No, Mr Cowell wasn’t watching ale guzzling slippers perform magic tricks or gravity defying beard-offs, but a seventeen year old teenager from Enniskillen who plays the xylophone.

To have young Ashley perform at a festival of any sort would be a treat (perhaps no headliner, but damn good at an impromptu jamming session with a harmonicist and a yukele player). His handiwork is fast and furious and, whilst not everyone’s cup of tea, David Walliams thought it was “pure joy”.

We tried Doncaster Beer Festival for a stag do a few weeks ago, and it was a success – they had an endless supply of comedy hats to choose from for the stag and plentiful supplies of beer. But a crazy xylophone player? Hell yeah, that would have added to the experience!

Cowell’s attitude perhaps shines a light on the perception of beer festivals. I doubt he’s a beer man let alone a cask ale drinker, but surely he’d be impressed with the folk bands at Norwich Town Hall, or the train shed at Haworth & Worth Valley, or the scale of Earls Court, or the uniforms at Brussels in September?

I guess there’s no pleasing some people…

We can understand why some beer festivals give off a bad impression, some are lots of fun, some are really not. What makes a good beer festival? Nothing but racks of cask ale and tasting notes or full on entertainment, food and activities? Good beer, good people? Let us know!

Cask ale only?

Fancy pant costumes?

Breadth of choice?

Well what would they say in Prague, where refreshing pilsners stand proud in tall half litre glasses, quenching thirsts almost with their looks and frothy gusto alone.

Tell the football fans sinking a pint of bitter before the well trodden march to the ground that their beer will be served in flutes or tulips or whisky tumblers. “Like hell” they cry!

The ugliness of a nonik pint glass aside (does anyone use one at home?), the pint, and the pint glass, is an important measure of beer and heritage that should not be done away with.

The Humble Pint

The two third measure – and add to that beers of 2-3% ABV which are seeing a resurgence – will fill an important piece of the drinking puzzle in the UK, where a half never suffices and a pint can be crammed too easily into too short a space.

And we should firmly encourage the open embrace these opportunities extend to us, just as we should openly embrace a more diverse and appropriate appreciation of glassware. Any trip to Belgium will reveal the theatre and enjoyment of a beer drawn in it’s own peculiar glass served with the aplomb of an expensive long cocktail.

But beer isn’t wine or whisky or a white russian.

Beer is unique in its ubiquity and its diversity. And its price range too. There’s a beer for every occasion – refreshment, celebration, reverence, gastronomy, solace and lubrication.

A Belgian triple is undeniably better in a angular chalice with a volcanic head lifted by the incessant bubbles of strategically placed nicks in the glass. An aromatic IPA, strong and robust, requires a voluptuous curve to protect the aroma and limit the portion. Cherry beer fizzing and frothing in a flute would lose all it’s charm and pizazz transferred to a conical pint glass.

But none of these requirements demand the extinction of the great pint, all five hundred and sixty eight millilitres of it. It would be like recalculating the marathon, famously stuck at twenty six miles three hundred and eight five yards since the British tweaked and tangled with the route in the lead up to the 1908 Olympics in London.

Not all things are worth saving in the name of habit or nostalgia, but neither should we do away with something so useful and iconic when the pint is such a well worn part of our daily drinking.

Half pints at the Grove

With handle and I

Chalice or pint?

Two pint take home?

The fact it didn’t occur to me that the art of brewing might be the answer only spurned me on to achieve a full house of correct bonus answers (identifying brewing kit no less!). And then, this week, beer pops up again.

“What consumer organisation was formed in 1971 after four friends holidayed to Ireland?”

Easy.

Four decades after the birth of CAMRA and the resurgence of real ale is not continuing but proliferating. Beer festivals suffer queues these days. Pubs might still be closing, but the good ones are thriving, adapting. Independent beer bars are expanding their portfolio, not reining it in. New breweries are popping up in cities where the art seemed dead. Real ale is helping. But brewers and drinkers are the driving force, and they are drinking great beer, not all of which meets CAMRA’s criteria for championing.

