My work's usual Friday lunchtime haunt (The Black Bull Inn in Wetherby, West Yorkshire) is a cosy little place with a roaring fire and some pretty nice food, but appeared to be a GK pub (the beer selection was GK IPA and John Smiths) and had been for some time. Until this Friday, that is, when we went in to find Theakstons' beer mats all over the place and a "Theakstons Black Bull Bitter" replacing the GK IPA.
Now I'm not saying that the Theakstons was the best thing I've ever tasted, despite being partial to the odd pint of Old Peculiar (done right, of course - very little tastes worse than a bad OP) every once in a while, but it certainly beat the pants off GK's offering, and if it continues to be there I'll be having it again.
Is it possible that Theakstons have purchased some smaller GK pubs in an attempt to fight back? Or is this business as usual? It's not normal for a pub to have a self-named bitter without being heavily associated with the brewery, is it? Forgive my newbie attitude on this; I'm not big on beer politics, but I know I don't want GK to take over my local too!
Andrew Cameron