Welcome return for Directors

Once, long ago, when keg beer was in the ascendancy, a fellow journalist lured me to a pub in London's Westminster, on the grounds that "they serve...

Once, long ago, when keg beer was in the ascendancy, a fellow journalist lured me to a pub in London's Westminster, on the grounds that "they serve proper beer". I'm unsure of the precise year but the term "real ale" was not then in widespread use and I wonder whether a Campaign for Proper Beer - Camprob - would have got off the ground.

The pub was the Paviours Arms, a Courage house with a phalanx of garish keg founts on the bar and a shrine to art deco. My fellow journo said quietly to the landlord: "Any chance of some Directors?" Tapping the side of his nose in that knowing London manner, the guv'nor replied: "Thought you might be coming in. I've got a drop ready and waiting."

When he opened a door behind the bar, there on the kitchen table was a small cask of beer, neatly pegged and tapped. Instead of John Courage or Tavern, we were presented with two brimming glasses of bronze beer, as flat as a millpond but quite delicious.

By modern standards, the beer was almost certainly warm, but nevertheless, the rich flavours of malt and hops were unspoilt.

In a sense, it was fitting that the landlord kept the beer in a back room, reserved for the small minority of drinkers who had not been weaned on to Watney's Red and who appreciated "proper beer". Also fitting because - as the name suggests - the beer was first brewed not for commercial sale, but for the directors of the Alton Brewery in Hampshire, part of the Courage group.

According to legend, when some of the beer escaped from the brewery and was drunk by ordinary mortals in a pub, knowledge of its quality spread by word of mouth like wildfire and Directors became a permanent part of the Courage portfolio.

When the real-ale revolution took off, Courage Best - a true Cockney beer from the London brewery close to Tower Bridge - and Directors became widely available in the capital and throughout the south east.

At one time in the 1980s, Courage Best was London's best-selling cask ale, outstripping not only Fuller's and Young's, but Charrington's IPA as well. Then in the manner of the modern brewing industry, curious things happened to Courage, which already owned John Smith's and the old Simonds brewery in Reading. Ludicrously, it became part of the Imperial Tobacco Group. The London brewery was closed and Courage Best and Directors were shunted down to the equally historic George's Brewery in Bristol.

Courage was sold off by Imperial Fags to Scottish & Newcastle (S&N), Bristol also closed and the Courage brands ended up at John Smith's in Tadcaster, unwanted and unloved.

Courage Best and Directors almost disappeared from view and it became a shock to find a pub selling one or both of them.

And yet, when S&N announced last week that it was off-loading the two beers, along with the keg Courage Dark Mild and the bottled Pale Ale, we discovered that they were worth 100,000 barrels a year.

It says a lot for the priorities of global brewers such as S&N that they are willing to turn their backs on volumes that regional brewers can only dream of. But S&N is not the only global brewer to turn its back on cask - InBev has scant interest in either Draught Bass or Boddingtons, Carlsberg dropped the word Tetley from its moniker long ago and Coors has hived off its few remaining cask brands to regional producers to brew under licence.

It's splendid news that Wells & Young's now owns the brands. Head brewer Jim Robertson trained at the Courage brewery in London, knows the brands well and will make a good fist of recreating them.

And Wells & Young's will make an equally good fist of selling and promoting the beers. They won't hide them in a cupboard, as S&N did for years, but will sell them busily, especially in the London area.

So welcome back, old friends. I wish, in due course, I could sup a pint of Directors in the Paviours Arms. But the pub was bulldozed in 2003 by a property company that wanted to turn it into flats.

Win some, lose some.