Owd Roger can be a bit of a Headache
The rare, high-octane brew "Owd Roger" is dark-tasting, medium dry to the British palate, bitter to the Kiwi. We agreed the flavour: A touch of liquorice among the hops. We were tasting 500 years of history at the sign of the Black Swan.
In the North Staffordshire
moorland town of Leek, named by the 10th-century Norse invader-rulers as Lec,
“the place at the brook”, the Black Swan is one of a flock of delightful public
houses in this working-class town.
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Built 300 years ago as a
mortuary for victims of one of the genocidal Black Plague epidemics that
ravaged England, the building became the Black Swan in memory of its grim,
charnel origins. Now it's a cheerful,
homely hostelry with open fires that once burned local coal. In the pre-packaged new millennium, the
grates are natural gas-fired with look-alike ceramic coals giving the old style
glow but none of the ash.
Behind the bar, pretty Gayle
in dark-blue Honda sweatshirt sporting a red plastic fun-brooch of a
baby-bearing stork, was pulling pints of Pedigree Bitter from the county's
famous brewery Marston, Thompson and Evershed, of Shobnall Road,
Burton-on-Trent, the finest brewing town in England. Sometimes she drew other beverages from pumps labelled
"Castlemaine XXXX" and "Murphy" but we ignored that.
"Have you met Owd
Roger?" asked my companion Steve Dyer, a beer-man to his boots, who has
traced his family back to a 16th century brewing family in England's West
Country. I hadn't had the
pleasure. Beside curious concoctions in
green glass glorying in the name of "Castaway", Gayle found the
ancient ale in tiny 180ml brown bottles with nondescript labels. Indicating my near-empty pint tumbler she
asked: "Do you want it in there, duck?"
Our eyebrows hoist in horror
and she explained, hurriedly: "Some of them like to mix it," adding
cheerfully: "It'll give you a headache." The label confirmed that potential, declaring: "Alc. 7.6%
Vol". A standard UK bitter beer
goes down at between 3.5% and 4%, and at 4.5% is considered Strong Ale. In past years, Owd Roger could have been
called barley wine.
Owd Roger is Marstons’
strongest brew. The recipe, my mate
Steve said, was found in the archives of a venerable pub, the Royal Standard,
miles south in the Buckinghamshire town of Beaconsfield. How it got to Burton-on-Trent he didn't know
but Marstons brew it now from malted barley, yeast from their own Burton Union
sets, a hop variety called English Aroma, water from local Burton wells and
"nothing else", the brewers boast.
It has a bitter sweetness,
dark, secret and smoky. It is a
sensuous, silky ale to be sipped and savoured with wary respect. Gayle advised: "We used to serve it on
draft, but they local lads couldn't be doing with it." I wasn't surprised to hear it. At 7.6% alcohol by volume and drunk by the
pint it would have made their shoes leak, never mind headaches.
First published in the journal of Wellington's short-lived but long lamented private Storm Brewery. c.1995.
 Michael Steemson |
For more information, email to:
The Caldeson Consultancy.