Everybody's changing

"Leeds CAMRA chairman, John Rowe said: “The taste that they replicate at the brewery down in Northampton will not be the same as the Tetley’s that has been brewed up in Leeds for the past 189 years".

Source: Morning Advertiser

I think he's right. And I think Jim Robertson, production director of Wells and Young's, was right too when he commented on his brewery's move from London to Bedford:

“There are always part-time experts who harp on about provenance and say that you can’t move a beer and make it the same elsewhere. They are simply wrong. There are places where it is more difficult to make it as well but it’s an insult to my team of brewers to say they can’t do it".

I have no doubt that a brewer can shift production and recreate a recipe. Water chemistry, fermentation geometry, it's all in the maths. And I understand completely how it can never taste the same again for some drinkers.

Because taste is about more than biochemistry. It's inextricably linked to memory, environment, suggestion.

I'll acknowledge that recipes do change over time. So does personal perception of flavour. I'd be disappointed and amazed if they didn't.