Beer is a product that’s developed over many centuries, from the inns of the early highways to the beer houses of the smog covered cities. It’s evolved from the syrup of malted barley, perfumed with hops, heather and hedgerow, and seen itself become darker, lighter, more hopped, less hopped, lagered, smoked, filtered and decocted.

Back in the early seventies craft beer was unheard of and kegged lager dominated an ailing pub landscape. That was before those unwitting friends came up with their famous idea to protect the cask beer they valued, a product threatened by the brewing conglomerates of the 1970s.

The 2010′s sit against a very different backdrop to the 1970′s that nurtured CAMRA: since then it’s become the UK’s largest single issue consumer group.

And there lies a potential issue with CAMRA’s issue. Central to the doctrine is just a single issue: real ale.

It’s an admirable issue indeed, alongside the other pillars of CAMRA: community pubs and consumer rights.

Is something missing though? Despite the fiscal fortunes of our over-loaned economies, beer might just be booming. 40 years on, does a single focus on real ale blinker beers most influential voice?

Guest beers at Saltaire Beer Festival

Lagers and bottled beer galore at GBBF 2010

SIBA and CAMRA beer awards

Belgium, where dispense matters less

Many pubs and breweries sell excellent beers with excellent food and not all conform to CAMRA’s philosophy. Should those pubs be excluded from the Good Beer Guide? Should amazing tasting kegged pilsner from Ipswich – a million miles from the smoothflows or wannabe continental lagers of 40 years ago - be excluded from beer festivals or articles in BEER magazine? Should the talent of these brewers never feature in What’s Brewing?

Now hold on, but CAMRA does allow these things. Yes, is it not sometimes with reticence that CAMRA embrace things that don’t conform to the real ale requirements? The world beer bars at The Great British Beer Festival are eclectic to say the least, and encouraged not hampered by CAMRA. Yet still obsolete debates continue over keg vs. cask, bottled conditioned beer and the taxonomy of what beer can be defined by which specific term.

Ultimately CAMRA is based on a few founding principles: good beer, good pubs and ensuring that the craft of brewing doesn’t end up being a footnote in our history. Galvanised by its successes and its membership, CAMRA has the power to lobby for beer drinkers, pub goers and all the people who work in the related trades, regardless of their favourite beer style.

Is now the right time for CAMRA to revisit the original motivations behind their campaign? On the cusp of another recession, should CAMRA revisit its core pillars and extend its welcome to the diversity of brewing in the 21st century?

Or should they stand firm and say, ‘We are for real ale!”

We’ve little doubt that CAMRA is a good thing, but it would perhaps be a shame if the Campaign For The Revitalisation of Ale (as they were first known) missed the opportunity to preserve its real ale mandate whilst improving its overall purpose by becoming the chief campaigner for good beer, good pubs and the highest of standards throughout. Agree?

Tonight’s a school night, a strange night to jump off the nicotine wagon, but conversation was deep and my companion had Marlborough Reds.

There’s nothing beneficial about smoking, not one bit. Perhaps a temporary relief of stress, or a short-term substitute for another vice, but ultimately each cigarette is a minor health hazard.

Booze is different, especially beer.

Tonight both feel good, regardless of the facts. Each over-zealous drag is a rebellion against the toils of everyday, against the norm and all its nagging restrictions. Each gulp is two fingers to the meetings in the diary and the moaners moaning about their moronic new year resolutions.

We don’t let fiscal concerns or our Tuesday morning alarms constrain our smoking or our week night drinking. We have plenty to discuss: from the finer arts of Thierry Henry’s cool finishing to the inner torments of cyclical depression. We touch on the genetic susceptibility to alcohol abuse as I bring back alcohol heavy American IPAs from the bar.

Putting the world to rights demands concentration, at least two cigarettes (or was it three?), a robust beer and somewhere warm to sit.

