The Gold Bunny Problem

Rampant

A few years back, I was dismantling a display unit at work. It was towards the end of Easter and, naturally enough, every Lindt Gold Bunny had sold off it. I packed up the component cardboard bits and took it off into the back for disposal. However, one of my female colleagues got hold of the giant display bunny from the top and shouted "Hey girls, ever had a rabbit this big before?".

I tell this anecdote because I was reminded of it by Boak & Bailey's post on Friday about the things that are never talked about in beer Blogger circles, one of them being the actual, authentic pub experiences of the working classes.

Now, me, I'm a member of the aforementioned proletariat. I have a relatively low paying job in retail and have never been to University. Somehow, I have acquired the ability to write coherently (which some would say disqualifies me from the working classes), but that's by-the-by.

Reading the majority of the beer blogs, it's quite obvious to me that their writers have had limited, or possibily none whatsoever, contact with ordinary working people. And I don't mean the " my dad's gardener was working class and we get on like a house on fire, actually" kind of contact.  The Bloggerati have no idea what they enjoy or what their sense of humour is. Well, I will tell you - the working class sense of humour finds the above Gold Bunny tale hilarious 

Witness Pumpclip Parade. The majority of the examples given are crude humour and cheap sexism. A middle class person will find a knob gag pumpclip unfunny. A middle class person will consider being in a place with such an item infra dig. A middle class person will even take a picture and  send it to a website where their equally middle class peers will wholeheartedly agree that, yes, this is simply awful.

Meanwhile, the working class person, will laugh for a couple of seconds, order a pint, and not think about it again .

The problem as I see it is that the middle classes are encroaching on a hitherto almost exclusively working class domain. Ie. Beer and pubs.  And they do not like what they see. So they try and usually succeed in making both beer and pubs more to their liking, be it modern interior design, rarified discussion and "tasteful" point of sale displays.  This is called "gentrification" and is reckoned to be a good thing.

But where do the working class people go when this happens? Well, they've been pushed out of what was "their" space. So they either go somewhere else where they feel more comfortable, or they stay at home.

And the well-to-do like this. Out of sight, out of mind. No longer will they be offended and discomfited by crude humour and tacky surroundings.

But I ask the question - where do the working class go once everything they knew is gone? Where?

The Keg-Only Pub

It's a quiet Sunday afternoon in Preston.  For once, the sun is out, and people have found better things to do than sit inside a pub. Not me. As usual, I'm in the Moorbrook drinking the latest silly craft IPA IBU nonsense.

There was a couple walking behind me down Garstang Road, and they followed me into the pub. Not for them the immediate drinks order on being greeted by the landlord. No. The most important thing they want to know is "What time's the football on here?" Needless to say, the Moorbrook doesn't have Sky Sports.

After a brief conferral between them, and old boy sat at the bar piped up and told them that the game was being shown in a pub 200 yards away - The Wellfield on Adelphi Street. Formerly a Greenall Whitley house, this is now a Sports Bar, catering to, shall-we-say, Preston's more down-to-earth element. It is keg only.

While I am of course sat here drinking keg beer, this IPA is not the sort of thing served at the Welly.  Lager, Smooth and Guinness rule there. I have never been, as such things would attract comment from both the existing patrons and everyone who knows me and my usual tastes.

I remember a discussion about this on Twitter the other day. How many, it was asked, pubs are keg-only (the non-craft type, that is).  For all their many and myriad faults, CAMRA Central Lancashire helpfully provide a list for our perusal on their website.  Many of those listed as having "No Real Ale" are student/fun pub places (Popwold, Beachcomber, Oblivion); others are chain theme pubs (O'Neill's, Roper Hall). These places would never do Real Ale, as either it's not what the company does, or it's aimed-for clientele would never buy enough of it to make it worthwhile.

This leaves the old-fashioned keg pubs.  The places for whom the Real Ale and Craft revolution has somehow passed by.  They are either terrifying (The Bears Paw, The Golden Cross) or dumps in an endlessly repeating open-close cycle (The Black-a-Moor Head, The Tithebarn).  I'd say these types comprise of about 10% of Preston's pubs.

The keg-only pub is reckoned to be the kind that has suffered most over the last 15 years, as it's traditional drinker has either been seduced by cheaper supermarket beer, or put off by the smoking ban (the working classes are statistically far more likely to be smokers even now).  That any are left at all is suprising. None are highly regarded. Not by the middle classes, who see them as hotspots of drunkenness, lassitude and criminality. And neither by the discerning beer drinker, who regard them as dens of crap beer being sold to idiots.

I'm probably just as guilty of this, as I'd never be seem dead in The Wellfield or The Moor Park. But it can't be denied that a certain sector of the drinking population feel more comfortable in them than in a CAMRA or Crafty pub. What for them when the traditional keg-only pub finally disappears?

News in Brief #14

Potteries Proclaimed Next Beer Destination

Formerly appalling postindustrial hellhole Stoke-on-Trent has become the new place to go for exciting beer times, or so says local brewery owner, Titanic's Keith Bott.

"We have the money here to support Craft beer in Stoke. I hear there are at least two people in Hartshill who earn more then £15,000 a year. Are they C1s or C2s? Who knows?  What with cheap property prices, the hipsters will soon be here with their beards and tattoos as well."  

With increasingly desperation Bott continued "Fenton even has a Wetherspoons, you know.  I think they do craft.  We've asked the local free houses to put in a keg font for our nitro stout. That should start the Craft revolution here."

When told about this former pot bank transfer-applier Arnold Bloor muttered over his half of Ansell's Mild "Craft? Nee nayd to get a reet cob on, duck."

"Oooh! I hide my wine in the baby's bottle too!"

Starbucks To Start Serving Coffee

With the recent news that Tax Avoidance/Beverage company Starbucks is to start serving alcoholic drinks at its establishments, further range expansion plans have been revealed.

"I know people will be surprised by this move," wittered CEO Roger Dodd-Pigott "by from May we will be serving 'coffee'.  Apparently, it's a new thing that people have been adding to their frothy warm milk every morning.   Anecdotal evidence suggests that this infusion of ground beans gives the drinker the energy needed to get through a day of tedious nonsense.  As someone who spends my day with tax accountants and HMRC, I myself can see the advantages."

We asked around at a Starbucks about the anticipated success of 'coffee'. "We can't see it catching on here." said twin pushchair mover Artemisia Floraldress.

"I think we'll stick to Pinot Grigio for breakfast like we always have."

They're here, they're loud, and their GP prospects are poor

Working Class Person Enters Pub

The impossible was achieved yesterday when both CAMRA and the Crafty Hipster community agreed on something. Namely the problem of working class people in pubs.

"Whereas my colleague and I disagree on almost everything about beer and pubs," said local CAMRA branch treasurer Greg Steakbake "neither us want poor people cluttering up our favoured places swilling down pints of yellow fizz."

Nineteenth-century woodsman appearance affecter Josh Fixedgear continued "It's true. If you let these people in and allow them to consume macro lager, then who knows what will happen. They'll probably start laughing and shouting and singing. We won't be able to hear our delightfully obscure playlist."

Steakbake tipsily rambled on "The sooner these people are priced out with £3.50 real ale (" And £6 craft keg!" interrupted Fixedgear) the better, before our favoured watering holes become a morass of earrings and tracksuit bottoms."

The working classes were unavailable for comment, as they were watching Sky Sports at home with a slab of Carling.