My local in Horsforth was (and still is, as far as I know) a John Smiths pub, but kept a smashing pint of directors. Not the biggest fan of John Smiths, but they always kept a good pint in there. I'd imagine they still do, although it's hardly local anymore for me!

I never had much need for Tetleys.

The Brown Cow at Whitkirk used to serve a good pint of Tetleys when I used to drink there

. Unfortunatley thats over 18 years ago now. When I used to come home on leave from London always remember the Tetleys welcome to Leeds sign at the side of the railway, new I was home then. Mind you the platform was only 100m further on!

The supporters club used to be great for a pint of Tetleys in the early 1990's my mates dad had it,when i played out of there.He was called Gordon " rowdy" Yates and cleaned all the pumps through with cotton wool etc. He worked at Tetleys before getting the job and his son Roger worked there for a long time after.It was well known for a very good pint.

My grandad worked for Tetley's about 40 years ago and my old man grew up on Tetley's. However since i started drinking back in 2000 my old man always steered me away from tetley's unless you knew the pub. It wasn't a case of tetleys sending out rubbish beer, it was the way the pubs treated the pumps. Cracking pints were always available in the Shoulder of Mutton in Bruntcliffe.

However i have realised their are far better bitters to tetleys. The offerings from Leeds Brewery are cracking and with the demise of tetleys i really hope they flourish. On top of that I'll take Copper Dragons Golden Pippin and Black Sheep any day.

Its a sad day when a brewery leaves its home, just like when Boddys left Manchester. However their is no loyalty anymore in these big breweries, all they care about is brass. They say it wasn't cost effective to run the Leeds plant. To me that's a load of nonsense. lets face facts, the area that the site takes up is worth a hell of a lot of money if redeveloped, something of which the council are more than happy about. So i just wonder how much Carlsberg will be making out of the land sale. Considering its a prime area I'm guessing a hell of a lot

I was nodding in agreement about Sam Smith's, Leeds Brewery and Adnams ... then you mentioned Guinness.
That's not beer, it's nitrokeg mock-stout, a triumph of Blarney advertising.

Anyway, back on topic.
Many have mentioned how far apart decent pints of Tetley's were but there were dozens of places you could get a decent pint of it. You could hardly move in coughHunsletcough for places that sold good Tetley's.
When I did the pub hunt, I don't recall getting a bad pint anywhere and that was twenty pubs for a start.
(I didn't get the T-shirt, for some reason I got a Tetley's bath towel

)

Back then my two favourites were Tetley's and Boddington's but my taste (and I guess, the average bitter-drinker's taste) has changed since then and I prefer a more-strongly hopped beer nowadays, such as Timothy Taylor's Landlord.
Or, if fancy a lighter, session beer, Copper Dragon's Golden Pippin takes some beating.

Never liked Boddingtons. Partly because it's Manc-water, but mostly because it smells of wet dogs. It probably tastes like wet dogs too, but I've never plucked up the courage to lick a wet dog for comparison so I can't be sure. Very unscientific of me I know.

Boddys is a terrible pint. Its the Fosters/carlsberg/carling of bitters

I believe that the Barbudo was speaking of the halcyon days of pubs from the 1970s when indeed a pint of Boddingtons (a proper pub-pulled pint not f'kin widget can crap) was nector in a creamy glass although very difficult to find on this side of the Pennines.

In '76/77 a mate of mine got involved with CAMRA and we spent most weekends chasing after his holy grail and ticking off the pubs in the guide, there were very few in Leeds but plenty of Tetleys pubs in Bradford who were still serving hand-pulled bitter and very acceptable it was too as was the Taylors in the Keighley area and Websters (yes really) in Halifax.

There is a story of The Turkey Inn at Gooseye nr. Keighley which for many years (like about 25 years) I thought was the legendary Brigadoon, we searched for it in '77 and after three weekends driving across the moors actually found the place, quaffed deeply of its product (one of the North East breweries at the time I think) on a foggy night in a similar scene to the pub in "American Werewolf in London" and then left, never to find the place again despite trying many times.

You may remember the poster known as Puig-Aubert, I was recounting this tale to him at his house one night and of how it was a ghost pub, he put me in his car and drove down an impossibly narrow and impossibly steep hil which was only 500 yards from his front door, and there in the valley was my Brigadoon, The Turkey Inn, and the beer, home brewed on the premises, was like Ambrosia, no you daft bugger, not rice pudding, Ambrosia, the drink of the Greek Gods.

I have not returned since and sincerley believe that The Turkey Inn only appears once every twenty five years, I will be 72 when I can next drink from its fount.

