Over the years a series of small changes were made, all to the detriment of the beer drinker. Rayments disappeared, to be replaced by Biggleswade IPA. This in turn gave way to Bury IPA. AK - a superb light Mild, disappeared. The saving graces were that more and more hand-pumps were appearing in GK pubs and Abbot went from strength to strength. It was generally recognised as one of the top five beers in the country, although to be honest I could never drink more than two pints as it gave me a hangover. I always described GK IPA as metallic although that was the wrong word. Bury was softer than Biggleswade, and neither were as good as Rayments, but we all recognised that GK made good quality beers.
The other beer (Adnams was rare in the Cambridge area in those days) was Tolly Cobbold. I found I didn't like it much although Cantab was a cut above the others. Later I found out why. The Cambridge Branch paid a visit to the brewery. Chris Bruton and John Bishop saw bags of farina (pasta flour) by the mash tuns and the head brewer didn't say anything when asked if they had tried potato flour. Last year I paid a visit and the staff who had been there years admitted they couldn't drink the beer they brewed even though they could get it free.
In The Blue a few months ago, I was talking to a couple of old codgers about the improvement in Tolly beers. I now like them, especially the Original. The response was vehement. Neither would touch Tolly - ever. Twenty years after Ellermans fired the head brewer and improved the beers and six years after the management buy-out, they were still adamant: Tolly beer is undrinkable. This attitude is prevalent in my area and loses Tolly sales to GK and Whitbread.
The name wasn't changed at the management buy-out because 1) it was felt that 250 years of brewing history should not be lost and 2) for financial reasons.
Now back to GK. Ten years ago on April 1st, I had my wedding reception in the self-same pub I had been using all that time. Only one of my guests could drink the GK beer. I was so annoyed (and worried) I rang Tim Bridge on the Board. He told me that they had started brewing with hop pellets but "there is no change in the taste". Since then the other changes have included: totally cleaning the water and burtonising it; cheaper malt; foaming agents; hop oil instead of dry-hopping. (One newspaper correspondent recently compared GK IPA with Courage Best, which uses hop emulsion.) The result is that the present GK IPA is soapy, maizey and inconsistent and not worth the money.
The final nail in the coffin for me was GK's policy five years ago to fit cask breathers in all of their outlets, tenanted, managed, free houses, rugby clubs etc. The theory was presumably that IPA hardly works in the cask so it couldn't matter if the cask conditioning was nullified. But why did they fit it in The Eagle in Cambridge? - a pub which sells 2 kilderkins of IPA on a Friday evening alone. Beats me. After representations from East Anglian CAMRA, GK changed their cellar instructions from "use the cask breather at all times" to "use it after three days", adding a rider about food hygiene laws. The payment of ullage is conditional on the cask breather being used.
The point of the title? I wonder what GK's reputation will be like in ten or twenty years time. Not quite as bad as Tolly's perhaps; IPA is designed to be anodyne and those Tolly beers really did taste horrible. However, once a reputation has been lost (and GK is losing theirs, make no mistake), it takes a generation or more to get it back. We must start thinking long term and alter the pernicious policies of this accountant-dominated company. Think about what you are drinking, you IPA drinkers. Do you really like it?