A rediscovery

I was doing a brew today so I had most of the contents of the shed out whilst looking for bits of equipment. Whilst I was in there I rediscovered an old case of beer. The case was of Eldridge Pope's Thomas Hardy Ale of various vintages - the oldest a nip bottle dating from 1984! The case was originally part of a special release of mixed vintages EP put out in 1997. There were only 200 cases in the release. I guess some of the beers in this case might be the only examples in existance. The brewery itself closed after a series of disasters starting when EP thought they could do without their brewery (they couldn't) and they could beat the big pub companies at their own game (they couldn't).

I've tried the 1993 vintage and it has aged fantastically. I'm really looking forward to trying the others over the coming months.

I've also got a 1992 vintage, 250th anniversary Whitbread Ale. It's OG was 1.100 and was a limited edition. When it was released the brewery recommended saving it so you could celebrate your first born...well we haven't had one yet. Maybe if none has arrived by my 40th birthday I'll have it then. Curiously enough Whitbread as a brewer doesn't exist anymore either. It sold it's breweries and decided to throw away 250 years of heritage to run hotels and health clubs.

No soul some people eh?