I've had a request from a neighbor to make a Watney's red barrel clone. I am too young to have had Red Barrel, but I was wondering if there was a cline recipe that exists or if anyone here has one. Thanks!
I think you might have some trouble finding a recipe. Not sure i ever had it but did once have a red barrel key chain which was sort of cool. It was generally regarded as pretty dire beer and was pretty instrumental in launching CAMRA in order to get rid of it and get real beer back into the pub.
Quote from the 1974 UK Good beer guide
"Avoid like the plague", which generated a lot of media attention and caused the publisher, Waddington, to recall the first print run and revise the description to "Avoid at all costs"
But to each their own. My suggestion would be to make a nice 3-4% bitter 85% UK pale, 10 % crystal, 5% invert syrup/sucose and pretend its Watneys. Or to maybe get closer replace 20% of the malt with plain sucrose.
You might try asking the question on a UK based site as well for a better answer but be prepared for lots of ridicule if you go that route. Millions of people drank it so can't have been that bad bu it did have a very poor reputation.
