First there came a recreation of Boddington’s Bitter last year, now Chester’s Mild has made a comeback. Named Man-Chesters Mild, I came across this re-imagining by Stockport’s Runaway Brewery in the Crown & Kettle, Manchester this week.

Chester’s Mild has fond memories for me, being a key part of my introduction to cask beer in the first half of the 1970s. I used to drink it in a number of central Manchester pubs, most notably the Coach and Horses, opposite the bottom of Piccadilly station approach.

My introduction to Chester’s Mild was, sadly, short-lived. The brewery, owned by Whitbread, stopped producing the cask version and switched to keg until the final closure of the brewery in the 1980s. The Coach and Horses had Bass 4X Mild as a replacement: a fine beer and a good substitute, but without the reputation of Chester’s “Fighting” Mild.

[As an aside, I’ve never met anyone who had a reliable explanation of the “Fighting” epithet. There were many stronger beers available; Chester’s Mild came in around 3.5% abv, or an OG (original gravity) of 1032 as beers used to be classified in that era.]