As I said in my first post Red was Bad, special worse and starlight even worst. Reading on here about the various practices carried out at the brewery and the pubs whatever you brew will never be as bad as what we drank back in the day.
I am certain that is the case. The only ullage in my house is the yeast left at the bottom of the keg - long after I have harvested my yeast - which is then disposed of pronti pronti (I sugar carbonate my brews). I have vinegar in my kitchen ty, no need for harvesting dead ale hehe. I do pity you in that sense, but I blame mostly the unscrupulous landlords for most of it and taking the **** so to speak by using their waste in other beers. Thinking their punters were effin stupid. I am pretty sure most of the time, the brewery was on point with alot of the beer. It's not to say that Watney's were not to blame in anyway what so ever. I am sure there were mistakes, some honest, some not so honest. But I saw a review of a brewer using the recipe from Watney archives. The review and brewer tasted it and found it to be just fine if not better than fine. But which landlord is honestly going to say they cooked their books and treated their ale and customers like *****? They will always blame the brewer. I've caught so many pub landlords tampering with their beer not knowing what they are doing. For me the blame is firmly in their corner. And I bet if I gave you a recipe from this book and you brewed it. It would pretty much confirm your ale house knob job landlord was doing the dirty on his punters. If that wasn't the case, then why the variance from region to region throughout the country. I sincerely hope the new brewer gets his break as he's trying to use a bad name but bad name or no name. He's chosen it as one people would remember and one that new drinkers would be at least giving it a try because it's 'new' to them. So much variance in the anecdotes. I am gonna brew the special ale, with a tweak prolly to raise the abv - not fond of session ales. But I bet I was right. And you suffered a t double u a t of a landlord in your pub :C