Hoppier Than Hopf**k

"We only had enough hops for one pint, but we managed somehow"

"Please, if you're reading this, please send help. Something... something has gone terribly wrong. We tried to make something so hoppy it was hoppier than even a pile of hops. But we made something terrible. Something that's more monster than hops. We never meant for it to end like this. Blood. Blood and hops, everywhere. May God have mercy on us all."

From The Guide To Craft Beer 

I think it all started when a local barman told me about this beer he had at another pub in town.  It was, he said, a complete "hopfuck".  So off I went to the place and asked for the requisite name I was told.  Stone Ruination IPA it was called.  I handed over my £9 and was given in return a green bottle with tiny writing and a BrewDog half-pint glass.

And yes, reader, I was well and truly fucked by hops.

Despairing of ever being able to taste anything else for the rest of the day, I ordered a Fentiman's Vicky Lemonade, usually a desperate measure when I feel myself getting too pissed to order another beer.  I could barely taste a bloody thing.

You really do have to wonder sometimes.  Is there anything but hops in the Crafty world?  Woe betide the beer that makes claims of hoppiness on it's label that fails to meet the expectation of the Crafties, such as this review for Thwaites 13 Guns at CAMRGB.  But while the bottle labels have the self-conscious "Craft" design, they're aimed at the regular Premium Bottled Ale buyer, who would consider the likes of 13 Guns bloody hoppy if he usually drank Thwaites Original or Wainwright.

Reading through CAMRGB's reviews, you will struggle to find a beer given a half decent review if it isn't (a) a high ABV American-style IPA (b) an Imperial Stout or (c) a Saison.  Reading them, you have to wonder if the reviewer isn't suffering from a major case of palate fatigue, to which only ever increasing amounts of alpha-acids and hops can respond to and overcome.  Ironically, the few "regular" beers that get decent write-ups are usually described with the phrase "I liked this, but I don't know why."

Not being able to find my flannel shirt and flat cap, or grow a moustache fast enough, I decided to take drastic measures to avoid beer hipster ennui.  And I was saved.  Yes, saved. By Marston's.

:Luckily, a local shop was reducing the 5L fastcasks of Pedigree (they have a short shelf-life due to the "live yeast" they apparently contain), and picked one up at 80% off.  "I'd even drink Pedigree at £3.59 for nine pints of it", I thought.  The first couple tasted of nothing, but slowly my senses got used to Marston's BlandCask, and was having reasonable fun by it's eventual draining time two days later.  And it worked.  By Sunday, even Kirkby Lonsdale's beers tasted hoppy again.

Hops are good.  Hops provide a lot of the flavour in the vast majority of beers.  But are they the be-all and end-all of good beer? 

The Parody Account

Once upon a time, in a land far far away (in this case my bedroom), I created a Parody Twitter account.  I'm not a man for broad strokes.  I like the minutae of things.  So, my subject was a fictional whisky blender, Richard Proboscis, a wafer-thin spoof of real whisky blender Richard Paterson.  I got his posting style down to a tee, and recounted unlikely adventures of whisky-spilling and vociferous salesmanship.  Apparently, the people at Whyte & Mackay loved it, though Mr. Paterson himself was apparently slightly dubious.

I was possibly a bit sharp, but I don't think I was ever abusive or cruel.  And anyway, Mr. Paterson reduced his tweeting frequency and changed his style somewhat after a few months.  I do feel slightly guilty as I wonder if I was responsible for that.  I stopped posting to the account after three months, if for no other reason than it meant I ran out of material.

Which brings me to today's events.  Recently, an alleged spoof accout targeting famed beer bloggers Boak & Bailey has appeared.  I would post a link here, but it's likely the account will be deleted in the next few hours.  To say the output has been obscure and esoteric is putting it mildly.  Spurious ratings of blogs and non-sequiturs about online habits were the main topics.

But for some reason, today they have targeted the blameless Melissa Cole.  I'd love to be able to say the results have been needle-sharp, coruscating satire of beer bloggery.  I'd even love to be able to say it even turned the corners of my mouth up for a millisecond.  But sadly no.  It's been more along the lines of what the Daily Mail do to people they think their readers need to hate.  An unflattering photo here, thinly-veiled abuse there.  And always crying their rights in the name of freedom.

I appreciate that you get utter knobs on the Twitter as much as in the real world.  But the aforementioned knobs tend to use their psedonymity to avoid the  much deserved kicking they'd get in the so-called "real" world.

Freedom is a good thing, but how some people use it makes you despair

The Walkout

These days, the pub industry runs on a tight margin.  Stock levels are kept down during quiet times, expensive products are exchanged for cheaper ones, and most of all staff levels are cut as far as they can be.

Early January is always the slowest time of the year. My regular haunt has cut 16 hours off its trading time because, frankly, nobody is drinking on weekday afternoons.  Many places now only have one person on the rota most times. This can present certain difficulties, as I saw today.

