A couple of historical questions

[ColonelPanic]

1. When I was very young, in the 1950s and very early 60s, I recall the smell of the brewery (Wrekin Ales) wafting across the market. Does anybody know what hops Wrekin Ales would have used in those days ? Is there any source on the internet that has old commercial recipes?

2. In my later youth, the early 70s, I used to drink Greene King - mainly IPA. In about 1974 or 1975 or thereabouts, the IPA took a turn for the worse. Given that the Greene King website says that the IPA is Challenger and First Gold, both of which are relatively new (to us oldies), is it possible that the Greene King of 1970, or thereabouts, was made with a different hop bill ?

 

[clibit]

This website is all about historic brewing and has tons of information about breweries and what they brewed.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/

Fuggles and Goldings dominated English ales until relatively recently. It's likely Wrekin used one or both of these. Greene King too. Other hops were used though. Including some from Germany, and Cluster from America were used a long time ago, surprisingly, as a bittering hop, on quite a fee breweries, I believe.

 

[ColonelPanic]

Thanks, again, clibit.

barclayperkins is a great site.

I'm pretty sure Fuggles is in the Wrekin aroma. Not sure about Goldings. If it is, there's something else as well.

I shall have a look at Cluster.

 

[trueblue]

From research I did several years ago I believe GK abbot and IPA were hopped with Goldings and Northern brewer until sometime in the 1970s when they replaced Northern brewer with Challenger.

 

[ColonelPanic]

Thanks for that, trueblue.

Northern Brewer was on my list as a possible, being an ancestor of Challenger. It'll definitely be on my next order.

Good to hear the reason GK IPA changed. We knew it had, but the word on the bar floor was that they'd shifted production to (or from?) Biggleswade and maybe it was the water... We were more interested in drinking it than analysing it, you understand.