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Beer history Generalisations about beer culture

All this History is Making us Thirsty

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale 1981.

Researching, reading and writing about the history of beer can feel rather remote from the important business of actually drinking the stuff but, nonetheless, it has made us crave some very specific beers.

We want to drink Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in the California sun, ripe with Cascades, with yeast ‘an inch thick in the bottom of the bottle’, and flavour so powerful we can ‘taste it on the bus home’.

We’d like pints of Marston’s Pedigree in Burton on Trent, bursting with orange aroma, and so profoundly brilliant that they seem to make time stand still.

Or how about a shared four pint stoneware jug of the local brew on a village green in Cheshire?

Timothy Taylor Landlord, tasting of grapefruit and tangerine, without having been near a ‘New World’ hop, would hit the spot.

Actually, what would be perfect is several jars of palate-stripping, bone-dry Young’s Bitter — too much for most people to handle — or of a similarly grown-up-tasting Boddington’s.

The problem is, few of these beers exist any more. Yeast strains have been ‘cleaned up’, bitterness levels have been reduced, and breweries have closed, moved or been refitted. All that remains, in most cases, is the name, and whispers of the flavours and aromas which once inspired people. Some of these beers are, today, embalmed corpses.

Fortunately, there are living, exciting beers — descendents of those listed above — which we can drink. You can’t, after all, get much flavour from a trademark, but the spirit lives on.

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Generalisations about beer culture opinion

Of course beer wants you to drink it

Phil ‘Beersay’ Hardy has kicked off another of those periodic rounds of fretting among beer British beer geeks: are we, by definition, in an unhealthy relationship with beer? Do we drink too much, too often? Are we dependent on alcohol?

We don’t think it’s silly to ask this question from time to time, or to consider the possible impact of beer on your own health.

There are those who will tell you, however, that even acknowledging a possible problem gives succor to ‘the enemy’, viz. those who would like to see drinking regulated, marginalised or even banned outright. We say, ignore them: the belief that how much you drink is a personal decision has to go both ways, and if you choose to drink less, that’s your shout.

Some people in the industry, however, do drink a lot, every night of the week, apparently, and at breakfast time, if their Twitter feeds are to be believed. That last is a taboo for many, and one of those safety indicators we use to check our consumption: as long as we still feel queasy at the thought of beer before midday, we’ll feel reasonably happy that we’ve not gone over a cliff just yet.

There are also brewers and publicans who will urge you to go to the pub RIGHT NOW, and make it plain you’re letting down ‘the movement’ if you don’t. You need to up your game, they insist, and drink more. If you don’t drink strong beer, you risk losing it to the taxman and the ‘neo-prohibitionists’. We’re not saying they’re being irresponsible, only that, well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? You should only drink because you want to and if you feel comfortable doing so, not because someone who gains from your drinking is sending you on a guilt-trip.

Of course, it is possible that some people in the industry have lost perspective themselves, being around free-flowing beer all day every day. We remember talking to a former pub landlord over a few jars: ‘I loved running a pub — loved it. It’s what I was put on Earth to do,’ he said, then sighed. He shook his pint glass from side to side and looked at it sadly. ‘But this stuff was just too handy. I got out just in time.’

If you want to take January or any other month off drinking, do it. You’re not letting anyone down by taking a night off, or drinking water in the pub every now and then. And if you’re worried, turn to your loved ones for help or reassurance, not to your drinking buddies, online or otherwise, and certainly not to a publican or brewer.

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Generalisations about beer culture

Gut reactions and associations

Beers on a pub table.
Well? If you’re so clever, YOU find a picture to illustrate emotional gut reactions!

If you were sat next to us in a pub and overheard us talking to each other about the beer we’re drinking, you might notice a few of the following statements, before we’ve translated our reactions into la-di-dah blogger speak.

      • We’ve brewed better — a serious criticism: professional brewers ought to make better beer than us (for now, at least).
      • (Face pull) Had worse in Belgium — weird, rough around the edges by British standards, but not necessarily terrible. Interesting.
      • Erm… a bit farty — ‘sulphurous’ in posh beer tasting speak — not necessarily bad!
      • Bad home brew — a harsher criticism than ‘we’ve brewed better’ — it’s reminded us of that first, foul kit we made in a plastic bucket in the garage.
      • It’s got that [Brewery X] thing — with reference to one of two or three breweries whose beers we generally don’t like.
      • Sorry, I can’t drink that — it’s not ‘off’, just so unpleasant it’s no fun to consume. Gets abandoned.
      • By ‘eck, it’s on good form tonight — cask ale, however consistently well made, varies from pub to pub, cask to cask, day to day.
      • Ooh, zingy! — you know — zingy.
      • Mmm, Germany… (sigh) — beer with a certain type of hoppiness that reminds us of drinking very fresh lager in a German beer garden. (Not said only of lager.)
      • Ah, Sheffield… (sigh) — a high accolade bestowed upon the most satisfying very pale, hoppy session ales.
      • Actually, that’s not so bad — getting to like a ‘meh’ pint about halfway down.
      • Actually, I’m not so sure — realising that, once the first pleasant waft of hops have drifted on the wind, the underlying beer is a bit nasty.
      • Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah…. that’s hit the spot (tummy rub) — said of any beer at the end of a long coastal walk, when it is impossible to judge beer quality.
      • (Sulk, harrumph.) Want to swap? — we’re each drinking different beers and one of them is ‘meh’.
      • Better than Guinness/John Smith’s/Peroni — faint praise of a fairly bland ‘real ale’/’craft beer’/Category D Beverage.

