The front end is a thing of functional beauty, from when a Mercedes was still distinctive and discrete. Nowadays the modern idiom and design constraints imposed by Elf N Safety give us mostly amorphous blobbish clones (ABCs).

On the Becks thing: they were taken over by AB Inbev some years ago and the beer ain't what it used to be. They brew Becks in Missouri but still price for the US premium market and were famously subject to a class action. In the UK the labelling still infers that it is a famous German beer whereas the small print on where exactly it is brewed is opaque. My taste buds may be going but it hasn't been imported from Germany for many years now

 

Scottish & Newcastle, or Alloy Breweries or somesuch.

It ain't Bremisch, unless you can find the 330ml in the Wholesalers. For a while, Makro used to mis-price those as the silly 275ml bottles...and it contained Weser water. I know everything's Burtonised these days, but I still maintain it's not the same.

Mind you, a Borgward BX7 ain't Bremisch no more, either. Unsurprisingly, they're now Stuttgarter and made in China.

 

I always maintained it's the water that counts. Guinness brewed from the Liffey whose waters no doubt contain millions of recycled many times used molecules of H2O tastes very different from the ersatz stuff brewed in the UK.

So it is with all these beers. The water of origin and who has been pissing in it are vital and unique ingredients.

 

Scottish and Newcastle were subsumed by probably the shitest lager in the world sometime ago.

The icon of Geordie imbibing, Newcastle Brown Ale, is brewed at the John Smith's brewery in Tadcaster. No loss. As a student, I endured some cerebral haematoma-like hangovers from Brown Ale, matched only in severity by benders involving Devonshire Zum Zider and Red Stripe Crucial Brew Snake Bites.

 

Our poison of choice surrounded by Watneys Red Barrel, Worthington E (a pass grade!) and Whitbread Tankard was Carlsberg Special Brew. Industrial strength lager and seemingly pretty much unchanged - not that I can drink such stuff these days without falling over almost before a drop has touched me lips

 

There is a strong possibility that we will be settling in Rothbury in December so please tell me that they still brew 80/- special at a nice cold temperature and a nice head!!

 

Oh boy, did you do something wrong in a previous life ?

 

I am privileged to have lived in 2 of the best regions on the planet, Barbados and Northumberland. Both have great local drinks. Belgium also has great local drinks but was never under consideration for some reason!

 

Fabulous choice. Rothbury has a very special place in my heart.

A visit is like a trip back to '60s, and whenever I return (which is as often as I can) I get a rush of memories about family and friends, and the great - simple times - spent there as a young child, a student, and a parent.

Not long ago, on a hot summer's day, I walked with friends from Thropton to Rothbury in the shallows of the Coquet (one of our group was spooked by cattle!) and the journey is now an indelible memory.

Be warned; the Duke of Northumberland, and his corporate face, The Northumberland Estates, are in the throes of pursuing several developments which, if approved, will have a dramatic effect upon the character of the place.