And then, just as we get onto the interesting stuff (who was fit from school, or uni or long forgotten workplaces) the science hits me. The protracted but relaxing inhale becomes a forceful, lingering exhale as my mind beats the spell. Each puff turns from a moments escapism to a contrived act of fakery. “Don’t let a gasp of that cancer smoke remain in your mouth” my mind tells me.

“Fuck off brain” says the drink in me; says the petulant child wanting to stay up past his bedtime on a Monday, wishing he could afford to miss the last train.

Luckily beer is synced with the angels, and with a dry glass and just over ten minutes spare, reason wins over. Soles of boot hits stone floor (thump, twist!) and another nicotine grave stains the floor of the heated beer garden.

Now where’s that train ticket?

For years these beers have been the staple of Britain’s drinking woes, associated with football hooliganism, anti-social behaviour, reckless vandalism and drunken brawls in market towns across the land. In northern England such beers are being blamed for virtually all teenage pregnancies and at least 99.7% of Saturday night street vomiting.

Kestrel Super, (£0.004495 per ml)* equally responsible for binge drinking as...

...Dark Island Reserve, a mere 6.7 times more expensive for just 1.5 times as much beer

The above of course is not true, even if you add to the list Tenants Super and Carlsberg Special Brew. But, in a bizarre and cruel twist of legislation, beers over 7.5% are being singled out for a significant increase in tax duty under the banner of improving our fine nation and reducing the drink related burden on society.

The high strength beer duty amendment is detailed here and here – in practice it will probably mean a rise in price of anywhere between 10p and 75p per bottle of higher strength beer – roughly a 5%-10% increase in price per bottle.

It’s a nonsensical argument – these beers account for 0.5% of UK alcohol sales and include the most expensive beers available to buy. The majority of these beers are not consumed for binge drinking despite the reputation of some of the canned beers that fall within this category. As a headline though, HSBD is an easy sell to Daily Mail readers whose ignorance (in the dictionary sense of the word) of artisan beers means that on paper the change in law seems like a no-brainer.

The government of course know this, and they know that premium drinkers will pay premium prices. They also know that they can get away with singling out beer for their fight on booze. After all how would the audience of Saturday Kitchen feel if all wine over 7.5% suddenly received a hike in price due to tax? How would Mr J Sainsbury, Mr WM Morrison et al feel?

Controversial but delicious

Duvel - one classic set to rise in price

Strong beers make great candle holders

Tempting, luscious, and one to drink slow

Beer in the UK is experiencing a renaissance. So, in times when we desperately need to stimulate the economy, why add measures that thwart innovation in a growing industry?

On balance UK brewers are benefitting from three measures that will help trade: small brewer’s relief, the launch of the 2/3 measure and the reduction in duty on beers under 2.8%, which we entirely commend (even though we currently only know of five beers that will benefit, made by Harvey’s, Greene King and JW Lees).

Yes we think the government should encourage small measures (how else to enjoy a strong beer?!). And yes we believe there is not only a market but a need for less strong beers (despite obesity levels we are an increasingly health obsessed society, and whilst most brewers will agree that brewing a tasty beer under 3.4% is not easy, it’s a market to untap).

Taxing strong beers is taxing the endeavour of brewers. It is taxing the concept of slow food, and more than that, it’s fundamentally not tackling the issues it’s purported to be addressing.

Does anyone remember those three words ‘Education, education, education.’

They may have been uttered by a different party to those in blu-tacked power, but when it comes to booze, there are no three words better placed to resolve our countries struggle with the binge.

