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Dares Brewery

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I would not “Dare” to cross swords with any of the contributors to this thread, but would say that the way a beer drinks is very much to do with the way it is kept. Growing up in a Butler’s offy in the 1950s, I well remember my Mum’s battles with wooden casks of mild or bitter. The basic problem was that by the time the beer had settled in the barrel it was well on the way to going “off”. The small throughput of an offy in a back street didn’t help, nor did being bounced down the cellar steps! Customers would come in for “three halves of bitter” bringing an earthenware jug, and be back half an hour later saying that the beer, mostly gone of course, was cloudy. My Mum stopped using the beer engine, which stirred up the sediment, and got fit running up and down the steps to the cellar.
 
John
I am sure that the main problem with your mother's problem was the small throughput. Will add that, when I worked in a pub, and had to deal with settling and tapping, the draymen always said that the (cloudy) dregs in the barrell were the best part - "keeps you regular", though admittedly thst might have had something to do with the fact that they had free access to as much of that as they wanted
 
No wonder the drays were always going like the clappers on the way back to the brewery! My Dad used to say that he couldn’t see the economics of the offy, he reckoned that the brewery spent about ten years’ profit on external painting, which was done every five years. My Mum was a good businesswoman, Dad did the tapping, etc., and held down a full time job.
 
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