Thursday 21 January 2021

Egan's Tullamore Pale Ale - Beautiful! Bright! Brilliant!

Here's a nice front page advertisement from The Midland Tribune from 1888 for 'Tullamore Pale Ale' brewed by P & H Egan in - obviously - Tullamore in county Offaly. It was 'highly popular' they say and available in 'bright and creamy order' in hogsheads, barrels, kilderkins, firkins, pins and bottles with their own 'Special Pale Ale Label'. Such a range of sizes, and no mention here of other brews, perhaps shows just how popular it was in the town and surrounding area, even though they were brewing both ales and porters from when the refurbished the brewery in 1886 according to other advertisements.

In 1890, two years after that pale ale announcement, they were back with a page-long advertisement that was a call-to-arms to 'Artisans and Labourers' to stop drinking English and Scotch Ale and to drink Irish brewed ales! Nice to see another mention of what I've shown to be the relatively common 'Irish Mild' too, as well as their porter and double stout. 

By the way  they were cheekily calling it 'Burton Pale Ale' in and earlier advertisements in 1887, using that name as a descriptor of its quality and taste we shall charitably say, and in fairness they do explain that it is their own brewing of that 'style' ...

The pale ale was available until 1897 least, and there is plenty more about Egan's of Tullamore online if you're interested.

(Let me know if there are issues reading any advertisement and I can transcribe the contents.)

Liam

(All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its source and a link back to this post. All original photographs are my own and can not be used elsewhere without my consent.)

Newspaper images © The British Library Board - All rights reserved. With thanks to The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk from whom I have received permission to display here). 

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