Marston's Pedigree

Advantages: A great pint
Disadvantages: Not always available

...I have just drunk a bottle of Marston's Pedigree bitter. It was chilled in the fridge and tasted lovely. Now, before anyone tells me off for chilling real ale and claims that real ales should be served at room temperature, please let me disabuse you of this false notion. A good real ale, such as Marston's Pedigree, should not be served at room temperature. All real ales should be served at cellar temperature, which is, of course, always a good deal cooler than room temperature. If your landlord's cellar temperature is at room temperature, it is time to change pubs! But I digress. Back to Marston's Pedigree. Marston's Pedigree is a good, honest premium real ale. It is still brewed in Buton upon Trent and still brewed in Oak vats in order to keep the unique flavour. What is the unique flavour of Marston's Pedigree? This is...

Martinscholes 04.09.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Marston's Pedigree Bitter

A clearer shade of pale from Marston to old Mumbai

Advantages: A great tasting IPA: full of flavour, body and alcohol
Disadvantages: None really. That bottle could be a problem if you want to store it for long periods in sunlight or take it back to India!

...You may recall I mentioned my recent rail journey through Burton upon Trent. Marston?s is one of the old brewing names in that midlands town and one which is historically associated with the production and supply of strong ales to the continent of Asia. Recently they have resurrected one of their old recipes, both in draft form for local consumption and bottled for sale in Sainsbury supermarkets. The history of India Pale Ale (IPA) is an interesting one. In the 19th century the British Empire covered half the globe. (Wasn?t it great to see all that red in those old school atlases?) Expatriate Britons demanded an ale that would not go off in transit. Darker beers were prone to arrive flat and stale after the three to five month sea journey. It was a brewer in London who initially developed a light coloured beer for exporting to India...

Newfloridian 20.09.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Marstons Old Empire IPA

A gentle but intriguing example of (historical) crime fiction

Advantages: Engaging, realistic characters, easy to follow storyline
Disadvantages: occasional sense that crime fiction conventions are used carelessly

...This is the second book in crime writer Edward Marston?s new ?Inspector Robert Colbeck? series, a set of historical crime fiction novels based around an inspector who is fascinated by the developing railway. I hadn?t read the first book, but thought the premise of this one, a man murdered on a train, sounded potentially quite intriguing. The blurb promised that the story would ?hold you captivated?, but the front cover seemed rather dull, though appropriate to the story, and I was more hoping than expecting to be enthralled. The opening chapter plunges us into the thick of the action. An excursion train is loading up passengers to transport them to an illegal prize fight, as the train conductor frets about conveying the motley crowd to their destination, concerned about the damage they might do to his property. Immediately then...

brokenangelkisses 06.07.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of The Excursion Train - Edward Marston

IT'S NOT DOG FOOD

Advantages: Solid, easy drinking session ale
Disadvantages: A little unexciting

...I was looking forward to a beer or two on Friday. It had been a pain of a week for one reason, and for another, the previous Friday I was driving and couldn't have a drink. With this in mind, I was ready to chuck copious amounts of frothy brew down the old esophagus...purely, I hasten to add, in a mature and responsible manner. So the beer of choice would really have to be one not too high in alcohol. A nice session ale. One like Marstons Pedigree Bitter which, fortuitously enough, the pub had so much of, they were selling it to anyone who could come up with the necessary £1-whatever (under 2 quid). The Marston brewery is located in what most would consider to be the Mecca of English brewing, Burton-0n-Trent, but these days Marstons is part of the Wolverhampton and Dudley Brewery chain. The brewery is still firmly anchored in...

proxam 20.02.2005 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Marston's Pedigree Bitter

A Beer with a Fine Pedigree

Advantages: Reliable. Premium Ale. Widely Available
Disadvantages: Very Few

...Marston's Pedigree Premium Ale is produced at Burton-upon-Trent,the brewery capital of Britain. However,that alone is not what makes Marston's Pedigree so revered. For that we have to look at the unique method of fermentation employed by this great Midland's brewery. The beer is actually fermented in the cask. As the yeast goes to work,the beer froths up through the bung hole. Now enough of the technical stuff,what is the result you might well enquire ? Well it results in a stable beer which is thoroughly fermented,and has a dry fruity flavour.By alcohol by volume content (ABV) it tips the scales at 4.5%. Its colour is best described as a caramel brownish colour. Marston's Pedigree is a very appetising,delightful beer which is now widely sold in many parts of the UK,although I suppose its" stamping ground" remains the Midlands. It is...

ashford 12.01.2002 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Marston's Pedigree Bitter

Amazingly Average

Advantages: Clean, Friendly staff, Good selection of leisure facilities
Disadvantages: In the middle of no-where, not very comfortable, average food.

