Bass Power, but at what strength?
It is National Bass Day on April 11 when, in other circumstances, I would have been raising a glass of what was once probably the best-known cask ale in the UK in an appropriate pub.
It has a chequered history in recent times and is currently brewed by Marstons at Burton although unfortunately not using their union system, which under previous owners, helped to give the beer such a distinctive character.
My interest however was specifically piqued by a post by those veteran beer writers Boak and Bailey about the time in the mid-1970s that the O.G. of Bass was raised from 1039 to 1044. Ostensibly this was to compete with other cask beers then new to market, probably Allied’s Burton Ale which had an O.G. of 1048.
I drank a fair bit of draught Bass in the second half of the 1970s, firstly, sparkled at the Sun Inn in Stockton and then at the Railway Tavern in Crouch End. It was a classic cask ale and preferably in North London to the then already rather dumbed down Charrington IPA.
I’m not sure how or quite when the increase in strength took place or, as particularly when it decreased from 1044 which from memory (often faulty of course) was the consistent strength of the keg version, Worthington E.
My memory again perhaps faulty is that the increase back to 1044 O.G. was at least in part due to pressure by CAMRA members who were dismayed at the earlier reduction to 1039.
I wonder if anyone has some actual documentation as opposed to memories on this?
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