We liked the inclusion of ’emotional’ in these tasting notes by Bee; but we’re less impressed by a persistent tendency of beerier-than-thou types to assume that other people’s reactions to beer are faked, insincere or otherwise ‘stupid’.

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Generalisations about beer culture opinion

Is the end of the beer boom nigh?

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.” Sherlock Holmes

Yeah, whatevs, pipe boy.

Though we’re still crunching data on brewery openings, closings and goings on between the 1970s and the present day, this optimistic post from Des de Moor, and some pessimistic responses on Twitter, got us thinking about possible signs the current beer boom might be coming to an end. Here’s what we’ve come up with.

1. Fewer breweries open than in the previous year

Er, yes, this one is a bit obvious. Previous UK brewery booms (early 80s, mid 90s) follow the usual ‘Bell curve’, and there’s no reason to think this one will be any different. Here’s 2006-08 from figures given by CAMRA at successive Good Beer Guide launches.

Graph of new UK brewery openings 2006-08
Number of new breweries opening each year according to CAMRA, e.g. 99 in 12 months preceding September 2011; 158 announced from then until September 2012.

When the new GBG is launched in the autumn of this year, the ‘new breweries’ number will be significant. If it’s more than 158, then the boom is still going; if less… well, it’s not the end of the world, but it means we can start to expect a slump the unfettered growth to slow down in the next few years. (Our guess (that’s a guess): it’ll be 180+, but then back down to 150 in 2014.)

2. The big-small operators start selling up

A final death knell for the 1980s boom was, we think, the moment when David Bruce of the Firkin chain of brewpubs sold his interest to Midsummer Inns for £6.6m in 1987. Clever people invest at the start of the boom and sell before it peaks. So, if, say, Martin Hayes of the Craft Beer Company, for example, decides to cash in his chips and sell his five (?) pubs to a bigger national operator, alarm bells ought to ring.

3. Big breweries get in on the act

We’re not saying big brewers can’t or shouldn’t ‘do craft’, but it might be a bad sign when they do. The 1980s boom was partly down to Whitbread, Allied and others getting in on the action with their own ‘fake Firkin’ brewpubs and the (half-hearted) revival of their own real ale brands. They undercut small operators and contributed to an over-saturation of the market. The equivalent these days might be the ‘pilot plants’ all the bigger breweries are opening; but a far bigger danger sign wil be the first Mitchells & Butlers brewpub or ‘craft beer bar’.

4. Hipsters move on from beer

Hipsters might not consume much beer as a total share of the market, but they own the buzz. They write blogs, reviews, newspaper and magazine articles, and work in TV production. They attract attention. If (when) they decide that Brewdog isn’t cool anymore and move on to, say, sloe gin, or mead, or whatever, it’ll be a rats- from-sinking-ship moment. This usually happens well before the peak of the boom, which suggests there might be a couple more years to go yet. Thirty-odd years ago, c.1980, key indicators were a drop off in CAMRA membership and in sales of the GBG, as those who’d got excited by the ‘real ale craze’ lost interest. What’s a modern equivalent? Sales of the Craft Beer London app? Brewdog shares? Google searches?

Summary

What we’re saying, we guess, is that there’s no reason to be gloomy just yet — there’s another year or more of boom to be enjoyed — but that anyone opening a brewery right now is doing so towards the peak of the curve and had better have a bloody good offer if they expect to be trading in three or four years time.

If you’ve got any guesses or suggested indicators, share them below.

UPDATED 09:30 24/01/2012 a slump is not what you call the end of a boom, apparently! You live and learn…

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Blogging and writing Generalisations about beer culture opinion

The value of silly beer

Willy Wonka who, sadly, never made beer.
Who’s for Everlasting Beer?

There are some who argue that high-concept beers are, at best, pointless and, at worst, damaging to The Culture of Beer. For our part, though we rarely drink them and certainly don’t make much of an effort to seek them out, we sometimes find the ideas behind them funny, and feel, ultimately, that they have their place.

Within a given brewery’s range, silly beers can play the same role as the concept car, or those catwalk clothes that prompt people to say: “You’d never actually wear it out in a million years, would you?” They make a statement about values; they speak to the skill and imagination of the brewer; and they create buzz. Often, they’re impossible to find in the real world and prohibitively expensive when they do turn up, but that doesn’t really matter — it’s all about the halo effect. “I heard something about this brewery! Their head brewer is a genius!” says the consumer, and then chooses that brand of perfectly nice bitter or lager over another.

For drinkers, the benefit of such beers is negligible, though perhaps ingredients or techniques from the CRAZY!!! beer might help the brewer level up, and thus influence for the better something more mainstream they brew down the line. If you’re the kind of drinker afflicted with the need to ponder your pint, however, then WACKY!!! beers provide much needed input: the opportunity to be outraged; to question what beer is; and to articulate what exactly it is you do want.

Is thinking and talking about beer a good thing? If it helps to prevent a slow sleepwalk into monopoly and across-the-board blandness, then the answer is probably yes.

We were prompted to think about this by Elizabeth David who, in her book Italian Food, mentions the Italian poet Filippo Marinetti and his proto-Heston Blumenthal ‘futurist food’ manifesto.