Beer blogging since 2007, covering real ale, craft beer, pubs and British beer history.

Tag: gallery

Beer history design london marketing

1950s Beer Mats

1956 Flower's Keg beermat. — Flower’s Keg — not the first keg beer, but the first to use the word in this way, in 1955. It then became (to their annoyance) a generic term.

Double Diamond beer mat, 1956. — Double Diamond turns this bowler-hatted City stiff into…

Double Diamond beermat, c.1956. — …a carefree Butlins-goer!

Ben Truman beermat c.1956. — London brewery Truman’s keg bitter launched in around 1953.

Reverse of Ben Truman beermat c.1956. — The other side of that Ben Truman beer mat has some lovely 1950s hand-lettering.

Guinness beer mat c.1956. — This Guinness beer mat, c.1956 ,looks like an out–take from Yellow Submarine.

Mackeson -- smooth yet strong. — Most Mackeson marketing seems to have focused on the fact that, like Guinness, it was supposedly ‘good for you’. This is minimalistic and looks as if it might be from before WWII. (But probably c.1956.)

Fuller's vinyl-record beer mat, 1956. — This is by far our favourite — Fuller’s jumping on the pop music bandwagon in 1956. Needs to be resurrected!

We picked up these among a bundle of 16 for £4.99 inc. delivery on Ebay.

Tags beermats, gallery, keg

GALLERY: British Lager

Label for the Austro-Bavarian Lager Brewery. — Label for the Austro-Bavarian Lager Brewery, from between 1882 and 1886.

Flyer for the tactically renamed Austro-Bavarian Lager Brewery. — Flyer for the tactically renamed Austro-Bavarian Lager Brewery, c.1895. (It is now DEFINITELY not German.)

Advertisement for Barclay (Perkins) Lager, 1920s.

1937 advertisement for Barclay Perkins lager.

Introducing Skol, 1960. — Introducing Skol, 1960 — a premium beer for the young set.

Tennent's lager advertisement, 1978. — Tennent’s lager advertisement, 1978.

Lager has been part of British beer culture since the 1880s but took a long time to really take off.

Tags gallery, lager

photography pubs

Pubs of Penryn & Falmouth

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 25th March 2014

The Thirsty Scholar in Penryn wasn’t open when I walked past. Lots of students live nearby.

Entering Falmouth on foot from Penryn, the Star & Garter is one of the first pubs you pass.

The Seven Stars, Penryn. I didn’t pop in this time but we have drunk here before: Sam Smith’s Old Brewery Bitter, oddly enough. Teen Wolf was on the telly. Sort of liked it.

The Seven Stars, Falmouth, is ‘An historic pub interior of national importance’ according to CAMRA.

Depending on your taste in pubs, the entrance is either very enticing or rather intimidating.

The Oddfellows Arms, Falmouth, is an an enticing looking back-street boozer up a steep flight of steps.

It’s huge and has a lovely portico. I wasn’t quite read for a beer at this point, though.

The Kings Arms, Penryn. The typeface is a dead giveaway: surely a former Devenish house.

Think Finn Mcoul’s might be an Irish pub. Always very busy and, like many Falmouth pubs, allows you to bring your own food.

The featured image of Penmere Station is a cheat: it was taken in the summer of 2013 on a previous trip to Falmouth.

Tags cornwall, gallery

london photography pubs

Gallery: Pubs from Aldwych to Islington

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 6th March 2014

The Wellington, Aldwych. — The Wellington, Aldwych, now a fairly ordinary Nicholson’s chain pub, but Ian Nairn loved it: ‘…comfortable and quietly elegant and what every pub or street should be and isn’t.’

The Globe, Covent Garden. Union Flags, fish’n’chips… they probably sell plastic red buses and police helmets from behind the bar.

The Coach & Horses, Covent Garden. Twin sister to the Globe, with a window full of burly blokes who glared at us while we took this photo.

The Exmouth Arms, Exmouth market, Clerkenwell. — The Exmouth Arms, Exmouth Market. One of the most beautiful pub frontages in London — green tiles over three storeys, and yellow text advertising Courage’s Fine Ales & Stout.

Harlequin, Islington. — The Harlequin, Islington. It was closed when we passed. It would probably look better with original signage; gorgeous tiles.

The Alma, Chapel Street, Islington. Apparently an old-fashioned market traders’ pub in an otherwise extremely gentrified area. Busy on a Friday afternoon, too.

Some pictures we took while walking from one meeting to another in London a couple of weeks ago. We’d forgotten quite how densely ‘pubbed’ London is, and how characterful and varied those pubs can be.

(There’s more of this kind of stuff on our Facebook page, by the way.)

Tags gallery

Beer history pubs

Gallery: Coaching Inns

Post author By Boak & Bailey
Post date 18th February 2014

Jolly Drovers, Rake Hill, near Chichester.

'Quaint Signs'. — ‘Quaint Signs’.

White Hart, Lewes, Sussex.

Saracens Head, St Albans.

Courtyard of The George, St Albans.

Old Tabard, Southwark.

The Bull, Dartford.

Illustrations by Hugh Thomson From Coaching Days and Coaching Ways by William Outram Tristram (a rather boring book…) via the English Illustrated Magazine, 1888.

Tags gallery, inns

Our latest book is Balmy Nectar, a collection of the best of our writing from here on the blog and across various magazines since 2012. It's available via Amazon worldwide. Our book 20th Century Pub was released in 2017 and is an award-winning rattle through the development of the English pub from beerhouses to micropubs. A new edition of Brew Britannia: the strange rebirth of British beer came out in July 2017, with corrections and a new format. We reckon both books are pretty bloody good, but don't take our word for it. Buy Brew Britannia at Amazon UK | Amazon US | Stanfords | or at your local bookshop. Order 20th Century Pub at Amazon UK | Blackwells.