Recommended reading:

• By us, on binge drinking and elections
• The Independent, on canned super lagers in 1993
• BBC Inside Out on high strength lagers (before they employed web designers it would seem) http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/05/01/london_superstrength_alcohol_s13_w10_feature.shtml
• On Kestrel Super, and again
• Opinions on HSBD – Zak Avery, James Clay, SW Brewery, The Indy, Moor Beer, Gadds, Broadford Brewer, Magic Rock, PDNC, Ghost Drinker
• On the under 2.8% tax (and some crucial caveats) – Hardknott Dave, Big Hospitality
• On supermarket beer prices http://pubcurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2011/10/super-tax.html,

And beer prices or tax duties come from our secondary research:

• Kestrel price http://www.britishcornershop.co.uk/product.asp?id=6331
• Dark Star price http://www.beerritz.co.uk/buy/orkney-dark-island-reserve-2010-release_690.htm
• Beer duty in £s: various above plus comments of http://www.pencilandspoon.com/2011/09/new-duty-rates-on-beer-and-new-glass.html and http://thebeerboy.blogspot.com/2011/10/higher-strength-beer-duty-my-view.html

And for some high strength beer reviews during October, see our friends at http://thebeercast.com/2011/10/big-beer-month.html

To drill the point home, this week David Baddiel was launched a video to counter anti-Semitism in football in the hope of eradicating the term ‘Yid’ from the dialect of football fans. Unbelievably, there are still football fans who think nothing of making gas chamber noises when Spurs fans travel away from home.

Things always come in 3s of course, as I heard the news today that a Sam Smith’s pub in London has been accused of homophobia, via the ejection of a same sex male couple who had been kissing in the John Snow in Soho.

It’s unclear exactly what happened – the story from the couple involved is sketchily reported at best, whilst comments online suggest the gay community differ over who’s to blame.

It seems that the couple in question were confronted by a punter who didn’t like them kissing, and later on a mystery man and woman – one claiming to be landlord the other a plain clothed police officer – physically removed the couple from the pub for a goodnight peck, which apparently classifies as ‘obscene behaviour’.

The fact that it’s a Sam Smith’s pub at the centre of the controversy only adds to the surreal nature of the story. A company revered in the capital for cheap drinks whilst invoking severely mixed reaction on their home turf, and run by the bizarre empire of Humphrey Smith, who seems to have a penchant for owning car parks and pissing people off.

Perhaps all will be revealed next Thursday when 150 protestors descend on the John Snow for a ‘kiss-in’. I just hope the protesters are sure they know the real story – the event was arranged via social networks barely 24 hours after the accusations emerged, which begs the question is this just another social media mob jumping on an easy bandwagon?

The biggest shame to emerge from the whole debacle is that most of the debates I’ve read online seem to hinge on whether or not the venue was straight or gay, with some gay commentators criticising the couple for not choosing a more appropriate bar, and others crying out for zero tolerance on homophobia.

This seems madness to me: sexuality should be of no relevance regardless of the ‘orientation’ of the venue.

The sad fact of the matter is that in my experience, a natural segregation dominates the UK and in watering holes it’s perhaps as divided as anywhere else.  In many cases the segregation is as organic and innocent as the segregation of social groups is; in others it’s artificially created; but thankfully in few it’s actually a deliberate strategy of separation based on fear or worse.

There’s no doubt many exceptions to this and many examples of quite opposite trends, but part of me wonders is it not a shame that us human beings don’t mix a bit more freely. After all, is the pub not arguably the perfect place to do so?

Shouldn’t we all just be able to get along and enjoy our beer together?

Discuss.

Now if that man happened to be me, my heart would sink. In my humble opinion, there’s something fundamentally wrong with serving a beer (or any drink for that matter) in the wrong branded glass.

I’ve been called a ‘saddo’, fair enough, I’ve no reasonable argument to oppose that.

I’ve been called a pedant, perhaps I am.

I’ve even been called a branded glass fundamentalist, but it has nothing to do with my foibles. It actually boils down to poor service, poor presentation and a general disrespect for both the product and the customer.

The last time that I was particularly unimpressed, I was served a pint of that wonderful German nectar Jever Pilsener. I was chuffed beyond comprehension to see it on tap at the bar and I could see the beautifully styled Jever glass tankards sitting there. This was going to be a first class drinking experience!