I was in a different pub to usual, due to the usual place's aforementioned new opening hours. I was one of three customers there. The barman took a food order from the other two and disappeared into the kitchen to sort it out. Then the pub phone started ringing. It rang for over a minute, so it was presumably important.  Then another customer came to the bar. He saw nobody there. He waited 30 seconds and left. Potential trade lost.  The barman reappeared just as the door shut, but he wouldn't have known any of this.

This sometimes happens at my usual place, but as I know the staff there, I usually know what they're doing and can tell any waiting customers they'll get served in, literally, about one minute. They can then make up their own mind whether they want to stay. But what happens when there's no regular to explain this?

No, they will just bugger off and think "Well, not going there again".  So,  how can the customer be satisfied and the pub keep it's staffing rota balanced for trade? In my opinion, it can't. These two desires cannot meet in the middle, and a certain amount of potential trade will always be lost.

But the thing is, the pub will never know how much it's losing...

The Point Of CAMRA

I've been wondering about this for some time.

RedNev writes here that beer festivals, and especially CAMRA ones, are entering a new age of commerciality what with their charging a £7 entry fee and going to online ticket selling.  While this begs the question what the funds raised by this, and more to the point any surplus after venue fees and beer cost, go towards, I've been asking myself recently : What is CAMRA FOR in 2013.

The 1970s battle has been won.  Real Ale has been saved, and there are now hundred of breweries in the UK making it; <checks watch> possibly even thousands by now.  Though certain CAMRA branches (mine included) still believe big brewers want to rip out all the handpumps and make us all drink Watney's Red Barrel again, I don't think this will happen somehow.

In my experience, there is a certain suspicion amongst licensees about CAMRA's members' motives.  In another town (and another branch), one landlord said to me "Oh, you're in CAMRA, are you?",  and tried to get me to vote for his pub at the next committee meeting.  "The bastards only vote for <pub name removed>, as they give them the biggest discount.", he complained.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that even if I did have any influence with the Beard Club, I certainly didn't have any round here.  I was told similar things by other landlords in the same town, such as "They whinge about pub closing, but all they want is money off their next pint."

It could be that, for the vast majority of members, the discount is the main reason for joining CAMRA. What percentage of the membership is involved in actual "campaigning", rather than thinking of it as a money-off club with a free quarterly magazine?  My guess is in single figures.  CAMRA publicity material flaunts its 150,000 strong cohort, but usually only uses it as a tool to gain influence.  "Look at how many of us there are supporting real ale", it seems to say, despite the fact that few of them do more than simply buying it.

Maybe CAMRA should change its emphasis to supporting the suffering pub trade, or providing a voice against the increasing demonisation of public alcohol consumption.  If it doesn't find a distinct role, it could become an increasing irrelevance, populated by a silent membership whose sole reason for joining is the Wetherspoons tokens.

Roaming Through Mudgie Land

No, I've not been to Stockport, amazing tourist-haven it no doubt is.  But prompted by the Pub Curmudgeon's post on The Beer Bubble, I made a decision last week.  "Well, I suppose I could," I thought "sit here in my usual seat at the local Crafty bar, begging Jeremy the Manager to order that Rhubarb Porter or Limoncello-cask IPA I've read about on Twitter.  But no, I will go and visit these family brewery owned pubs Mudgie likes so much.  Yes, Surely Mudgie would approve".

And so I left my pint of Great Heck Black Jesus and headed off to the bus stop, where the Number 41 to Preston was boarded and soon (well, later - all things are relative in Wyresdale) dropped me off at Garstang.

Royal Oak, Garstang

Somewhat surprisingly (to me, anyway) the Royal Oak was packed, despite the fact the only cask on was Robinsons.  I ordered a pint of Unicorn and pondered why there were so many people in here when Garstang has eight other pubs. Then I remembered that this is indeed Garstang, and the 4000 people who live there have precious little else to do.   Everyone must have been fairly well oiled, as my paisley shirt attracted no comment, and judging by the average age of the clientele, I doubt the brewery considered this as one of their sites to launch Trooper a few months back. Though I am probably related to most of them as half my family are buried in a nearby churchyard.

I woke up the following day, still with the taste of Robbie's yeast in my mouth.  I decided to forget about Lancashire for day and travel to Southport.

Imperial Hotel, Southport

Amusingly, the bus passed a few pubs to save me looking.  I spied the Imperial Hotel and decided to have to look.  Now, this is a Holt's pub, from the makers of the cheapest beer outside Tadcaster, so I was expecting a dubious, time-forgotten dump like many Northern Sam Smith's houses.  Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be bright, airy and spacious.  The staff were identically turned out in half-done-up red ties.  I guessed this was one of those "food-led" places.  I ordered a pint of Holt's IPA, which may have even seen a hop sometime during its brewing, but of that I'm uncertain.   Despite Joey's tightwad reputation, this was a place that Peter Kershaw's old rackets partner Colin Cowdrey would not be ashamed to be seen in.  Shame about the beer, but you can't have everything.  I consoled myself with some silly craft beer bought at The Inn Beer Shop.

