Be British, Boys, Be British - Titanic Brewery

Sinking a Couple of Titanic Beers

According to reports, Edward John Smith, the captain of Titanic, was overheard calling to his crew 'Be British, boys, be British' as his ship went down. What phlegm! I imagine him standing with his hands behind his back, fate accepted. That's really the only thing you can do with fate.

You can read all about Captain Smith, as I did, on the back of a bottle of strong ale from the Titanic Brewery. I normally shift away from dark beers in the summer season, drifting into golden ales. But as fate (again) would have it, two bottles presented themselves to me, and, well, tasty is tasty. I may have to rethink my cast-iron customs.

They actually served an 'iced draught Munich lager beer' on board the Titanic. It needed to be an 'export' beer that kept and travelled well. The froth of the beer would have dampened a few Edwardian moustaches on that final night of April the 15th, 1912 — five days into the Titanic's maiden voyage. Life calls the tune and all that.

Titanic Brewery was so-named through Edward's association with the five towns of The Potteries in North Staffordshire. He was born in Hanley and Titanic Brewery are based in the adjacent Potteries town of Burslem (or Boslem, as they would say in those parts).

Captain Smith is a strong, full-bodied beer 'hoppy and bitter with a sweetness and roast malt flavour and a good strong finish'. It's a good, easy and thirst-quenching drink.

The second Titanic beer I sampled was a porter. I am very keen on porter — a dark beer, like stout, developed in London that became popular with porters, hence the name. Titanic's Plum Porter has won countless awards and in the summer sun the combination of late-addition 'Goldings hops and natural plum flavouring' was delicious. If Captain Smith was the main course, so to speak, the Plum Porter made for a very satisfactory afters.