DOES TIMOTHY TAYLOR’S FAMED QUALITY CONTROL EXTEND TO CANTERBURY ?

December 2024. Canterbury.

A Sunday night in a campervan in a deserted car park in Faversham #LivingMyBestLife

I see the council have already adopted my “Fabulous Fav” slogan,

and I was tempted to spend the night taking pictures of knockers.

But my disappointment at the continued darkness at my new GBG craft bar (work it out yourself) had me hankering for a second new tick, and when the Departures Board finally showed a departure to Canterbury East I decided to get the Two Sawyers done.

Slightly irritating, this one, as I walked past the Guide newbie only 4 months ago and a better CAMRA branch would have put a big sticker on the door saying “PREEMPTIVE HERE !”, but they never do.

There’s not much that screams “obvious Guide entry” here, but that’s often the way in GBG25.

Irritating row of high seats (with hook for man bag) between seating and bar,

very trad line-up. I know who Laine are, but WHO are Laine ?

It’s packed with young folk enjoying pubs on a Sunday night. You know, the young folk that CAMRA codgers tell you are letting the side down by not going to pubs anymore.

I saw this all over London, and Manchester, and Cambridge these last weeks. It’s the Old Codgers letting pubs down in December, let me tell you.

There’s no obvious reason why they’re here; no food, no quiz, no visit from Santa.

Just friends meeting up in a warm pub on a cold night.

Four ladies have a Trivial Pursuit board out.

“What’s the chemical symbol for Iron ?”

“Who sang Gangnam Style ?”

Not much cask trade, I didn’t see another pint pulled while I was there, but the kidz are the ones who have made Tim Taylor Landlord the best selling cask beer by volume according to this Morning Advertiser table.

They’ll overtake Doom Bar on volume next year at that rate. I’ve been predicting this ascent for years. BRAPA and I see Landlord on the bar across the British Isles.

And it’s often disappointing, like this NBSS 2.5 effort which is so lacking in sparkle it would have put me off cask forever at 22, when I had my first pint of Greene King IPA in the Free Press.

Do Tim Taylor’s quality controllers get out to the sticks to taste their own beer ?

NB Good analysis by Chris Dyson here

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

24 thoughts on “DOES TIMOTHY TAYLOR’S FAMED QUALITY CONTROL EXTEND TO CANTERBURY ?”

  1. From what I see in the December comments on the Internet the old codgers don’t want people coming into “their” pubs without taking a pubs 101 class! I’m thinking you should post a pub behavior video.

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    1. if you are a regular pub goer, then pubs are just not that enjoyable in December, it was bad enough when the loud big group of people in fancy dress on a pub crawl turned up, it got worse when I asked for a beer by brewery & beer name, because the barman looked totally perplexed when I only asked for just the beer by name, who then spent the next 5mins searching for two different beers.

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      2. Yes, I think that’s probably true, Andy. I wonder what Tim Taylor tells these pubs about how to get the best out of their beer.

        The Greene King pub in my mum’s village has it on permanently. It’s not bad at all, but if it was very good I’d pop in far more often for a couple of pints.

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  2. Yes, Landlord is an excellent beer when well kept, but it is perhaps more sensitive than many to indifferent cellarmanship. It seems to be becoming ubiquitous now in pubs where cask is a bit of an afterthought. To be honest, I tend to avoid it now except in pubs where I am confident of beer quality.

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    1. Same here.

      This might be sacrilege but it’s become the Doom Bar of the 2020s. Almost a distress purpose. If this is the best cask can offer the young drinkers they’ll stick to Guinness and Neck oil and Madri.

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      1. I agree with both of you. Now avoided in pubs I don’t know. I feel that their sales and marketing has out run their quality control. Much like Harvey’s Best. Boltmaker usually reliable because the landlords know their cask. I hear it’s also the favoured beer of TT brewers.

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      3. Whenever any pubco pub reopens after refurbishment, it seems to have Landlord and one other as its cask offer. For example the Moor Top near me.

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  4. I am pleased to find “Timmy’s” available in most places I go that aren’t ‘Spoons.
    I remember the days when folk would travel hundreds of miles for a barrel of Timmy’s.

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      1. It’s a great shame Martin all you’ve missed out on with only being middle aged and starting travelling not long ago.
        Landlord was one of the nine beers on at a Stafford beer festival in November 1977 ( yes, nine beers was plenty then ). Being “Beer Warden” and having to go home to get changed properly taught me how very lively casks of Timothy Taylors are.

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  5. It kind of feels like weve been here before with Landlord though, about 20 years ago a famous popstar let it be known in the tabloids it was her favourite English beer tipple, and suddenly Landlord was very ubiquitous albeit not that very good.
    Because unfortunately its characteristic yeast makes it a tricky beer to look after if you dont do things properly, and following lots of complaints about dud casks, or casks that were too lively decorating cellars, they produced a tamer mass produced version which never tasted as good, sales hit the inevitable decline and it disappeared for a while going back to the beer that if you saw on you always defaulted to because you knew the publican was good at their craft to even consider having it.
    Now after several years where the brewery have absolutely pushed sales of it a lot, and I know that they charge more for it than the average cask beer, which is reflected in the price, we seem to back in the mass produced tamer version era, or else its premium price means its rarely drunk and just sits there unloved going off.

    Kept properly its one of the best bitters there is, imo, I just don't think the mass market model, or premium pricing, does it any favours, which mirrors Doom Bar to an extent, though I always felt the taste of it changed when Molson Coors took it on, I occasionally hit pockets of good Landlord still, I dont think Ive had a good Doom Bar since 2011.

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    1. That must be the Waggon and Horses where you kindly dropped me of for a pint of Cambridge Bitter, my first Elgoods in ages and only pint of it this year.
      Disappointingly their Plum Porter had “just gone” in Stafford’s Bird in Hand when I arrived at the end of November.

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      1. It was the Waggon and Horses, Paul. I had to walk back from Cambridge through Milton today due to rail chaos and popped in. Sadly they’re fixing their cask lines this weekend so only lager and bottles.

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