Rumbled Lows

Insert jokes  about AB-InBev having Jasper over a barrel here

I suppose everyone has done, or will be doing, their Review of the Year. I'm sure you'd all be fascinated about what beer and breweries I like, how much Evil Keg I've drunk, and how many Bloggers and Tweeters I've offended this year. But I won't be doing any of that.

Instead, I'll be concentrating on what I think the main trend of 2016 will be - The Final Rumbling of Craft Beer.

What with Camden and Meantime being bought up by big beer this year, and Meantime being flogged off again in a few months, it could be said that we're entering the next phase of the beer market. Now at around 1500 breweries in the UK some consolidation will undoubtedly take place, be it acquisitions and mergers, or simply winding-ups when the people behind them find a brewery unable to pay its way.

And this is where Craft will be Rumbled. Being small businesses, Craft breweries cannot use the marketing techniques of AB-InBev or Heineken. Instead, they try to be your friend. They reply to your tweets and FBs personally, the Head Brewer talks to you at Meet The Brewer events, and Bloggers may get 'with compliments' bottles delivered to their home.

Let's be clear about this. It's unlikely breweries are doing this because they love you and think you're a great person. No, this is what they do to get their company name 'out there'. The actual quality of the beer is almost immaterial. Stuff will sell if the right people are seen drinking it, basically.

And with the selling off/big business 'investment' in Craft breweries, all this will now be exposed. Yes, they did just want your money, man. You will see plenty of tear-stained blog posts like this one from Matt Curtis crying about their favourite brewery being sold off and no longer being part of The Community.  Reading it, I thought "Well, what did you think it was all about, mate?"

Remember : A business is not your friend. It may not be as rapacious as a massive corporation, but in the end it exists to make money.  A brewery being nice to you is, in the end, just a different way of getting you to part with your money.

It'll be a harsh day when certain beer types realise this. But, in my opinion, not before time.

News in Brief #34

Who needs a profit margin!

Brewer Possibly Not Ending Cask Beer Production

Sometime Brewer and desperate East Cumbrian beer huckster Bob Motte this week endlessly equivocated about whether to abandon his real Ale production line.

"Weeeeel," he said "we've been really committed to our cask beer over the last eight years but the market is dominated by other breweries churning out the stuff brewed down to a price rather than up to a quality."

"We'd make so much more money by switching to keg only. And putting it into bottles where we can sell the sediment as part of the price of a 330 ml rather than the pubs chucking it and claiming it back from me." he continued as if trying to convince people about something he'd already made his mind up on.

We asked Bob that, if he put it like that, why not just ditch the Real Ale as it seemed like a no-brainer. "Oh no, I can't. I have a load of orders from CAMRA Festivals over the next year."

"They always order what I consider to be the wrong beer. But their money's as good as anyone else's "

Hot and filthy furniture action

Pub Table Goes Unmolested All Day

Shocking news has emerged from the Cat & Tractor, a busy pub in Shrewsbury town centre. Upon tidying up after closing time, the pub staff found the furniture in exactly the same places as they were on opening at midday.

Four-legged square table Woody Flatsurface  complained "I've been stuck in this spot all day. It's as if nobody cares."

"Generally, hordes of idiot students come in and shove me up against that well fit circular bar table over there and spend hours nudging me up against it while consuming halves of Guinness as slowly as possible."

"And then afterwards I get roughly handled back into my original place three yards away. But today all I had was old codgers dumping their Smooth and Daily Mirror on me in between buggering off for a piss."

"My life is pretty boring." whinged Woody "Being grabbed, held and pushed is pretty much the only excitement I get."

Yeah, but it's not for the likes of you

Beer Communicator Says Takeovers Good Thing

Storyteller and Positivity Merchant Curt Mattis this week blogged that, yeah, maybe, this massive drinks companies buying up Craft breweries stuff  is a good thing after all.

"I was at this Macrobrewery-paid event," burbled Mattis "and was given this IPA from a micro they'd taken over. Of course it was nowhere near as a good as it used to be, but it was better than the alternatives I was offered."

"I drank it, if course, and maybe a few of those barrel aged Stouts they do. As I looked round the hall at my fellow Awesome Beer People, I had, like, this massive revelation. Maybe these buyouts of microbreweries by the big boys is a good thing after all "

"Put it like this," emphasised Curty "if big beer hadn't taken over this brewery, there wouldn't be events like this, and I wouldn't get this complimentary hospitality and free stuff. It's great!"