...Last week I was required to take a trip to Birmingham for business purposes and the company I work for decided to book me into the 4 star Lea Marston hotel for a 3 night stay. LOCATION Located in the North east of Birmingham, 8 miles from the International Airport, the Lea Marston Hotel is one the of the leading independent hotels in the area and luckily for me was located about 5 minutes from the office where I was required to be for the next 3 days. It's about a 20 minute car journey from the airport, near Sutton Coldfield and is set on 54 acres of land. I flew down so a colleague of mine collected me from the airport and transported me to the hotel. Unfortunately as I was there for business and did not have my own transport with me I was unable to explore the area or visit any local places of interest which includes...

stillclueless 08.11.2009 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Review of Lea Marston Hotel & Leisure Complex Ltd, Sutton Coldfield

A beer with a fine pedigree

Advantages: simple, good quality ale, easy to find
Disadvantages: Stick to the bottles, as the cans and hand-pull are a different beast altogether

...Pedigree from Marstons has a fine reputation amongst beer drinkers, and is well known throughout the country, so finding a pint in a pub near you shouldn't be too much of a problem. This is in contrast to many 'real ales' which are a devil to find anywhere other than the supermarket shelf. Brewed in Staffordshire, the beer is also available in cans and bottles - the bottles are particularly welcome as they serve up a full pint rather than the woefully short 500ml of most bottled beers these days. Full marks to Pedigree there! The beer itself is a wonderful caramel brown colour, with a gentle fizz (not over the top) from the bottled version. However, the same cannot be said of the canned and hand-pulled version, which is as flat as a pancake, and as a result loses that slight 'acidic' quality of the bottled version, leaving a beer...

peppermint 09.11.2001 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Marston's Pedigree Bitter

Tall, Pale and Interesting!

Advantages: An excellent beer...tasty, strong and well worth the money.
Disadvantages: Not to be drunk in too large a quantity!

...After my trip to the Real Ale Desert of Magaluf, where the only concession to beer was a four pack of Old Speckled Hen we found lurking in a supermarket fridge (and the Boddingtons and John Smiths in the pubs), I am returning to drinking ?proper? beer with avengeance. This is a review of one of the last beers I tasted before we jetted away ~ Marston?s Old Empire IPA. Marston?s Brewery, based in Burton on Trent (one of the brewing capitals of Britain) in Staffordshire, began brewing in 1834. They merged in 1905 to become Marston, Thompson & Evershed plc and were taken over by Wolverhampton and Dudley in 1999. Marstons use a brewing process, called the Burton Union System (where the beer is fermented in large wooden casks to maintain the yeast strain), to produce a good selection of bottled and Cask ales. Some Marston?s beers...

tange 26.09.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Marstons Old Empire IPA

Last gasp Jonny gets the Golden Drop on Aussies

Advantages: Available at your local supermarket ? everywhere
Disadvantages: Rather odd flavour, not really to my taste

...I tend to be spending my time putting sequences together these days. I paused in my deliberations of Christmas beers to reflect the glory of English Rugby football in my offering yesterday (Sweet Chariot Ale). I did note at the time that this was one of a pair of beers that had been commissioned especially by a supermarket from an established brewer. For the sake of completeness and fairness today?s tasting comes from the shelves of the other supermarket ? Safeways. Again I would point out that there is a matter of honesty here as the bottle (and labelling) is clearly Marston?s rather than the supermarket?s. It isn?t ?an own make? label brewed anonymously under licence. It would be of interest to know just how much input each protagoniost has in the decision making. Does the supermarket approach the brewer or the other way around...

Newfloridian 29.11.2003 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Marston's Golden Drop Ale

Hop it, Shorty

Advantages: Makes other beers taste really good
Disadvantages: Tastes vile.

...with the odd foray into the extra cold Guinness experience, he has discovered that there is a great deal to be said for English beers. Mind you, he draws the line, as do I, at drinking them at room temperature when it?s at all avoidable. So there we were in Asda. Me feeling like Ronnie Corbett despite being 6?2? (that?s 1.88m in Euros) and Duncan scaring the natives by wearing a Campbell of Argyll kilt (Historians and Scots will understand this, I?m sure) when the big guy reaches across a couple of aisles and snags a bottle of Marston?s New Fangled. A label like a stained-glass window, featuring hops and hop-fields beneath a glowing sky along with the brew?s name and 5%abv in little type. A neck label announcing 5% abv in BIG type, and the legend ?New Hops Fangled Brewing?? Huh? No?me neither. I turned the bottle round for a look...

stevethesleeve 30.01.2002 · Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Review of Marston's New Fangled