...to want a decent pint of traditional British beer in the local pubs ?

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I am fed up to the back teeth of seeing nothing but yellow cask ale behind the bar. Everywhere it's blonde this, pale that or golden the bleeding other. It never seems to change from one month to the next. Great if you like this variety of bland, tasteless witchpiss (the publicans and pubcos might suggest this) but those who like beer to look like beer and taste like beer are increasingly alienated. What happened to proper beers like Riggwelter, Bateman's XXXB, Old Speckled Hen, Banks' Mild ? Stop pandering to the lager set and let's have some adequate choice please.

Where are you in the country? Plenty round here in the villages and towns of North Lincolnshire.

Plenty in Sussex, too. Harveys Sussex Best is sold year round in loads of pubs, and mighty fine stuff it is.

I quite like some of those light, hoppy bitters on a hot day though. More refreshing when it's warm.

Presumably they sell what sells?

My local The Traf has many many great English Ales guested and rotated on a regular basis.

Loads of traditional beer up here in the north west. Personally I like the hoppy stuff though.

It's because pales and blondes are cheaper and the profit is greater.

I only drink darks (I find blondes have a very parma violets taste) but I'm lucky in that we have a lot of micro breweries in the area.

We have at least two choices in every pub around here (North West).

Really does depend on where you are in the country, I'm from the NW and prefer darker ales but I've tried a couple of very nice local pale ales up here recently. Similarly Yorkshire and the Lakes tend to serve good ales all round.
However (controversially!!) the last time I was in London all the beer that wasn't bottled tasted like warm horse piss and had about as much life in it after half a pint.

Claudia. One local pub manager said much the same; well, the reason all the yellow shit sells is because there is literally no choice. On the odd occasion a proper beer comes up in one pub here, it is gone in no more than two days.

I'm in Leeds, West Yorkshire. At the moment I'm drinking Thwaite's Wainwright and it is the least worst of a bad lot in here tonight. One of them is Leeds Pale and that stuff tastes like scented soap.

I love a good hoppy anything but I know what you mean - sometimes you just want a beer you can get your teeth into.

It might also be a summer thing, too, in some places?

Come to the Lakes for a weekend. Every other pub round here is a bloody microbrewery these days

Large chain pub. We sell all of those traditional ales.

(Right now Landlord, Speckled Hen, Plum Porter, Pedigree and Doom Bar. Mild never sells)

Landlord is my go to beer if I'm not sure about the others on offer.

This seems a bit 1970s - isn't this why CAMRA was founded?

Speckled Hen is my favourite beer, Pedigree isn't bad, Doom Bar used to be good then mass production ruined it, never had Plum Porter and Landlord is way overrated. So there !

I'm not an awkward sod, I just know what I like. Timothy Taylor Best Bitter, Ram Tam and Golden Best (yes) are superior products to Landlord. All academic anyway coz we have to put up with what the Management say we like, and want.

In our part of Derbyshire most pubs will have something pale and hoppy, an amber and a stout or porter. I would recommend the Old Hall in Whitehough. They do an amazing selection of Belgian beer that you can trundle across the road to watch the cycling one day classics.

Loads on offer in deepest, darkest Dorset!

Surprised to see you are in Leeds. It must have changed since I lived there. To be fair I moved to rural Lincolnshire in the mid-80s.

Also in Dorset and I agree there is loads on offer here.

In fact, I'd say less blonde/golden and more ruby/amber/porter.

We do have quite a few breweries though, and more seem to be popping up all the time.

thenightsky. It's true. There's a few local breweries e.g. Ilkley Brewery and Leeds Brewery and I know more about brewing beer than these. And that's absolute fuck all. Leeds Brewery don't make anything decent and, ironically, the only beer worth drinking from Ilkley is Ilkley Gold. And you never see it, only the appalling Mary Jane. You might as well be drinking body spray.

I don't for one minute buy the notion that yellow beer sells the best, therefore, that is what will be supplied. I agree with the poster up thread who suggested it is down to cheapness and profit. However, I'm not suggesting the yellow fans should be driven out of town but rather a sense of balance and choice be the status quo.

On reflection, the golden ales tend not to be so bad but the pales and blondes are, by and large, undrinkable (in my humble opinion). Last week I sampled two different ones side by side in The Red Lion ( there was no choice) and I honestly couldn't tell the difference. Both tasted of grapefruit and flowers, yet one was 3.7% and the other 5%. I ended up with Abbot Ale, more expensive but a proper traditional British beer.

I'm actually from Ilkley OP. Back in the day, we used to go to a tiny brewery/pub up the hill from Steeton at Goose Eye. Is that still there?

Look for anything by Dark Star brewery. They're from Sussex but their beer is widely available & they do a good selection.

Goose Eye Brewery is still in business, as far as I know. But I haven't been through Steeton for a few years.

If anyone is familiar with the Little My character from the Moomin books, a bearded male version of this is what I imagine all microbrewery staff look like. Hipster knobheads with a female hairdo. And lousy beer to boot.