Your First English Bitter

My first was Coniston Bluebird Bitter. Still love the stuff! When I can, I buy it by the case just to have around.

 

I've not had a Black Sheep beer in many a year truth be told. All decent stuff and going back 20 years, something I'd look out for when I was living in the midlands. These days there is soooooo much variety and choice and my tastes now that I'm older tend to crave stronger beers, hoppier beers, different styles - geuze, RIS etc, beers like Black Sheep Bitter don't often get the look in they probably deserve.

Mid years resolution - have a pint of Black Sheep Bitter on cask !

 

Ok ... Loughborough in early 90's ... almost my old stamping ground!

I lived in Wellingborough at the time, Northamptonshire but on the same railway line as Loughborough about 45 miles/45 minutes south.

Had a lot of friends in Leicester as I used to live there so made it to Loughborough from time to time.

Pubs ... could have been one of many. The stand out pub for me in Loughborough in the 90's was the Tap and Mallet on Nottingham Road just down from the railway station. However that may be more from the mid/late 90's era as opposed to early ... memory fades !

Beer wise ... I'd take a stab at Everards - a Leicester brewer. They tended to have a lot of pubs in north Leicestershire and particularly the villages between Leicester and Loughborough (11 or so miles)

Everards most common beers would have been Tiger and Beacon.

 

I hope this doesn't color anyone's opinion of me, but my first experience with bitter was an uncontrolled one. Hogmanay of about 1985, maybe 1984. I and a friend (a midfielder) were visiting another friend (our forward) as he was in England with family on sabbatical. Great opportunity for us to have someone with experience showing us around.
Anyway, we were a tad on the youngish side and were turned loose on our own in Cambridge for the celebrations. Found a shop that sold "bitter" and thought that would be proper. In 2-litre bottles no less! No idea what kind it was although I'm sure it was of lowest quality. We managed to polish off an indecent number of them between 4 of us that night, and ended the evening shouting up the sunrise on a hilltop overlooking town that I cannot remember the name of.

 

Sounds like Brianhophead has his fair share of bitter in him. It's the internet, dawg.

 

Maybe this is more an English Pale Ale than a Bitter, but the first time I had Bass (just in the bottle), it was a revelation. It was my Freshman year of college and had been drinking the regular light crap at frat parties and about the fanciest beers I had were Icehouse and Red Wolf. Sad, I know.

Then someone brought a six pack of Bass and I had one. I could not believe that beer could have so much taste. It was a little bitter, but I was still amazed, and then was interested in trying some other new stuff. Then I started trying SN Pale Ale, SA Boston Lager, Pete's Wicked Ale (RIP), and some imports.

Of course, bottled Bass is no longer all that exciting for me, although it is still a pretty good beer, better than many give it credit for.

 

English Pale Ale and bitter have been the same thing since Moses was still at school. They are just names which people used.
Bass was, I believe my first experience of beer-my Dad had an opened bottle in the larder (no fridges in those days) and I took a swig.It seemed overwhelmingly bitter but at 7 or 8 I hadn't acquired a taste for the stuff.Mind you, Bass was a different animal in those days; bottle conditioned and dry hopped.

 

I just had a Timothy Taylor Landlord; my god was it delicious. I can't imagine it on cask.

 

Red Hook ESB. First real bitter was Fullers ESB and it blew my mind.

 

OSH in cans is in Nitro cans. I buy OSH in bottle by the case and skunking is not an issue

 

Middle Ages Beast Bitter

 

A little over a year ago I had TBC's ESB and it blew my mind!

 

The first pale ale/ bitter I had was also bass, from the bottle but I remember it being very good at the time.

My grandpa worked in the Euston tavern in London after WW2, and he described how he used to dispense Bass ale via gravity via a big barrel seated on the bar. No doubt a much tastier version than what is available today.

When i was in Oxford and London a few years ago, as i was first really geeting into good beer, I had my fair share of bitters, but the one that really stood out to me was Charles Wells Bombadier on cask at The Lord John Russell in London. It tasted so amazing to me, and was less than 2 pounds a pint! Cheaper than the Kronenbourg and Guiness that my friends were drinking! I was so amazed that they would drink that rather than the 5 or 6 cask offerings the pub offered.

 

Still the case-you see people going for the macro lagers or Guinness when there are superb local ales on the bar next to them at significantly lower prices.Some people actually choose them BECAUSE they are expensive and think this ensures the best beer. My theory is that in fact very often the cheapest beer in a pub is the best and the most expensive one never is the best.
Ah, Bombardier, when on song is a surprisingly good beer.It's a revelation to drink the cask version alongside a can, it's almost unrecogniseably different.

 

I dont have a specific story but I do remember thinking that I needed to drink more of them ASAP.

 

1988- my first and only trip to England. Marston's Best Bitter. It was the favorite of my host in England, and a true revelation to me. Drank it daily the 2 weeks we were there. For many years it was my standard for what beer should taste like, until I finally realized that way too much time had passed for me to really remember what it tasted like!

 

Adnam's bitter on cask in London a couple years ago. The fact that it was my first bitter wasn't the biggest part of the experience. It was that it was the first beer I had in England, and the first cask ale I ever had.

 

Bateman's, I'd drink more if it wasn't so damn expensive.

 

It's weird, because the swill is significantly cheaper in the USA, both at the bar, and at the liquor store. The UK is much better off in that regard; quality beer for a low price at a pub. Although beer is taxed by its gravity as well, and here that is not the case. Perhaps that explains some of it?

I've had Bombardier in the USA out of the bottle, not even the same beer to my tastes when compared to the cask. The cask version is immensely better.