"The regular beers normal people buy won't be as good, of course. But I'll get to try the good stuff they can't afford. It's a win-win."

"Or something."

News in Brief #28

When I were a lad, this were all fields

Last Bitter Drinker Preserved

In its ever increasingly desperate attempts to prevent the last 70 years from happening, English Heritage has decided to stick it's nose in again towards the pub trade.

"We've managed to prevent the destruction of those remaining Victorian bars; stopped them flattening those 1930s road pubs; we're even well on the way to preserving 1960s flat roof places." confided younger-than-expected tweedy figure Roger Anachronism "But what about those who make pubs what they are - the drinkers?"

So, after an extensive search, EH found the last drinker of Ordinary Bitter at a pub in Oldham. "We got to him just in time," whispered Roger "the landlord was just about to replace the Hyde's Original pump with BlackJack. Think about it - a whole culture lost forever."

"We slapped a preservation order on both him and the handpull, so future generations can observe what drinking in pubs was about in the 1950s and 60s".  But what, we asked, did the pub and the drinker think of this?

Roger sighed " Does that matter? You don't know anything about Heritage, do you?"

"We're Communicating Beer, not taking the piss."

Beer Festival Organisers Sell Off Surplus

Last weekend, the organisers of the London Crafty Beer Fest 2015 proclaimed their event to be an Awesome Success. So awesome, in fact, that they're selling off what's left to all-comers on eBay. "Yeah, dudes," announced LCBF CEO Luke Lumberjack-Shirt, "We decided to let our awesome beer friends have a chance of a permanent souvenir of our event. Plus we need to get rid of it before it becomes uncool."

The listing is as follows :

12 x blue pallets : Previously used for making bars, furniture, tables, benches, climbing frames. Possibly could convert to things for moving stuff around - £29 each

3500 2/3 pint glasses : All marked "LCBF 2015". Many marked with moustache wax and black lipstick. £100 the lot or £200 if we have to clean them.

1 Keg Thornbridge Jaipur X : 8% still remaining inside. Come on, you want this! - £105

1 x Curt Mattis (Blogger) : Found in corner after Saturday session after "curating" one too many beers.  Will pay for removal.

All proceeds go to pay for the freebies given to favoured Bloggers to say nice things about LCBF and slag off the CAMRA event round the corner.

Suffering so you don't have to

Man Lives As Beer Blogger for a Day

Noticing that Beer Bloggers seem to have all the fun, curious online type Sam Notarobot announced online last Tuesday "I've decided to live the beer blogger life for a day!  It'll be wonderful." Having not much evidence to base this on, he worked out an itinerary based on tweets an blog posts by prominent beer types. Here is his report.

"I got up at 9am on my day off. I finished off the half can of Beavertown Black Betty from the previous night. Kept it's condition well, I found.

"I went down to the local Wetherspoons for breakfast. As I couldn't be seen drinking Smiths or Cask, I chose a can of Bengali to go with my full English. I think this counts as some kind of cereal .

" Leaving Spoons, I decided on an early pub crawl of the Craft bars.  Tried some of the new Craft kegs that had gone on over the previous few days. Only thirds as I don't want to get drunk. Had 7. One barman said 'You some kind of Blogger or something?' As if! Tweeted about presumptuousness of pub staff

"It was now 1300, and a Beer Festival had started in a nearby Masonic Hall. Went along with a CAMRA card and got in free. Had another 8 pints. Tweeted drinks along with brewer names in order to get followers. Nobody did. Except Thwaites. They follow everyone apparently.

" Got home at 2200. Decided to crack open my stash of Thornbridge Halcyon while writing up the day's events in my post. Woke up face down on the keyboard at 4:30am with an 'crack in Earth' type hangover

"Checked over what I'd done. Blog post unintelligible nonsense, and appear to have got into a massive Twitter argument about some minor point of pub etiquette.  Managed to throw up just before work. Felt a bit better.

"My admiration of Bloggers has exponentially increased. How they do this every day, I don't know."

Bizarre Times at Spoons

Craaaaaaaaaaaaft

Remember last year? I'm sure you do, as I'm certain you don't drink as much as I do, and I can remember it easily. JD Wetherspoon going craft? Remember that? Yes, you do.

If I'm being honest, today I was poised to write a post saying Spoons Craft selection has been a failure, and they're ditching it now they've disrupted the market with cheap Vedett and Adnams Crystal Rye IPA.  But I'm no longer that sure about it.