Gavin wants his Jever in the correct glass dontchaknow

But it wasn’t! Why? Well, the barman reached for the first convenient glass, a Brooklyn Brewery glass to be precise, and proceeded to poor my Jever in this particular vessel.

“Don’t you have the appropriate glass?” I ask.

“They’re all dirty” was the response.

I said no more, but I’m sure my face did.

My problem was not that there were no clean glasses available (of course I don’t want to drink from a dirty glass). But for me it’s simply lazy and slap-dash to reach for the most convenient glass to hand. It generally wouldn’t happen in Germany or Belgium for example, so why here in Britain?

If I’d been presented my pint in a non-branded glass, I could live with that – that’s fair enough, at least I’d feel the person serving me has given some thought about how best to pour and present my beer. But to pour it in the especially styled glass of another brewery is, as I have already said, simply disrespectful.

It’s not just disrespectful to me as a customer, it’s disrespectful to the beer, the brewer, and also to the brewery whose glass is being inappropriately used. I’d hazard a guess that brewery wouldn’t be best pleased about it either.

Imagine ordering a pint of Erdinger, or Thornbridge Jaipur, and having it presented in a Carling glass. I haven’t asked them, and I don’t know for a fact if either Erdinger, Thornbridge or Carling would have as big a gripe as I do, but I suspect they wouldn’t be best pleased.

Imagine, every time you pick up your glass to take a mouthful of a beautifully crafted IPA, you’re presented with the insignia of ‘Britain’s no. 1 lager’. I know that my brain wouldn’t be able to comprehend with what’s conflicting between eyes and taste buds. But on the other side of the coin, would a Carling drinker want his pint in an Erdinger glass? I seriously suspect not.

The thing is that we punters and the breweries really have little say in the matter; it’s the link-pin (the bar in this case) that bears the responsibility to dispense and present the product in the correct manner. Frankly, it’s a responsibility that’s not taken seriously enough.

Surely British pubs and bars have to recognise that, with the emergence of more and more sensational craft breweries and beers, there needs to be a greater respect for the product in general, the same respect that’s given to wines and champagnes for instance.

“Oh just get it down your neck” I hear you cry!

Well I will, but I’ll enjoy it much more if the establishment dispensing it afford both me and the product the respect we rightly deserve.

Branded glassware: is a glass a means to an end or something much more important?

Or at least that’s the impression one might get from the beer world at the moment.

Beer blogs and beer geeks are (generally) pretty crazy for the flavours that hops can impart on beer. Breweries experiment with single hopped beers, late hopped beers, green hopped beers, dry-hopped beers; and some even subject their products to post-boil hop treatments, passing their liquor de malt through flavour-imparting contraptions filled with…guess what…even more hops.

Even a cursory glance at the beer labels on the local supermarket shelves will reveal the rock star status of hops within the brewing process, as English bitters and paler beers are crafted with American and New World hops such as Nelson Sauvin, Simcoe and Citra (no doubt helped by their price in comparison to English hops in recent years). The influence of hops has long stretched to beer paraphernalia - glassware, pump clips, logos, pub names and even the side of pub buildings.

Hopping mad: Chaos Theory

The list of breweries that have crafted ‘singled hopped’ beers seems only on the increase (Acorn, Mallinson’s Pictish, Mikkeller, Kernel, All Gates and BrewDog are but a few). These single hopped beers are often experiments to tame individual hop varieties, creating beers that allow specific flavour profiles to dance around our nose and mouth.

Perhaps inspired by our friends across the pond, hops have become the de facto star of the show, the perfume that invokes a beers character and that creates variety and interest within beers.

But at the same time does the rise of the pale ale and all it’s hoppy glamour not divest from role of the other ingredients in beer. Is the extreme use of hops in some beers not,  to a certain extent, leading to a homogenised version of some beer styles? When comparing American Double IPAs how is one expected to sift between the immense bitterness imparted by the overuse of hops in order to evaluate or compare distinct flavours?

