The Return of Whitbread Pale Ale

I fondly recall drinking Whitbread in Houston 1993-1995 at a couple of English Pubs plus Gingerman. Great memories at a time when good beer was hard to find. Likely would not have enough taste now. Loved it with the salt and vinegar chips.

 

Great to hear!

 

Loved it back in the day, I'd give it a go.

 

In the US after Interbrew bought Whitbread, Whitbread Pale Ale (along with stablemate, Mackeson Stout) was "brewed under license" at the old Schoenling brewery in Cincinnati that Boston Beer Co. bought in the late 1990s, through the Royal Imports company (a Hudephol-Schoenling spin-off) which previously had the US import rights.

IIRC, that beer only disappeared from the US market after InBev bought Anheuser-Busch.



The Lion also brewed the licensed version of Mackeson Stout during that period but I don't remember if they also did Whitbread Ale there, too.

 

I've heard this, and I'm quite excited. As a lad Whitbread used to be my favorite, followed closely by Watney's Red Barrel. Whitbread used dual yeast strains and it was a little bit different than other beers. When it was brewed under contract in Cincinnati it didn't taste the same at all, and I don't believe they were using the same yeasts, or even one of them, but that hardly mattered as I felt they got the malt wrong as well. Hopefully this new go-round will be closer to the original.

 

What years was Whitbread brewed by Schoenling? I can remember drinking the Whitbread back in the ... mid-80s? Maybe? But I honestly can't recall if it was imported or Ohio-brewed.

 

Opps - sorry that's not clear in my post.

It wasn't brewed by Schoenling, it was brewed by Boston Beer Co. at the old Schoenling brewery after BBC bought the facility in 1996 when Hudepohl-Schoenling got out of the actual "brewing" business (there were a few years after that when BBC brewed the H-S beers, the two companies sort of switching roles as contractor/contractee brewers).

Not sure when the US-brewed-under-license Whitbread beers started but it seemed to happen around the same time as Interbrew bought Whitbread in 2000.

 

Ahh -- okay, so what I was trying to enjoy (I was just getting into "different" beers) back then was probably imported.

My only recollection was a very dry beer -- could have been English hops, but I didn't know about that stuff yet.

 

A staple of mine back in the 70s when I lived in Orange County California.

 

Was this a development from the earlier arrangement that had Whitbread brewing Boston Beer brands in the UK? (It's possible I made that up, don't know if I'm remembering my facts right, they at least collaborated on BBC's early nitro beers.)

 

Yeah, that deal came before the brewed-under-license deal (from a BBC SEC filing):

So, those two companies had a relationship but Hudepohl-Schoenling, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Royal Imports, had been importing Whitbread and Mackeson since 1990, so its hard to say how the US-brewed versions came about.

After Hudepohl-Schoenling got out of the brewing business entirely in 1999 (from 1996 until then, BBC was contract-brewing their brands) their domestic brands were sold to the doomed Snyder International while the import rights went to the spin-off "Royal Imports" which was owned by Heileman exec, Randy Hull (now with City Brewing).

I once called BBC's toll-free number and instead of getting a typical rep who just read answers out of a book, they had me leave my number and actually called me back. I got a pretty knowledgeable guy who I then peppered with questions, one of which was what was the deal between BBC, Royal and Interbrew and he denied they (Boston) ever brewed the Whitbread brands (!) - "Oh, no, that was before we bought the brewery in Cincinnati." No it wasn't - the TTB COLAs are all from well after 1997.