I’d not seen Barnsley beers until i went in my local cheap shop (B&M) so i decided to give them a whirl as they were around £1 each.
I picked up the following:
- Bee by Gum 4.3%
- Nutty Stack 4.4%
- Barnsley Better 3.8%
- Black Brite 4.5%
- Ronnies Owd Cock 4.0%
- Owd Tyke 4.6%
- Coil Oil 3.9%
- Barnsley Blonde 5.0%
The first thing that struck me were the names and the patter on the bottles, each gives you a little description of the beer then a bit called “Great Wi Snap” which suggests a food to match the beer with, although I’m not convinced a black pudding bhuna would work, with or with out beer…still they gave me a laugh and were certainly a bit different to the usual pairings and text found on a bottle of ale.
Apart from the Bee By Gum, which i drank at the top of a mountain while sat out side of my tent, the rest were drank over a weekend (mainly one one night) so i could directly compare them.
I won’t go into lots of detail about each beer just a brief summary, to be honest, they weren’t great.
Bee by Gum – I was looking forward to this beer more than the others as it was at the bottom of my rucksack after a long walk up into the mountains for a night’s wildcamp, it didn’t have a great head,was quite cloudy but was pretty tasty (although not as tasty as the Cornish IPA i also took), quite bitter and hoppy with a hint of honey.
Nutty Stack – Described on the bottle as a robust, malty red ale with a delicious caramel and toffee finish, i think i must have got the wrong beer, it was quite bland. quite flat, although it was red.
Barnsley Better – Again this wasn’t anything like the description on the bottle, instead of a traditional bitter with satisfying toffee overtones i got a weak, fizzy almost winey beer with a head that looked like the scum that you get on rivers, although there was a hint of toffee, you had to look hard to find it.
Black Brite – Things started to improve here, it was a lovely chocolaty malty stout, that wasn’t too fizzy, had a decent cream coloured head and wen’t down a treat, i think it would also go well with the food suggested on the bottle – pie and pea supper.
Ronnies Owd Cock – This one was brewed for a guy in Barnsley who passed on and 10p from each bottle goes to charity, it was also pretty tasty, light and hoppy with a tiny bit of citrus in there. The main downside was that the head was the same “scummy” foam as the Barnsley Better
Owd Tyke -Not a great one this one, it was very bitter,not in a good way, not from hops from something else, it had a hint of chocolate and coffee, the head was poor and it was quite fizzy.
Coil Oil – This was supposed to be a spiced porter but i got more of a winey beer with a hint of cloves and not much else, it seemed very watery and almost had no body.
Barnsley Blonde – Similar to Bee by Gum, there was a hint of honey and citrus, but not as hoppy.
I tried to visit the Barnsley brewery website but i doesn’t seem to exist, it would also seem the beers are brewed and bottled by Wentworth Brewery so maybe that’s why they were on sale in the cheapo shop in town.
I don’t think i will be rushing out to buy them again although, if i see Black Brite again and its cheap i may get a bottle.
More pics of the beers can be found here
Bargain Madness, brilliant for picking up ber. We’ve found Old Hooky there numerous times, still well in date (but I guess a bit too late for the supermarkets?!)
Will definitely try these!
Cheers for the contribution Andy, I Like the style. The brasnley beers I bought while back didnt impress, but at that price you can’t really throw the toys out the pram.
Yeah B+M do some great beers every now and then, they were selling speckled hen off cheap the other week along with harvesters ale i think it was.
The spiced porter =really did sound great, im almost tempted to get another bottle just to see if it was something that was wrong with that batch.
i was talking to someone before about the Barnsley beers and they said they had seen them in a local supermarket at nearly £2 a bottle, now that would be too much!
cheers
Andy
PS are you on twitter Bailey?
those beers are all made by wentworth brewery some are there beers rebranded. they are all in rythem & booze.
[…] was another of the cheap ales I picked up at the same time as the Barnsley Beers. I wasn’t sure what to expect as I had never even heard of Tomos Watkins or the Hurns Brewing […]
have you had any of them?? i am guessing your r & b is a bit like our B & M but with more booze!
[…] Madness (B &M) – Barnsley Beers – cheap but not great (see review),Celebration, Leffe, Wychwood, Speckled hen, Theakstons and quite a few more including a couple of […]
I’ve bought a selection of these from rythem & booze, 2 were fine, the “barnsley bitter” & the “shut thi gob” but the “owd tyke” & “bee by gum” were really cloudy & full of sedament. Took the bee by gum back as it was undrinkable & smelled like vinegar! found all the shop’s stock the same – the guy took them all off the shelf there & then. Website listed on the bottle “www.barnsleybeercpmany.co.uk” does not exist yet so cant ask them about it.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/businessnews/Exclusive-Swaine-becomes-a-major.5880972.jp
I bought a few from B&M. Not impressed at all. Will not be buying anymore. The only one near decent was the Black Brite
Just thought I should let you all know on here that the beers that you have tried are NOT from Acorn Brewery in Barnsley. We sell all our range of bottled beers to R & B and also direct from the brewery at a more premium price for a premium product. At the end of the day cheap prices=cheap ingredients=cheap beer!
Feel free to visit http://www.acorn-brewery.co.uk for details of our award winning brewery.
Cheers
Cheers Dave, had a few of your beers, Love Gorlovka (think there might be a review on here somewhere)
I bought two of these some months ago and both were thin and tasteless, both got a [baron rating 1/5]
Just to let you know, the Barnsley Beer website is now working! Had a look today as they have a new one for the world cup called Ale Over. Very nice, better than some of the above. Website is http://www.barnsleybeercompany.co.uk