Kmflett's Blog

The 1976 heatwave & the rise of lager drinking

I joined CAMRA in 1975 and while the memory of the heatwave summer of 1976 is limited, I was certainly drinking beer. Beer that is as opposed to lager. Of course lager is beer but the distinction then was clear.

Hence I certainly did not drink lager in 1976. Draught lager did not begin to appear on British bar tops until 1963 and while the names had a European feel- Skol for example- it was British brewed  by UK owned companies.

Of course 50 years on the lager is still British brewed, mostly, but the ownership rests with global big beer, ABInBev, Carlsberg, Heineken.

Even allowing for my 1976 real ale bias, the lager of 50 years ago like the keg beer was not a great drink. Lager is still served cold but a distinctive taste- for example of Helles or Pilsner- is expected. Then the idea was to serve it cold to mask a less than marvellous taste.

I can’t therefore claim to write about the rise of lager drinking in the 1976 heatwave from experience. My interest was tweaked by Will Hawkes London Beer newsletter where he noted that pubs had run out of lager (Harp in this case) and were unable to secure fresh supplies.

I had a wander around the interwebs. Of course what material survives electronically (beyond daily papers) is haphazard. I did find however a report that in Cleethorpes drinkers were abandoning mild for lager as the temperature rose.

There is also a report from the summer of 1976 in the Telegraph which details the impact of the heat. 50 years ago the Telegraph was of course a right-wing paper but based, unlike now, on solid journalism.

The report notes that ‘warm beer’ had been scuppered by the ‘lager revolution’. While lager cost 32p a pint, 5p more than beer South Coast hotels had sold three weeks supply in just one weekend.

Fifty years on I remain a member of CAMRA but I’ll happily drink a glass of Pilsner, which after all was Engels favourite beer.