My formative drinking years took place in Nottingham – Hucknall, to be precise.  It was one of the few areas of the country where milds rivalled bitters as the working man’s drug of choice.  (The other ”hotbed” being the West Midlands.  Lager, usually with a dash of lime or black, was for the ladies.)

Nottingham was particularly well served for independent brewers, all now closed or subsumed by bigger “nationals”.  The Big 3 locally were Kimberley Ales (Hardy and Hanson) Home Ales and Shipstone’s.  A little further afield there was also Mansfield Ales.  But it’s Shipstone’s which had the most notorious and, in my view, unwarranted reputation.  Whilst Kimberley Bitter was the sweetest of these Shipstone’s was unquestionably the bitterest – a real spitting beer, albeit entirely to my own taste.  And it was the nub of many uncomplimentary jokes.

Just to digress for a minute another cruel joke concerned Greenall Whitley, a beer from the North West.  The story goes that one of its billboard advertising posters ran

“When the bottom has fallen out of your world…

             …..drink Greenall Whitley”

And some wag had painted in underneath

“And the world will fall out of your bottom”.

But to return to Shippo’s.

It’s said that a local landlord wanted a new pub sign for his widely publicised refurbished pub.  A local artist was commissioned to design one with the brief of focusing on the pub’s character.

On the day of the unveiling, with local dignitaries and press present, the landlord was mortified to see that the sign depicted in great detail a couple shagging under Trent Bridge.

“What the hell is that?” exploded the landlord to the artist.

“Shipstone’s” replied the artist. “Fucking near water”.