The whole thing started about six weeks ago, when a sign proclaiming BrewDog This.Is.Lager was reduced to £1.99 on a "Manager's Special". " Oh," spake the Crafties "this means Timbo Martin's ditching it due to poor sales". And that did seem plausible, as, if like my local Spoons, it had seven other lagers on already.

Then last week, several other lines were displayed on the " Manager's Special" board at £1.49 each, including the Crystal Rye, Vedett cans, Rogue IPA and Sagres Lager. So, conclusive evidence that the concept of "Craft" has been a failure at Spoons.

Meanwhile, the Devils Backbone maintained its usual price at £2.99/£3.10, depending on your location.

So, to get to the point (finally), I went into my local Wetherspoons today expecting to at least pick up some cheap stuff before it vanishes forever. But what had vanished in reality was the "Manager's Special" board. Replaced instead with a picture framed beer menu displaying the same prices as before this started.  Death of Craft? Hmm.

What I think has happened is Spoons had ordered a large amount of stock that they'd ordered when the whole "Craftwork" thing started last year. After all, the more you order, the cheaper per unit it will be. But eventually, some will reach it's "Best Before" date. And 9 months is about right for bottled beer.

Still on sale at Spoons, contrary to predictions

So, as they shift the old stock and get the new stock into the fridge, the price can be put back up, per pub depending on how much they had to offload.  You may be doubtful about this, but remember the Sixpoint cans last year. Exactly the same happened with those last year. And have they gone?

Occasionally in business such things happened. Sometimes too much will be ordered and will have to be cleared before it becomes a dead stock problem. I had to do this with a load of bottles of Camden Hells last week. It doesn't mean the concept of Craft Beer is a failure in the location, just that supply has exceeded sales.

I'm welcome to be proved wrong on this, and no doubt some people will get back to me saying that their local Wetherspoons now only sells Fosters, Ruddles and Doom Bar etc. But I doubt there will be many

News in Brief #19

"We don't like you. Go away"

New Craft Beer Alliance Formed

In the latest attempt for Big Craft to seem big (but yet smaller and somehow better than the MegaBrewers), several of the top Craft breweries have formed The Craft Brewers Alliance.

BrewDog, Camden, Beavertown and Magic Rock announced the Alliance to a sceptical trade audience yesterday.  "We've formed our own club and you're not allowed in." blathered BrewDog's James Watt.

"So, you want to join our secret club?" sneered Beavertown's Logan Plant "Well, your smelly boring brown beer is rubbish. You can go and sit in dog poo."

Camden's Jasper Cuppaidge added pertinently "Ner Net Ner Ner-Ner!" and blew a raspberry.

Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild

CAMRA Members Ponder New Beer Style

Middle aged bearded men were thrown into confusion at the beginning of this month by a communique from CAMRA. "May is Mild Month" it said "Make sure you drink Mild in May"

South East Grizedale Branch Treasurer Greg Steakbake was bemused "I read the email from St. Albans, and was utterly confused. I'd never heard of Mild Beer, to be honest."

"I looked it up, and apparently it was popular donkey's years ago. Mild hasn't been seen in my branch since 1962." muttered Steakbake, sadly.

"You may as well ask us to go and eat Tasmanian Tiger pies."

Copyright Timbo

Meal Deal Customer Disappointed

Last Wednesday afternoon, commercial traveller and casual pubgoer Bob Unwary needed to find some food in Oswestry, a town unfamiliar to him.

"I was walking down the high street, and saw an A-board outside a pub advertising 'Curry Club'. Well, Wetherspoons is as good as any, I thought, at least I know what I'll be getting."

"I went in and ordered my meal and pint of lager. It wasn't until I got halfway through when I realised it was I surprisingly edible." he continued  "I checked the signage properly and found I was in an independent pub rather than a Spoons. This wasn't what I wanted. I wanted dry and scorchingly hot microwave 'food' "

The pub in question has been informed that 'Curry Club' is copyright JD Wetherspoon inc. and has been closed down on the orders of Timbo Martin until further notice.

News in Brief #17

"I suppose the Pedigree's off, then?"

Local Pub Blown Up Overnight

Residents were shocked to hear of the destruction of a beloved local last week. A Grade-2 listed building, The Lady Godiva, Coventry was blown to pieces by a 200kg bomb planted by the intended devlopers, at approximately 3am last Wednesday.

