The Swivel Eyed Loons

The Conservative Party have got into trouble recently.  Not for the things they should be getting into trouble for eg. iniquitous charges, workfare slavery or their austerity programme not working.  No, apparently one of Dave Cameron's mates has referred to Tory grass-roots activists as "swivel eyed loons".

It seems the Party leadership (consisting as it does of Dave's Eton schoolfriends) do not particularly represent the views of the average Tory activist (aged 68 and living in a Home Counties suburb).  The furore over gay marriage is a symptom of this.  Apparently, Cameron & co are a smug metropolitan elite whose views are out of touch with their street-tramping and envelope-stuffing volunteers.

If you read certain things, namely the lettercolumn of What's Brewing, CAMRA's executive committee are guilty of similar things.  One of Mike Benner's main selling points to the non-beer world is that he doesn't look like and sound like a stereotypical CAMRA member.  And, I'm sorry about this John Clarke et al. , but CAMRA members do have a bit of an image problem.  Ask any real ale pub landlord, and he'll regale you with tales of beards coming in, asking to sample all six beers, buying a half, complaining about short measures/temperature, and buggering off to the next pub to do the same.  One barman told me he'd put the price of a pint up for CAMRA members if he could.

How true these tales are I'm not sure.  Every self-selecting organisation has its git elements.  But what makes CAMRA different is that its membership has increased over the last 5 years (by something like 50%, I think), whereas that for political parties has declined.  The Conservative party is down to its hardcore vocal activists who probably don't represent what most Tory voters actually think on a lot of issues.  CAMRA's aged hardcore, while vocal, are increasingly being drowned out by newer (and I use this term advisedly as most new members are still over 35) voices. The whole anti-craft keg thing at the 2013 AGM was a mere raging against the dying light.   I believe craft keg will be totally accepted in the next decade, even if the committee have to amend the definition of "real ale".

Mike Benner, Colin Valentine etc. may not be to the taste of a lot of hardcore, 40-year veteran Beard Club members, but they are the future.  Whatever that may be.

Note : The title of this post is a quote from the media coverage of the Conservative Party, and is used as a description of this phenomenon.  I am not calling CAMRA members "swivel eyed loons".  Thank you.

Old Beer Ads #7 - Hofmeister Lager (1983)

Lager was gaining popularity in the 80s, but had not yet succeeded in gaining the louty ascendancy it has today.  The big UK brewers wanted a slice of Carlsberg and Heineken's market and brewed their own brands along with getting the licences of "continental premium lagers".  In the belief that British drinkers preferred low-strength beers, most of these were rather low in ABV.  The business model was simple - knock up some adjunct-packed, flavour-free watery piss and bung a German-sounding name on it.  It worked for a time.

Hofmeister Lager was Scottish & Newcastle's attempt at this market.  For some reason, their ad agency cooked up commercials like this, starring cheek-faced bear George.  In an unlikely tale, here he leaves Bavaria to come to 1980s London in search of decent lager.  Yes, that's what I thought too.   These ads were stopped on the basis that a big, cuddly bear might entice children to drink.  How intoxicated the kiddywinks could have got on Hofmeister's 3.2% dishwater is open to debate.

The pissy-lager market is all but dead now, with only Skol of the major brands hanging on.  You can buy budget own-label supermarket lager, but at 2% what it's made from is anyone's guess.  Hofmeister itself died in 2003, an event so notable even the BBC website reported it.

One hopes that George himself was rescued by Animal Welfare, and was taken back to Germany.  He probably drinks Oettinger-Pils now.

The Gentrification Of Beer

I live in a Northern post-industrial town.  What the place was built to do is long gone, leaving places like the docks and the factories disused and the nearby terraced housing miles from employment opportunities.  The nice people who see these things in the Old North don't like them, and usually have them replaced.  Typically with "new developments" - eg. shop units and flats for urban professionals.  Sometimes it's even successful.  But where do the poor people go?

A similar thing has happened with beer.  Cask ale, once the drink of the working man, has been taken from him and been gentrified, commodified and put in an echoey craft beer bar.  He now drinks lager at one of dwindling number of pubs in which he feels comfortable.  There is the impression that the masses have simply left cask to its own devices, and are simply drinking something that's more fashionable and heavily promoted.

The small gap that remains for cask has been filled by the middle classes, eager as ever to show their superiority over the herd by consuming something of apparent higher quality.  Even "dinosaur" regional breweries are seeking a piece of this market.  Brains of Cardiff, once the drink of dockers and miners, have built a "craft" brewery (and given it it's own website, so nobody could confuse it with the place that makes the industrial dark mild).  Thwaites of Blackburn who, along with trying to dominate the country with Wainwright, have built their "Crafty Dan" microbrewery on-site, which they promise to transport piece-by-piece when they move.  Even Robinsons of Stockport, makers of several oddly-similar tasting bitters proclaim that Dizzy Blonde and Unicorn are "craft beers" on their bottles.