After waking up tired and thirsty from the unwisely-purchased Delirium Tremens, I decided to console myself with familiarity.  Lancaster it was.  So, off again up the A6 to the city of the one-way road.  I ignored all the Thwaites pubs, as watching Wainwright dominate the world is getting depressing.  Thankfully, there's a Hydes pub towards the railway station.

Robert Gillow, Lancaster

I went into the Robert Gillow, and when my pupils had opened wide enough for me to be able to see, I discerned the pump for Hydes Original and ordered one.  Hydes beer always makes me think there's only one strain of yeast in Manchester that all the breweries use to make sure all the bitter tastes the same so as not to scare people.  I somewhat doubted that the Hydes was the reason people came here, as the fridges were full of the beers the Crafties love.  I had also arrived smack in the middle of a music festival for which it had acquired a 24-hour licence.  Someone was trying to set up a theremin in the corner.  Well, full marks for novelty at least, I thought.  Though whether the players sense of pitch would have been good after the Laphroaig I saw them drinking was another thing.  I ordered a Quarter Cask in sympathy, and downed it and left before they finally got the bloody thing working.

So, in the end, I ended up back at the local craft bar, drinking again Black Jesus.  And as the comforting darkness of both the beer and rapidly impending intoxication seeped into my brain, I cogitated on what I learned from my adventures.  For one thing, just because a pub is owned by a family brewery, it does not mean that it's necessarily a traditional pub.   And a lot of Manchester regional brewed beer is not really to my taste.  But the journey is always more important than the destination.

And Jeremy, when are you getting that Rhubarb Porter?

Session #80 - Is Craft Beer A Bubble?

The hit-garnering antics of the The Session continue with the latest entry - Is Craft Beer A Bubble?

While this does conjure up some amusing images, I presume they mean the possibility that 'craft beer' is, at the moment, fashionable but may not be so forever.

At the moment, it seems that every man and his ironically-bearded dog are starting their own craft brewery, while pubs are disappearing from the UK like Rolf Harris's future career.  The question is, at what point in the future will these events meet in the middle?  Will there one day even be more breweries than actual pubs?

Craft beer is, of course, a growing industry.  To whom it is growing to is another thing. A look at the list of BrewDog's bars is a good indicator as any where it's most popular at the moment.  In the main, these are urban enclaves with a reasonably large amount of fashion-conscious and wealthy young people. And Nottingham.  I went to BrewDog Camden myself a couple of months back, and it was certainly busy for a Sunday evening.  I was probably also one of the oldest people there.  I am 37.

The Craft Beer Bubble claims another victim

Craft Beer, at the moment, is aimed and priced at a certain type of consumer.  Presumably the rest prefer or are seen to prefer swigging their Boring Brown Beer or CorporoCarbonated lager-type beverages.  You will struggle to find Craft in any town that isn't fashionable.  I doubt there will ever be a BrewDog Stoke or a BrewDog Barnsley.  Even Lancaster, a city with a major university, only has two places that can reasonably be described as "Craft Beer Bars".

What happens to Craft Beer after this is anyone's guess.  Apparently, Wetherspoon's are starting to stock Craft.  This is an interesting move, and we'll have to wait and see if it expands.  It could be that regular drinkers are desperate for something better than John Smith's or Becks.  Or, on the other hand, they could be quite content with their regular drinks and see Craft Beer as poncy and pretentious.

As Zhou Enlai said about the consequences of The French Revolution, it is too early to tell.  I can't see a major brewery elimination disaster, as surely the crappy economy of the UK would have finished a lot off already had things been that bad.  Beer volumes are of course declining, but perhaps the profitability of what beer is sold is increasing?  Who knows.

The Crafties will always have their Craft.  It remains to be seen if anyone else wants it.

Solving the Pub Crisis

Average Preston student pub, yesterday

Reading the latest issue of the local CAMRA magazine this week, it seems they have a new columnist.  Well, I thought, at least it'll mean less words devoted to the evils of "Zombeers".  When I actually read it, though, it was by a "Former Leisure Industry Consultant" giving his views on how to turn the ever-declining pub industry around.  One pub in Warrington, apparently, has opened its doors as a drop-in centre for young mothers and their children.  I imagined one well-known blogger choking on his pint of Unicorn if that ever happened in Stockport.

My own personal plan, as is ever the case with me, is idiosyncratic.  I came up with it after reading about the tribulations of Freshers' Week, an event where millions of young people leave their homes and move to another part of the country to live with strangers and gain a degree.

But I say, bollocks to all that.  If we want to save the pubs, I recommend a different course.  Instead of loaning 18-year-olds £5000 a year for course fees and accommodation just so they can "study" to get a lower second in Klingon Studies or Applied Playground Management, I say give them a bedsit and £5000 in state-issued pub vouchers, redeemable at any building with a premises license for on-site consumption.

Imagine - the pubs would be full of young people enjoying themselves during the day, rather than empty but for a couple of miserable old codgers quoting the Daily Mail.  Not only that, but the kids themselves would be socialising freely instead of pretending to read and underline passages in textbooks about the literary history of Faerie.  Which would at least be honest.

I say get rid of the pretence of education, and have more drinking and socialising.  It really would be the "best time of your life" then.