing” I’d visited Lancaster previously and so knew the rough lie of the land, and this saw me walking into the Slip Inn bang on opening time.  Two beers were available, and as a result Mitchells Best Bitter (3.5%) and Fortress (4.2%) were duly imbibed and scribed into the book; the day was off to a good start!  Wandering back to the station for my train to Ulverston I risked a quick peek into the Three Mariners where I was presented with a beer which is one of those which, had I the powers of some supreme deity, I’d not hesitate to bring back without a thought of upsetting the future of the earth: Mitchell’s Dark Mild (3.3%).  I returned to this pub many times through the years to sup this gorgeously nutty, toasty brew, but sadly Mitchell’s went bankrupt in the late 1990’s and this glorious beer is now no more.

Sorry, I digress; the Mitchell’s mild was delicious and added another notch to the day’s tally, but it was Hartley’s beer I’d come all this way for and so boarded the rattling old class 108 DMU (another thing that’s no longer with us) for the short trundle along the coast to Ulverston past the scenic hotspot of Grange-over-Slime and other less glamorous places.  Half an hour later, with no gen to speak of except what was in my Good beer Guide, I was on the streets of Ulverston and heading for my first Hartley scoop.  As an aside here, it’s difficult to believe that times existed when you couldn’t just fire up the internet and draw down street maps of anywhere in the world and then google for a list of possibly decent pubs to visit; no, in those days the GBG was the word and the word was the GBG.  It seems a different age now and I know some readers won’t remember it – well, it happened, that's how scooping was back then!  I honestly can’t remember the last time I carried a GBG around or believed what it said…

My first call was, prosaically, the first Hartley’s pub I encountered on my trudge into town from the station and so in I went.  I wasn't sure what to expect, knowing that the brewery produced four beers, but it certainly wasn't a single handpump dispensing XB!  Ah well, that was my Hartley’s account off the mark, and I supped the deep amber brew with it's malt and oak tastes noticing the nutty and sweet flavours that the oak cask had imbued the beer with and, even then at the tender age of 21, I realised that I was seeing the passing of an age of brewing history where little local breweries supplied beers in wooden casks for local palates in favour of yet another wave of consolidation and closures, although I couldn’t have predicted the size of the imminent boom in micro-brewers in my wildest dreams!

I continued into the town centre and had a look in the next Hartley’s pub I encountered – and the next – and the next; all seemed to sell only XB and I was beginning to wonder where the ordinary mild and bitter were sold: if they still existed, that was.  I reached the Hope and Anchor and decided on another half of the pleasant XB and casually asked the landlord where I could locate the brewery’s standard ales.

“You tried t’brewery tap?” he asked.

“No, not yet” I confirmed, “Where’s that, then?”

“Union Inn, just by’t brewery, along the way” came his reply.  “If they’re not in there then ah’ve no idea where you’ll find ‘em” he concluded.

Five minutes later and I’d located the Union which, as the landlord had predicted, was opposite the surprisingly small brewery with it’s slender brick chimney.  Inside was an oasis of calm and tradition – not that I needed one in Ulverston, but there you go – but what put a big smile on my face were the handpumps serving Hartley’s mild and bitter; result, three down and one to go!  The bitter was very delicate and woody  whilst the mild may even edge out the Mitchell’s as one of the finest examples of mild I've ever - and probably will ever - drink: wooden casks seem to add that extra dab of magic which mild needs in order to shine, and this didn’t shine, it positively gleamed with a fragile woody nuttiness.

As I supped these two delicious ales I began to reflect on styles of beer; this trip to the lakes really opened my eyes to how diverse beers from different regions could be; previously I’d never really given the subject much thought but, as I stood by the bar of the Union Inn with a half of mild in my hand, my youthful scooper’s brain began to form theories and opinions which I like to think aren’t that much different from those I hold now – although I now have the added bonus of sixteen years experience to back them up with!  With three of my four Hartley’s beers supped, I asked the landlord where I could find the final elusive one, Fellrunners.

He laughed; that wasn’t a good start.

“Fellrunners?” he guffawed, “You’ll be bloody lucky, lad!  It’s only sold in a couple o’pubs up in’tlakes and nowhere here in town” he informed me with what seemed to me to be a unnecessary amount of pleasure.

My spirits sank; this was my one and only chance to get the beer but now it seemed as if it may as well be a million miles away as twenty miles up in the undulating hills which I’d seen from the train just an hour ago.

“Tell you where else you’ll get it, though” he added, suddenly remembering some nugget of gen he’d neglected to tell me, “Black Horse in Preston has it – it’s a Robbies’ pub near’t centre of town”.

