Courage built a lot of new pubs in the period of economic rejuvenation after World War II, as documented in a volume held at Bristol’s central library.
A few weeks ago a special exhibition was laid on at the library on the subject of beer and pubs. Items from the reference collection were put on display in an ornate wood-panelled room and visitors were invited to shuffle round and have a nose about.
We visited and were drawn at once to a hefty hardback volume collecting together editions of The Golden Cockerel, the house magazine of Courage, Barclay & Simonds, formed in 1960 when Courage acquired Simonds of Reading.
These particular issues of the magazine were from 1962 to 1964 and seemed to include a remarkable number of pub openings.

The Treble Chance, Southmead, Bristol
The issue for winter 1962 contained news of the opening of The Treble Chance on the Southmead estate.
It was opened by G.H. Boucher, former director of Bristol United Breweries, and father of A.R. Boucher, the chairman of CBS’s West Country division.
“Mr G.H. Boucher remarked that, although he had been to a number of new houses and attended many openings, he had never come across a more attractive new public house than this one. He complimented the architects who had designed the house and Messrs. C.H. Pearce & Sons Limited who had built it, and was very confident that, in the Treble Chance, Courages had a winner.”
There’s something quite quaint in the traditions attached to the opening of new pubs, even very modern ones, on very modern estates. ‘Ale conners’ tasted the beer, an ale-garland was hoisted, the inn sign was unveiled, and a toast was proposed.
For the record, the architects were CBS’s own in-house team under the direction of N.E. Morley, DSC, FRIBA, and the publicans at the time of opening were Patricia Whiteford and her husband Maurice.
The Treble Chance is notable because it’s one of only a handful of post-war pubs that survives in Bristol. We drank there in March 2023 and, though it was quite friendly, it had certainly lost any trace of mid-century modernism.