Agreed, that has happened to me several times over the years. I find a local beer that l really like, and then hey-ho, the brewery is sold to a big conglomerate, and the quality of the beer takes a nose dive.
If your lady wife is a Devon girl, you have west country connections Notters. What do you think of Skinner's Betty Stogs?, an increasingly popular Cornish ale.
Ah, with you! lol. Licquoricey? do you really think so?, funny l don't much care for licquorice either. I probably would like licquorice, if it tasted a little less like ... licquorice.
Funny you should mention Doom Bar, l used to be very fond of it too, but agree that by and large it isn't nearly as consistently good as it once was.
I often spend time at a friend's holiday cottage in Cornwall, and l noticed on my last visit that several local pubs had stopped serving Doom Bar...