Now this was an unexpected lifeline! I knew that I could easily call in at Preston on my way home and a quick check of the time told me that the day was still young and I had plenty of time to play with so, indulging in the spirit of the moment of being in a new place with beers which would cease to exist in a couple of months time, I had another half of both ales… well, it would be my last chance, and anyway they were both stunning examples of what is now almost an extinct part of British beer culture – standard low-gravity mild and bitter beers brewed for the immediate area around the brewery and sent out in wooden casks.  As with a time before the internet, this age now seems a very long time ago…

My scooping in Ulverston at an end, I thanked the landlord for his help and trudged off towards the station for the next train to Lancaster where I could change for a Preston-bound service in order – I hoped – to clear up my last Hartley’s beer and thence off home.  All seemed easy; I’d get off at Preston, find a map to locate the pub, amble along to it where the beer would be available and in perfect condition, I’d drink a pint to celebrate clearing my Hartley’s beers and then I’d walk back to the station for a train home.  What could possibly go wrong?

As we left Preston I noticed that the train lights suddenly came on; there were no tunnels en-route, so why – at four o’clock in September – had they been turned on?  The answer came within seconds as the sky grew dark and huge raindrops began slapping into the window: great, I was off for a walk around a town I didn’t know in the middle of a monsoon!  Had I been a religious man I’d no doubt have been fervently praying for the inclement weather to ease off by the time we reached Preston but, with no weather-controlling divinity to help me, I’d just have to take whatever the skies threw at me… after all, this was a massive scoop…

By the time I’d reached Preston the rain had settled into a steady downpour and so, taking my trusty portable umbrella from my bag, I waded out into the raging torrent which passed for a road towards the siren-like call of my final Hartley’s beer.  Back in those days Preston didn’t have many scooping pubs – very few places did, come to that – so there was no Bitter Suite or New Brit to help me out with a few choice ticks; there wasn't even that many micro breweries around, 1991 being in the middle of the lean micro-brewery spell from 1988 to 1993, so I’d have to make do with the Black Horse or nowt.  Gastons, the town’s free house, was closed as I passed and anyway the Little Avenham brewery there wouldn’t exist for another six months.

Through the steady torrent I sloshed, rainwater gleefully finding it’s way into my shoes and down my neck, towards my target of the Black Horse.  Imagine then, given the prevailing climatic conditions, my mood when I finally reached the pub and found the door securely bolted – afternoon closing, I’d not considered that, and it was still only twenty past four!  I now faced a stark choice; stay and wait for the pub to open and scoop my final Hartley’s beer, or cut my losses and get the next train home.  You may think this is what’s nowadays termed a “no-brainer” but, as I stood outside that locked door with only a flimsy umbrella and porch roof for shelter in the full fury of wind and driving rain, the latter option suddenly seemed very appealing!

Thankfully, I soon came to my senses; there was no point in getting even more sodden traipsing back to the station with nothing accomplished when I could shelter the best I could under the pub’s porch - and my permeable umbrella - for around forty minutes until my winner was available for scooping and, anyway, this was my one and only chance to scoop Fellrunners!  I pressed my dripping face against the glass and saw - with a vast surge of delight - the Hartley’s pumpclip adorning one of the handpulls and, delirious with rain madness, it was as if I could almost hear it entreating me not to give up…”If Hilary had come back down Everest at the first sign of snow he’d not have scooped the mountain” whispered the pumpclip, and I agreed with it; if he could put up with some discomfort for his cause then I was confident that a strapping young lad of 21 such as myself could too…

Half an hour later this train of thought rang very hollow as I shivered in the rain under the pub’s tiny porch roof; what the hell was I doing standing here, getting soaked to the skin, when I could easily have come back a week later?  Convinced that I was catching hypothermia I pressed myself closer into the doorway in an attempt to avoid the worst of the lashing torrent which still hurled itself in my direction, whilst my watch seemed to have slowed to a crawl or, maybe, gone into reverse… Suddenly, the pub’s lights came on and I heard a key rattling in the lock behind me – this was it, all that water absorption had better have been worth it!

The landlord obviously wasn’t used to opening the door to a queue, never mind a sodden young beer scooper, but he graciously offered me a bartowel to dry myself as he busied himself with pulling the beers through.  For one horrifying, stomach-churning second I thought the Fellrunners was off as it spluttered and spat it’s way from the pump, but the flow soon settled down into a gleaming jet of amber as it filled my pint glass with one of the hardest-won scoops I’ve ever had and so I stood at the bar, still dripping surplus rainwater onto the carpet, with my final Hartley’s beer in my hand.

So, was it worth it?  If you consider the satisfaction in drinking all the beers from a brewery in one day, then yes; if you consider the soaking I’d endured to have this last beer then yes, but in the flavour stakes I’m not so sure: mellow and malty say my tasting notes, which puts it firmly in fourth place of the four Hartley’s beers I supped that day.  Saying that, very few scoopers I know had Fellrunners, the rarest of the rare Hartley’s beers, and so - looking back sixteen years - I’m very glad that I shivered outside the Black Horse in the pouring rain for almost an hour to get it… and so yes, just for the rareness value alone, it was very, very worth it.

And yes I did catch a cold from my soaking – but, again, it was worth it…

© Gazza 19/07/07.  

< Back to Top >