Old Beer Ads #2 - Greenall Whitley (1984-85?)

If you're from the North and a certain age, you will remember Greenall Whitley.  A regional brewer based in Warrington, they pumped out oceans of bog-standard brown filth for decades.  Strangers coming to our part of the world back then would arrive at one of their pubs, shout "Not bloody Greenalls!  Anything but that!" and hastily leave for somewhere where the beer tasted of something.

It's presumed the ad agency tasted the beer, as they say nothing about it's qualities.  Merely saying that having fought the law and the law winning, being back home in Lancashire is better than breaking rocks in the hot sun.  Even the pump-action shotgun wielding guard is moved to tears by the mention of Greenalls.  Maybe he tasted their beer too.

Whatever our hammer-wielding friend thinks of Greenall Whitley Land, it's assured that the company itself thought a lot less of it.  In the following few years after this ad's run, they bought numerous breweries around the North.  Then shut them all.  This must have been a good idea, as they even shut their own in Warrington in 1991, thus depriving future drinkers like me the uncertain privilege of drinking their Best Bitter.  After that, Greenall Whitley Ltd. slowly divested itself of it's assets over the next decade, eventually consisting of little more than some hotels and a few bottles of gin.  Never mind, I'm sure it all made money for someone.

Sadly, Mr. Curly Rockbreaker may have got back someday to the place he knows so well, but he would have been unlikely to have found anything he knew still remaining.