Beer, Terroir, Provenance, the case of London
The beer writer Matthew Curtis has posted an interesting piece on terroir in beer
https://www.pelliclemag.com/home/2023/6/7/there-is-no-such-thing-as-terroir-in-beer
Unlike wine and whisky he argues that beer while it may certainly have local roots in terms of hops and malt is essentially an agricultural industrial product that is made by the skill of the brewer.
There are perhaps limited exceptions. Historically beer brewed in Burton was one and soft or hard water can make a difference to the beer that is brewed.
A related argument is that while there is at best a limited case for beer having terroir it can have provenance. That is local beers for local people. This rests on an argument that there are local and regional palates, which prefer one kind of beer to another.
Certainly before the Beer Orders in 1989 which opened up the tied house pub system it was likely that at least as far as cask ale went, what you drank was brewed regionally if no
There was a great tradition of London ordinary bitters which despite the name were anything but ordinary.
In my younger days I regularly drank Youngs Ordinary in the Spread Eagle in Camden Town- a rare north of the river outlet for the then Wandsworth brewery. Working in Vauxhall from 1980 the team of professionals I was with for reasons I never fully discovered had links with Youngs and on special occasions a cask of ordinary would appear in the office sometimes accompanied by John Young himself. I don’t recall too much about those occasions except that not all of my colleagues, being lager drinkers, were persuaded of the delights of cask beer.
To my taste however Youngs Ordinary was a highly drinkable bitter beer, what would now be called a session bitter. Of course it was nowhere near as bitter as Holts bitter was at least then, but compared to the Youngs Special it was much less strong and rather less sweet.
It was indeed boring brown beer and to a degree went out of fashion with the rise of craft beer ten and more years ago now. Benchmark pale ales were the craft equivalent but they were more hoppy and less brown than a beer like Youngs Ordinary.
Youngs Ordinary is no longer brewed in London which means it doesn’t qualify as a London bitter anymore because it lacks the vital ingredient of Thames water.
However other bitters historically certainly felt within the remit of London bitters including Morrells (Oxford) Brakspears (Henley) and Wethereds (Marlow).
What got rid of this London beer provenance? Firstly, Big Beer which shut the breweries concerned in takeovers and moved production elsewhere. Secondly, Thatcherism. That was part of the philosophy of the Beer Orders. The ability to try beers from wherever which might or might not be to your taste but the market provided access to them
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