Whitbread Pale Ale

Many of the big US brewers before prohibition also made a lot of their money from taverns, restaurants, beer gardens, and real estate in general. Large tracts of housing in Philadelphia were developed by local brewers (Poth, Bergdoll, Schmidt), families that eventually intermarried. The connection was easy before Prohibition, when breweries owned the taverns that sold their beer (as in the UK). Brewers like Poth would buy up tracts of land, put their taverns on the best spots (intersections), build up the rest as housing, etc. The actual production of beer became almost secondary.

 

Well, as illustrated up there in post #8, it was being brewed at the Boston Beer Co.'s brewery in Cincinnati - along with Whitbread's Mackeson Stout (below).

The previous owner of the brewery, Hudepohl-Schoenling which had been the Whitbread US importer under their subsidiary of Royal Imports, apparently made a deal to brew it under license and BBC continued the contract (they were also brewing other H-S brands).

It would have made sense to move it to Labatt after Interbrew bought Whitbread, since Interbrew had owned that Canadian brewing company since the mid-90s, but as can be seen, Interbrew continued using BBC as well as The Lion in Wilkes-Barre PA. - for Mackeson Stout, anyway (don't recall and never found evidence that Whitbread Pale Ale was done in PA).

 

The last time I had this ale was in 1994 while I was serving in the military in the Baltimore, MD area. Come to think of it, that was the last time I saw Whitbread. I believe Whitbread sponsored some automobile races. I remember the ale came in 4-packs of 12 oz. bottles.

 

Funny thing about Whitbread yeast. According to Slosberg's book, Beer for Pete's Sake, after having to leave his original contract-brewery and moving the brand to August Schell:

At that time, Joe Owades was still working for/with Pete's - as most notably featured in a classic story, told here by Stan Hieronymus in Brewing Local (pg 81-82).

One could assume that Pete's Wicked Ale continued to be brewed with a bottom-fermenting yeast after it moved to other predominately lager breweries like Minnesota Brewing Co., Stroh, Miller and, finally, F X Matt.