The beer world might not be drowning in IBUs from so-called imperial pale ales (and their darker Cascadian relations who are sure to get an imperial prefix sooner or later) but there are certainly enough for the crafterati to go for a swim.

And is there anything really wrong with this obsession? (or “hopsession” if you like!)

Hops: the vital ingredient for the "aroma + taste" formula?

After all, hops have the ability to impart both the perceptions of ‘aroma’ and ‘taste’ into beer, therefore making them a key driver of the flavours that one can detect (flavour being the perception that is created between the senses of taste and smell). Hops can be responsible for many of the more fruity and floral flavours in beer: the fresh lemon zest of Cascade, the thorny blackberry of Brambling Cross, the punchy citric orange tang of Amarillo.

It’s easy to get caught up in the exotic esters that hops donate to beers, but really beer is a drink made up of the sum of it’s parts.

Beer without good water would be a very different drink altogether. Beer without the different grades of roasted malt would end up been a very boring collection of the same coloured alcoholic Horlicks. And beer without yeast, well, that would be Kaliber or root beer, and would remove the all important aspect of beer, it’s social lubricant.

As influencers in the beer world argue over the methods of dispense, deliberate the meaning of craft beer (not a new discussion), talk of making beer writing a more positive place, of celebrating British beer and of fighting the negative perceptions that the media bestow on beer, perhaps we should make sure that we are celebrating beer as a sum of it’s parts, and not let it be defined by one, albeit important, element?

After all, there was beer before hops you know.

A call to arms for beer lovers and the wider public to be proud of British beer it seems, but as with anything that has been this well produced (bet the hops and malt store look good in HD!!! – sorry beer geek talking!) it has objectives and an agenda, namely the governments above inflation rise in beer duty.

The issues highlighted in the video are multi-faceted and are likely to provoke mixed reactions, especially when you consider the wider economics, the macro-environmental factors affecting the industry and the relationship between British beer and Britain’s drinking culture. Or cultures.

Whether you wholeheartedly disagree with the duty increases or find the video nothing more than propaganda; whether you find the backdrop of I Vow To Thee My Country nauseating or uplifting, SIBA have created a contemporary rallying cry, something that some people think CAMRA is struggling to do.

The average man on the street might not know who Steve Wellington is, but surely people of all ages would be proud of British beer simply based on the aplomb he delivers his single line with.

What do you think?

Proud of British Beer from Society of Independent Brewers on Vimeo
“Proud of British Beer is a short film produced by the Society of Independent Brewers. It features brewers, both large and small, hop and barley growers, maltsters and industry suppliers. Our concerns are that the continued above inflation increases in beer duty are destroying this indigenous British industry. Pubs, which are an integral part of the fabric of British society are also being forced to close at the rate of 29 per week. This cannot be allowed to continue.”
“We are proud of British beer. Are you?”

But you beer lovers might just want to pop Kelly Ryan, brewer extraordinare at Thornbridge Brewery, to the top of that list. Kelly leaves the UK this week to head back to his homeland but his legacy will live on with a number of beers that are achieving cult status in the UK – Jaipur India Pale Ale, green hopped Halcyon, Saint Petersburg Imperial Stout and the rare and enigmatic Bracia stout. Kelly’s influence goes beyond simply brewing though, but through hosting tasting events, becoming a resident and local at The Coach and Horses in Dronfield and generally being a positive ambassador for beer.

So as a brewer whose helped change real ale for the better and someone we’re honoured to call an acquaintance, to Kelly and Catherine, all the best in New Zealand and we hope to see you again (hopefully for a twissup style curry!).

Kelly Ryan: better at brewing than Shane Smeltz is at football

Shane Smeltz: has scored more World Cup goals than Kelly Ryan

Kelly& Cat, thanks for the great beers, the inspiring chats and the twissup adventures. All the best in New Zealand, we’ll be having a Mac’s Gold and selected Thornbridge beers in your honour this weekend! PS. Did you and Shane learn those faces at school or something?!