Generally I didn’t like Ansells, our local had deliveries in a tanker and kept in glass lined tanks it was flat as a pancake when it came over the bar. Yet the best beer I ever had was Ansells at the Plant Inn, Chasetown . The landlord would have trays of part filled glasses on the bar with great heads on them he would top them up as required, wonderful. I heard that it is the water that gives beer its character, and it is the water that makes Burton on Trent a brewing town. On a visit to Cape Hill Brewery the guide said that when there was a strike the management would have to keep brewing small quantities of beer to retain the yeast and the beer’s characteristics.
The original Ansells bittermen were several tough guys who would push their way up to the bar; some people thought it was glorifying thuggish behaviour, perhaps that is why the advert seems to have disappeared. The one with a large scar on his cheek lived round the corner from us.