Owner/property speculator Ron Callousdisregard ranted to us yesterday. "I know many people wouldn't have seen this as the ideal solution, but I was forced to take this course of action.  The fact is that I have had to blow up this pub, along with the six adjoining properties, two sets of traffic lights and a post box to show up the intransigence of local planning regulators who objected to me wanting to build an Adult Cinema and Erotic Accessory store here."

Coventry Planning Department official Dave Wristslap emailed us to say "We condemn Mr. Callousdisregard's actions in the strongest possible terms. We've sent him a letter saying he's been a naughty boy, but to be honest it's a bit late to do anything now, isn't it?"

"Oh well, can't stand in the way of progress, can we?"

Oooooooooooold. Just the way it should be

CAMRA Activist Puts Motion to AGM

This weekend, Nottingham will be overwhelmed by a large number of men in late middle-age with little else to do but talk about the Serious Business of Beer. Yes, it's CAMRA AGM season.

Bob Leathertankard, 72, an Activist since 1973, will be there to put forward his wide-ranging motion on the future of CAMRA. "CAMRA is at a crossroads" he rambled tipsily through the haze of six pints of Old Hooky "The membership is aging and there are fewer of us every year doing the important stuff at the grassroots."

"So what I suggest is limiting membership to the over-55s. I know that seems counterintuitive, but I keep hearing about all these young people under 40 talking about Craft and things. I know I should be bothered about keg fizz or some such, but I'm really old now and just want a quiet drink with other old men like me. I don't want arguments about what is or isn't real beer."

"The whole thing has become a tedious bore, to be honest. Just let me die in peace with a pint of lightly carbonated beer in my hand."

Coming soon to a City Portfolio near you

London Brewer Sells Crowdfunders

Excessively entrepreneurial London brewer Random Brick today announced it's latest investment plan, involving selling the 2000 crowdfunders who helped provide the startup capital to it's newest investor, a Hedge Fund based in the Cayman Islands.

Damien Fixedgear, CEO of London Debt Repayment Ltd. trading as "Random Brick Craft Brewery" muttered offhandedly to us "It's true that our crowdfunders helped get us going, but frankly they're a drain on administration now."

Fixedgear continued "Most expect updates on progress. Some say they would like a free bottle or two. One even contacted me about the chances of a return on his outlay, the fool.  So we've decided to flog them off to Consolidated Fund Management And Third World Exploitation Inc. It's the best thing for the future. Mine, anyway."

Hopeless optimist and serial Random Brick Kickstarter Daisy Headinclouds was asked how she felt about now being owned by a rapacious financial institution "It's a good thing for the Craft Beer Scene. Yes it is. A good thing. Yes it is. A good thing. Yes...."

Weirdo Craft

I was drinking in the local, the other day. Always surprising, I know. But this time I was actually in Preston sampling our local brews.

This is more dangerous than it sounds, as our local brewery is Hart of Preston. Yes, the infamous brewers of Dishy Debbie and other beers advertised by Rowan Molyneux-infuriating pumpclips. Though in recent times they have turned away from the sexist imagery, sadly the actual beer is no better.

They were trying a new lager recipe, and my local had received a cask of it. Ever dubious about Hart's products, I ordered a half to be on the safe side. The barman warned me about its somewhat unusual taste. "Tastes of almonds, Matt" he said. And bugger me, was he right. Asking around on Twitter, a brewer told me it was probably a fault. Benzaldehyde, I think he said.

Thing is, there are so many microbreweries around these days. You go into your local Free House and again and again you're confronted with a beer you've never even heard of, let alone tasted. If you didn't know the obvious "off-flavours", how would you ever know the beer was dodgy? Whatever you say about stuff like Thwaites Original, it's dishwater taste is so well known, you can tell if there was anything wrong with it.

But for an obscure Craft ale, it really could just be supposed to taste like that. How would you ever know?

The above Hart Cask Lager could have been badged as "Marzipan Ale" and nobody would have been any the wiser. In fact some breweries I've heard of are indeed rumoured to indulge in such a practice.

What's the solution? Complete tasting notes on the pumpclip for those unaware of what the brewer intended it to taste like? Or maybe a team of Cask Marque-approved beer inspectors trained to recognise obvious faults? No idea, myself.

In the meantime, if you're overly concerned about this it's best to stick with what you know. Another Windy Pale, please Jeremy.