Ironically, if any cask brewery tries to appeal to the workers with lively imagery or coarse humour, they're liable to end up on Pumpclip Parade , probably when a nice middle class educated person wanders into the "wrong" pub by mistake and is horrified by such base culture.  Don't these proles and plebs realise Craft Beer is not for them anymore", they think.

The workers will have their cooking lager, and swallow the middle class propaganda that "decent" beer is beyond their palates  - Let them drink Fosters!

Old Beer Ads #6 - Courage Best Bitter (1980)

This was one of the most famous beer ads of its time.  If I remember correctly from an old documentary, I watched years ago, Courage wanted to reassert their London heritage after many years of National-based filth-making. What better way to do it than do create a monochrome cockney fantasy pub and put a Chas & Dave soundtrack over it?  I think they dredged up some ancient lighting guy to do this (as few lighting directors of the time had experience of old-time B&W ambience).  Apparently, it looked awful while they were filming it.  But it came right on the print, as the old codger said it would all along.

Courage itself is long gone.  Flogged numerous times and subsequently dismembered, it's now merely a brand owned by Wells & Young.  I'm not sure if anyone misses them.  Amongst other crimes, they introduced Fosters into the UK, and even the Best Bitter was apparently a load of Cock too (pun!).

Fact #1 - The first record I bought was by Chas & Dave.  Yes, it was 'Snooker Loopy' in 1986.  In fact, I bought it three times as one 45 melted on the fire, and another one cracked.  Now you know why it was a hit. Also, the middle-eight of 'Snooker Loopy' was nicked from the 1963 hit "Don't You Think It's Time" by Mike Berry and the Outlaws (the bass player was one Chas Hodges Esq.).

Fact #2 - One of the heirs of the Courage Brewery was racing driver Piers Courage.  I visited his grave in Shenfield in 2009, as I was in town to see my girlfriend of the time.  The grave is not in the best of upkeep, sadly.  I thought at the time "Surely the Courage family must still be loaded after selling the brewery.  They should have kept the site in better nick than this".  I guess the great brewing families really were callous Tories after all.

Responsible Drinking Night / Dubious Piss-Up (delete as applicable)

1.16am : Hello, and welcome to my first sort-of-live blog. This is to demonstrate the exciting life I live. I'm presently cooking egg and chips for my tea. While I'm waiting I'm drinking this :

1.22am : Yes, Dave.  I'm sure Continuum is a "session beer". Session in strength maybe. But I'm not sure I could take too many ones of this IBU in one sitting.  Anyway, on with the eggs.  Oops, broke a yolk.  Never mind.  The grease will help cut through the hops.

1.32am : Say, are these big lumps of yeast at the bottom of this glass?  Did the filter break, Dave?  Doesn't mention "bottle conditioned" on the label.  Still, that's my RDA of Vitamin B for today.  Thanks Hardknott!  Are the chips done?  No, set the temperature wrong.  And I'm not even drunk yet.  Did I tell you about the time I almost gassed myself with this oven on New Year's Day?

1.35am : <clink> There goes the Continuum bottle into the recycle box. Happy landings.  It's had an eventful life, going from Cumbria to Preston.  Twice.

1.40am : Does Hardknott Code Black go with eggs?  It'd better.  Hope the chips aren't on fire or something. 

1.50am : Egg and chips have gone cold during Blogger failure.  Luckily I had it copied and pasted.  Will drink this while it's warming in the oven.  Code Black's a bit more bitter than my usual stouts (Titanic & Stringers) but not overly so.

1.53am : Checking early morning TV schedules.  Does nobody working in the TV industry consider the needs of the the midweek bizarre drunk?  Nothing but crap on again.  Still, could be worse.  Could be a BBC4  jazz night again.

1.56am : Peculiar aroma, this Code Black.  I don't notmally notice these things, but I have here.  Hmm.  Well, over halfway through anyway.  Any nonsense on YouTube?  Oh yes.  Ideal drunk late night viewing....

2.00am :  Food finally both cooked AND warm.  Nearly finished the beer, and found a Fireball XL5 episode to watch.   "Drama At Space City"?  Sounds good to me.  More strings than a 1959 Buddy Holly record.

2.02am : <clink> There goes the Code Black.  Strange finish, like what I get on old whiskies I have at the SMWS.  Next!

 

2.05am : Is it just me, or does Azimuth smell of tomato ketchup?  Maybe just hungry me anticipating my egg and chips, finally. 

