Songs about Real Ale

Subject: Songs about Real Ale
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 03:14 AM

This is sister thread to the Home Brew quest.

I know dozens and dozens of songs have been collected and sung about ale / beer. I am looking for songs written in the last 40 years about what most of us have come to call Real Ale, cask conditioned beer, the reason that the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) exists.

Cheers, cheers

L in C

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: gnomad
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 03:32 AM

Bring us a barrel, for a start.

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 03:38 AM

CAMRA Man by Half Man Half Biscuit

Anything under five percent I don't want to drink it
Ugly frontage? Don't even think it.
I want my hand held pumps, I want the sci-fi meet
I want Dave and Barbara to refer me to the blackboard
'Cos I'm a CAMRA man, CAMRA man, CAMRA man

Weekends, vintage car show
Doctor Who aficionado
No wife no kids, no way juke box
I get sent the Belstaff catalogues
'Cos I'm a CAMRA man, CAMRA man, CAMRA man

And at the Monday night archery
A fellow cellar hopper lent to me
A Willie Rushton biography
In return for my Sally James scrapbook

Guess the guest and win a night with…
Guess the guest and win a night with…
Guess the guest and win a night with…
Guess the guest and win a night out with the CAMRA man
A CAMRA man, CAMRA man, CAMRA man
Oh I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am

I'm a dirty great big Five Nations fan
I've got Cheap Trick Live at the Budokan
I've got a friend I can trust
I've got a shotgun round the back
I've got a Bonneville in bits but I'm gonna sort it out
Because I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am
I am a CAMRA man, a CAMRA man, a CAMRA man, a CAMRA man

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 03:42 AM

Half Man - Half Biscuit one of the best writers and performers of totally original music. Thanks Guest.

bring us a Barrel no matter how hogh ........... by the late and much lamented Keith Marsden of Leeds.

L in C

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Sooz
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 03:47 AM

A pint of Old Peculier?

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 04:24 AM

Sooz

it's only 9. 23 but if you insist ..........

L in C

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 01:39 PM

Ok Folks off to the Beech for tunes and Taylor's Landlord, Real Ale I believe,

Cheers

L in C

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Brian Peters
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 02:17 PM

On 'Golden Stream' Harry Boardman sang a song called 'Alterations' about pubs being modernized. One verse (which he said had been added to the original song by a disgruntled real ale drinker) went:

Talking of ale, well it used to be grand
It were brewed in the barrel, the best in the land
Now it's tasteless and fizzy, nowt like the owd brew
And best bitter's now pumped up wi' best best CO2

...or something like that.

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 24 Feb 09 - 02:18 PM

There was a song back in the seventies - but I can't remember who wrote it - it almost became the CAMRA theme song. The chorus went:-

Where is the beer of yesteryear,
The beer that our fathers enjoyed?
Where are the hops that would float on the top
and the insects that swam round inside?
I miss the joy I knew well as a boy
That the brewers today have destroyed
Where is the beer of yesteryear,
The beer that our fathers enjoyed?

AS I recall, the man who wrote it was not a real ale fan and was amazed by how sucessful his song was, and how sucessful CAMRA was, so he wrote a sequel with the chorus:-

Give me back mje bubbles,
I miss me CO2,
I want me indigestion back
And the stomach pains I knew.
I haven't had a headache
Since 1982
And if I'm not sicl three times a week
Well I don't know what to do!

Bill Delderfield used to sing the first, and Colin Cater the second (no, he didn't write either). Can anyone remember more?

TomB

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: GUEST,David Trevor Royall
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 03:36 PM

Well TomB, in answer to your question '"who wrote it?" it was I. "The Beer Of Yesteryear" was performed in public several times by "Lumps of Plum Pudding", but was never considered as an official CAMRA song, more's the pity.

And I was, and still am, an avid fan of real ale. The second song "Give Me Back My Bubbles" was actually performed by the inimitable Colin Cater.

To my knowledge these epics are not being performed anywhere now, or by anyone.

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 03:59 PM

Kevin Pratt's "Ballad of Real Al", in the DT.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Barbara
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 11:19 PM

Graeme Miles -- "God Bless the Merry Little Hop"

Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 05:48 AM

More about pubs than beer but Inn Camra by Miles Wooton is worth a listen.

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 08:49 AM

Ale Ale glorious Ale,
Served up in pewter it tells its own tale.
Some folks like radishes,
some curlie kale.
But give I boiled parsnips,
And a dish of mashed tatees,
and a lump of fatty bacon,
And a jug of good Ale!!!!

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 10:43 AM

Absolutely true!

And nearly Tea time

L in C

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 26 Feb 09 - 10:56 AM

A Pint of Old Peculier ......(Keith Marsden) a fruity, satisfying song with a hint of late developing bitterness on the tongue. Excellent session fare.

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: BB
Date: 01 Mar 09 - 04:03 PM

Guest David, if you'd like to post the words of the two songs, maybe they will get performed again. I can certainly remember the tunes to both of them, but sadly not all the words.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: GUEST,Pete Sumner
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 09:35 AM

"Tom Wood" was written by Jane Ludlam, my band mate from Donkey's Breakfast..a sort lived foursome back in the mid 90's.
Extolling the virtues of Tom Wood's locally made seasonal beers, the song was an entry in the 'write a Lincolnshire folk song comp'..
We recorded it on an album.

I loved the song...does anyone still sing it.....has it tratitionated...as the Americans might say :0-) ....?

Peter Sumner
Redwood City
California.

Subject: RE: Songs about Real Ale
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 02 Mar 09 - 10:09 AM

David Trevor Royall - thanks for posting. I endorse what the missus says about posting the words. Both Bill and Clive (of 'Lumps')sang it outside of the band as well - and, of course, Colin was also a 'Lump'. Ah! such heady days.
TomB