Kmflett's Blog

There was a ‘lot of affection’ for Watneys?????

According to Nick Whitehurst who bought the rights to the Watneys brand in 2014 from Heineken, and is in the process of crowd funding for a relaunch of it, there is a ‘lot of affection’ for Watneys.

https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2019/06/19/Watneys-beer-company-The-vast-majority-of-drinkers-buy-brands-over-beer

I’m on record as welcoming the re-launch of Watneys not least because aside from modern beer styles like a DIPA there are a significant number of decent beers from the numerous breweries that Watneys bought and closed that might potentially be revived.

https://kmflett.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/bring-back-watneys-imperial-stout/

There was not however much if any affection for the brewing conglomerate that marketed Red Barrel and Party Sevens, that shut numerous breweries and turned parts of the country such as East Anglia into Watneys only zones.

Unfortunately for Mr Whitehurst there are plenty of people still around who can remember this.

However for those who can’t here is a passage from a piece Richard Boston wrote in The Guardian in October 1973:

Norwich is one of those unfortunate places where virtually all the pubs in the area are owned by one large brewer. In this case the brewer is Watneys, which at the best of times is not the first choice of any discerning beer drinker. In such a situation a powerful thirst can build up with consequent loss of cool. When I visited Norwich recently I even met a member of an organisation called SPEW (the Society for the Propagation of the Elimination of Watneys). I suspect that he had only formed the society a few minutes earlier and that he was its only member but it was still an indication of how strongly people can feel on these matter