Someone recently mentioned that they were sure that there was an Ale named after Fred. A bit of digging turns up this (possibly libellous) story, regarding why Bank Top Brewery’s Fred’s Cap Ale was renamed to Flat Cap Ale:
The ales were hit and miss, in my opinion, the best being Flat Cap – a hoppy, golden beer with hints of orange in the taste.
Someone standing at the bar told me that the beer had originally been called Fred’s Cap after chimney toppling flat-cap wearer Fred Dibnah.
Apparently the widow Dibnah heard about the brew and contacted the brewery asking for royalties, prompting them to rename the beer and pay for new pump clips and advertising.
However, there is no truth to the rumour that revenge was a motive in naming their next two ales Gold Digger and Old Slapper.
I’ve seen “Fred’s Cap Ale” labels appearing on eBay ever so often, the above story would make them real collectors items.
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Actually, this information is misleading, since I wasn’t Fred’s widow when the beer was renamed ‘Flat Cap’ instead of ‘Fred’s Cap’.
Fred received two honorary degrees. One from Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen in 2000, and another from Aston University, Birmingham, in 2004
Fred was dumbfounded and very upset to see that Bank Top Brewery hadn’t even bothered to contacting him prior to launching a new beer in his name called ‘Dr Dibnah’. The first we knew about it was when we read about it in the local paper, and we were both shocked about it, since Fred was extremely unhappy about not receiving ANYTHING AT ALL from the sales of their highly successful signature beer called ‘Fred’s Cap, he said he though they should at the very least be regularly giving him some free beer for this new Dr Dibnah one…..
I mentioned this in passing to Fred’s agent, Martin Nazaruk, at Arena Entertainments in Leeds, who suggested that perhaps in line with usual celebrity endorsements relating to television personalities Bank Top Brewery really ought to entering into a licensing agreement if they wished to continually use Fred’s name for ongoing commercial purposes linked to their beers. (This would not be unreasonable and is what anyone in the public eye would expect).
Martin contacted Bank Top Brewery by letter, stating that Fred woulkd expect something from the venture, but they refused to give Fred anything for use of his name so we withdrew permission for them to launch ‘Dr Dibnah’ and continued use of the name ‘Fred’s cap’ on their other beer.
It was well known that I handled Fred’s business side of things and eventually got things on professional footing for him after stuff had been left in a complete mess before my arrival – so naturally I got all the flack for this!
… just as an afterthought and to match their funky sense-of-humour, Bank Top Brewery may like to consider bringing out ANOTHER successful beer called: **BREWER’S DROOP** to commemorate and honour the **DREGS** : Men who used and abused Fred during his hard-working life.
Those of a certain mentality afraid of being emasculated by forceful and ball-cutting women !!!!!!!!!!!
**********CHEERS***********