Watney Combe & Reid - Watneys Red Barrel

Watneys Red Barrel

Watneys Red Barrel was a bitter popular in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s and was a cultural phenomenon in that era in the Monty Python "Travel Agent" sketch and the BBC series Life on Mars (Series One, episode three). It was introduced in 1931 as an export keg beer that could travel for long distances by being made stable through filtering and pasteurising – as such it was the first keg beer.

The beer could be purchased in cans called the Party Seven and Party Four (at seven and four pints, respectively), introduced in 1968.

A 3.9% abv pale lager with the name Watneys Red Barrel was sold by the Sleeman Brewery until 1997 and a 6.0% beer with the same name is still brewed by Alken-Maes.