 

2.10am :  Ahhh.  Azimuth.  Top stuff.  Rounded hoppiness.  Non-aggressive carbonation.  

2.12am : No, Commander Zero.  I don't think inviting Zoonie the Lazoon to stay in your house was the right thing to do.

 

2.15am : Azimuth very balanced.  Almost sweet, like the Toffo toffees we had back in the 1980s

2.18am : Ha ha ha.  Zoonie's trashing the place.  Commander Zero is threatening to beat his son too, and he threatens his dad with the Parent psychologist.  "Welcome Home!" as Zoonie says.

2.21am : Commander Zero's son looks just like my father (also called Jonathan, who was 9 when this went out in 1963).  Except maybe not quite as overweight.  Shame the Azimuth is nearly gone.

2.25am :  <clink> There goes the Azimuth.

 

2.27am : Queboid opened. 8%.  On to the real stuff, now.  Gloopy. 

2.28am : Quedboid is great.  Like some insane zoologist has bred together a young whisky and an IPA and set it against Space Patrol and Steve Zodiac.  Possibly.  Or maybe I've  drunk to much and watched too many 60s puppet sci-fi shows.

2.30am : Ha ha.  Jonathan Zero has set Fireball XL5 on fire, but Zoonie the Lazoon has an extinguisher pack.  If only my cats would do this sort of thing when I, say, left the gas on after New Year's Eve.

2.32am :  Zoonie saves the day for Space Patrol, Queboid is the best beer of the night,  I have eaten chips and and am still not drunk. 

 2.33am : And after that, you can sing along to Don Spencer's evocative closing theme music for Fireball XL5.  If nothing else, I need to go to the toilet. Take it away, Don :

Robbie Williams & Titanic

Due to the recent success of Frederic Robinson's Elbow and Iron Maiden beers, it seems breweries are queuing up to get all manner of musical fools into their brewhouse to wield the mash paddle.  Contrarian popster Robbie Williams, however, has done it the other way.  He's invited brewers from his home town to help make his new single.

"I've always had a great regard for the people of Burslem," he said "despite hardly ever having been back there since I left in 1991.  I was sat bored in the studio wondering which thing to become addicted to next when I thought 'Yeah, I'll invite the Titanic Brewery boys to come and work on my new song. Can't turn out any worse than Rock DJ anyway'.  My people got on the phone to them and they were up for a trip to LA, saying something about it beating being stuck on the A500 with a vanload of empty casks."

Titanic Chairman Keith Bott took time out of his busy schedule of selling nitrokeg stout to London freehouses to talk to us.  "We got off the plane at LAX, jetlagged and starving as the airline didn't have any oatcakes on board, and a limo whisked us off to Robbie's studio.  Things were slightly awkward at first, but we soon got talking about UFOs, especially the time when aliens abducted the fruits we were going to use for a batch of Plum Porter.  Had to use essence in the end.  Anyway, Robbie had laid down most of the track already but we put some backing vocals on.  You could almost hear them in the finished mix!  We were so glad to be a part of the creative process."

"Hop To It!", the result of this unique collaboration will be on sale in June in Titanic's seven North Staffordshire pubs, before being ground up and sent to China for road aggregate filler.


(All information in this post is entirely fictional, as I hope you know)

Old Beer Ads #5 - Stones Bitter (1983)

Stones Bitter was a regular canned mainstay of my childhood years.  Every Christmas, my nan would stock up the cupboard below the drinks cabinets with it (and Woodpecker cider).  The only person I ever saw drinking it was Uncle John.  And he only ever had a couple on Boxing Day.  I presume it was the cheapest at the shop my grandparents went to.

For some reason, Stones was the most popular bitter in the country at one point.  Bass pushed it in a major way with this long-running ad campaign in the 80s.  Two (presumably from Sheffield) blokes wandered around the world, and found Stones Bitter in unlikely places.  And here is possibly the unlikeliest of all - Egypt.   Perhaps the market for golden English bitters was better in Islamic countries back in 1983.  Who knows?

One of the aforementioned blokes was Bernard Hill, who did these ads to pay whatever bills he had until he became famous enough not to need to do these things.  After that, Michael Angelis took his place for the rest of the run, as he tends to when more famous Liverpudlians think such populism is beneath them.

Bass themselves came to the opinion that such things were beneath them too.  The adverts were pulled in 1991 and marketing support for Stones was withdrawn throughout the decade and the brewery in Sheffield was shut in 1999.  The beers were contracted out to John Smiths (keg & can) and Everards (cask). Etc etc.  Stop me if you've heard this kind of thing before.

Does anyone drink canned bitter any more?  It must be years since I've seen that blindingly obvious orange Stones can emptily blowing round the town centre streets.