Old Speckled Hen

I've often had the experience of standing in the beer aisle of Total Wine, looking at all the options that are now miraculously available to the American beer consumer, and wasting countless minutes trying to make up my mind about what I should buy.  I'll admit that in a few instances I've given up and simply picked the one with the coolest and most unique name.  Because of this, I've always wondered about the impact that a memorable name can have on the popularity of the beer.  And as beer names go, it's hard to find a more curious one than Old Speckled Hen.

Old Speckled Hen was first brewed at the Morland Brewery in Abingdon, England.  The brewery itself was founded in 1711, but Old Speckled Hen is a relative infant: it was created only 33 years ago.  The story of the OSH brand is an odd tale that matches the unique and memorable taste of the brew.

In addition to being the home of the Morland Brewery, Abingdon was well-known as the hometown of the MG Car Company - a legendary British sports car manufacturer.  The MG factory workers used an old MG Featherweight Saloon as a runaround car, and it had become a common sight around the factory and in town.  Over the years, the car became covered in flecks of paint - giving rise to its nickname, "the old speckled hen."  In 1979, the MG folks asked Morland to brew a beer to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the MG factory's founding in Abingdon.  They wanted a traditional English ale to their uniquely English product.  One of the executives at MG recommended naming the beer after the ugly-but-beloved vehicle...and the brewery complied.

1960s MGB Roadster

Despite this auspicious origin, Old Speckled Hen did not skyrocket to instant fame.  At the time lager was by far the most popular beer style in England (and throughout Europe and North America, for that matter).  In such a climate, Morland had no interest in mass-producing and marketing an ale like Old Speckled Hen.  For many years, Morland only brewed a small amount of OSH, and this small amount was only distributed to pubs around Abingdon.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, traditional British ales once again became popular in England.  To compete in this growing market, Morland revived the Old Speckled Hen brand and began marketing it outside of its own proprietary pubs.

In 2000, Morland was bought out by a larger British brewery called Greene King.  Greene King closed the brewery in Abindgon shortly after the purchase...but fortunately this did not mean the end of the line for OSH.  Greene King now brews OSH (which is still sold under the Morland brand) at its own brewery in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk.  It's worth noting that Greene King  is a historic operation in its own right, having been founded in Suffolk in 1799.

The original "Old Speckled Hen"

Over the last decade, Greene King has launched an ambitious marketing campaign to make OSH popular among young social drinkers both in the UK and abroad.  Over here in the colonies, OSH can be found both in bottles and on tap from kegs.  In England, OSH is also served on tap from a cask.  The key difference between kegged ale and cask ale is that cask ale is actually fermented in the same vessel from which it is served.  Cask ale is therefore unfiltered, unpasteurized, and unpressurized.  This means that the carbonation in cask ale is totally derived from by-products of fermentation.  The rich and authentic flavor of cask ale comes at the price of a much shorter shelf life than other forms of beer, making it hard to export.  In contrast, kegs contain beer that has already been fully fermented, (usually) filtered, and (usually) pasteurized.  Kegs are then artificially pressurized by carbon dioxide or nitrogen.  They can be shipped great distances and stored for long periods of time without any adverse affect on flavor.

OSH is a classic English ale, roughly along the same lines as beers like Bass or London Pride.  The great thing about English ales, though, is that no two are alike.  Indeed, the taste and feel of OSH are one-of-a-kind.  It has a toasty plum-like flavor that is much lighter and sweeter than you might expect based on its deep copper color.  It has a slightly bitter aftertaste, but no real hop flavor.

One of the best parts of living in or visiting the United Kingdom is the pub culture.  Most traditional pubs are associated with a single national or regional brewery.  Under this arrangement, the "proprietary" pub serves the full range of the brewery's products, plus one or two mass-produced offerings like Carling or Stella Artois.  I lived in Cambridge, where many of the popular pubs were proprietary Greene King pubs (including two of my favorites, the Eagle and the Anchor).  So suffice it to say that I know my way around a pint of OSH.  It's one of the most distinctive and memorable beers you can find, and I would definitely recommend giving it a test drive if you see it on tap at your local watering hole.