Websters? You're having a laugh. The worst bitter ever made IMO. Like brown dishwater.

You are young and too hasty Grasshopper.

I speak of the afternoon during the Christmas break of 1976 when armed with the CAMRA guide we sallied forth for the road across the moors from Hebden Bridge to Keighley and in doing so visited three Websters pubs during the short two hour afternoon opening period of the era - we got a lock-in in the last one after the dray men arrived and wanted their thirsts slaking - a lock-in in the afternoon.

I still don't know how I drove home.

You'll be telling us next about how you used to be able to get a really good pint of Vaux, grandad



Long time since I've had a pint of Tetleys, I tend to go for the smaller independent brewery stuff these days.

Nicest pint I've had recently was Moorhouse's Black Cat in the Birchwood Farm at Glasshoughton.

You drove home because the beer was straight out of the river Calder and had no alcohol content.

Any sign of drunkeness on said afternoon was down to a placebo effect.

I used to work in Websters pub in the late 80s. I must say a pint of it looked great. Looks could be deceptive. It tasted like I'd put a half pint in a pint glass and topped it up with tap water. I remember a regular who used to come in and ask for a "pint of Yorkshire" and I always used to ask what he meant as it was an insult to give that name to such a poor excuse for a beer.

Andy, never mind the Vaux, it'll be Whitbread Trophy next or something about how Watney's Red Barrel was much maligned.

Senile.

Who produces beer in quantities of seven pints FFS - unless there's either one or seven of you someone was always going to miss out?

You cheeky buggers.

For the record I've never had a pint of anything that was even half-decent in the north east, I was once introduced to Vaux Heavy and almost puked right there on the bar top after the first mouthful.

As for Whitbread, back in the day The Woodman at Headingley (now Woodies) served two types of mild, light and dark for about 5p a pint (yes really), from 14 years of age we always went for the dark mild because it looked like Guinness but thats where the similarity ended.

I can still taste Whitbread Dark Mild if I try hard enough, it has a taste of puke because nearly every pint of it that I drunk came back that way, indeed most "good" Saturday nights consisted of drinking seven or eight pints of Dark Mild, going out into the car park and puking it back up, then going back for more - I can take you straight to the drain in the middle of the car park at The Woodman because at around 10pm every Saturday night thats where I could be found.

Oh yes, it had chewy bits in the bottom too, if you forgot about the chewy bits and drank the last inch straight down it would be like drinking someone else's sick.

AND

Change from £1 note, your bus fare home a fish and chip supper and a stone of monkey nuts...

McLaren Field is the new William Hague.

"I drank 18 pints."

William Hague never puked his back up though.

I'm proud of that.

Surely that coinstitutes criticism of the moderation process. There is a line...

He'll be offering you outside for a fight next. Watch out if he does, all those years working in the North East will have given some handy pointers if it gets tasty.

Oh yes, one more thing...

We lived in a bungalow at that time so it was easier for me to nip out the bedroom window and have a slash or a hockle on the garden rather than have to walk to the bathroom, so thats what I did.

By complete coincidence my dear mother had planted a big bed of Mint outside my bedroom window and it thrived on my saturday night offerings of slightly used Whitbread Dark Mild.

I used to dread it when we had lamb for sunday dinner, she could never understand my fear of mint sauce.

Pointers mostly involving wearing a mini-skirt when it's minus 30 and sprouting lots of blue veins on his pale, blotchy legs if my memories of the North East are accurate...

And that's just the blokes...

www.aletalk.co.uk/search/display ... rne+Island This is a good beer from the North East, not had any others mind.

www.aletalk.co.uk/search/display ... rne+Island This is a good beer from the North East, not had any others mind.

I'll have you know young Gilder, that back in the day, if you turned up uninvited at a very loud party with one of those Red Barrel Party 7 cans, you were welcomed in like the proverbial son!

It might have been pish, but after downing it there were some dammed attractive ladies at said party!

Mr McField is correct in that the Boddigton's to which I referred was the pre-1980 version, a light golden bitter with a slight tang in the finish, not entirely dissimilar to Timothy Taylor's Golden Best (which, for some unfathomable reason, is classed as a mild).
Post 1980, Boddington's has been and still is (as has been observed above) dishwater masquerading as beer.

Compared with Vaux, Titbread Wankard, Red Barrel or ... wait for it ... Brew Ten (excuse me while I stop retching) ... Tetley's was top class stuff.

I had a farewell pint of Tetlley's in the Palace a two/three weeks ago.
I later found out that I had been too late, production had already moved to bloody Wolverhampton or some other foreign field.