Category Archives: News

The Beer Bubble is Leaking

Bubbles

That urban beer bubble seems to be leaking somewhat. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen the following:

  • A spat between two breweries make national television news, newspapers and hugely popular non-specialist blogs, thanks to the Brewdog publicity machine and a compelling tale of skullduggery.
  • Marverine ‘Beer Beauty’ Cole on This Morning — a popular and very mainstream TV show — talking as seriously about beer as that format will allow. Much better than the One Show‘s attempt with Jay Rayner from last year which, although good, patronised beer as wine’s less versatile, uncouth cousin.
  • News that Brewdog are to have their own Channel 4 TV show. It will almost certainly be unbearable for most beer geeks to watch but may well grab the attention of many others. (Unlike the Neil Morrissey/Richard Fox show from a few years back, this will at least feature actual brewers, rather than celebs playing thereat.)
  • A beer from a small local brewer with a prominent ‘craft beer’ label on the pumpclip appearing between Sharp’s Doom Bar and Spingo Middle in one of our local pubs.
  • People we have dealings with in the real world beginning to talk about beer the same way they do about music, films or food: as something in which any person of discernment ought to take an interest. It’s odd to see someone you know only through work tweeting about their plans to go to Camden Brewery on Friday night for ‘some quality craft beers’.

Perhaps it is still a bubble and, yes, perhaps it remains predominantly urban, but if this outbreak continues, it might well pop at some point.

Pic by Thales from Flickr Creative Commons.

The Birth of CAMRA in the Independent

We see today yet more coverage of beer in the Independent.

Will Hawkes has been writing excellent beer-related columns for some time now and we should all support his efforts in writing about beer as if it is a mainstream, normal thing that ordinary people are interested in, rather than some bizarre niche interest.

This article is particularly interesting because Will has managed to elicit comments from the founders of CAMRA on current debates around ‘craft keg’. As we read it, they dismiss the idea that CAMRA ought to campaign for it out-of-hand, while apparently confusing it with Fosters but, ultimately, they do conceed that there might be such a thing as good keg beer.

Their comments on the sandals and beard image of CAMRA members echoes Tandleman’s post on the same subject and subsequent comments . They suggest that a very small number of distinctive individuals are stealing the limelight and defining the whole organisation, which chimes with our thinking.

Boak and Bailey's Flu Blog

tamiflu

We’ve been out of action with flu this week. When you’re on Tamiflu, you’re advised to avoid booze. That’s surprisingly easy because one of the symptoms of the flu is loss of appetite which, in our experience, extends to alcohol.

In fact, the thought of drinking still makes us feel a bit queasy.

Let’s hope that lingering side effect passes soon or this blog could end up being a bit pointless.

Adnams get experimental

adnams

It’s easy to think of Adnams as a rather stolid, big, unexciting regional brewery. They have some lovely branding and design and have been very innovative in ‘green brewing’ but, nonetheless, the beers of their’s you see most commonly in London are quite conservative in their flavour.

They’ve obviously decided to go beyond Bitter/Broadside/blonde beer, though, and (with thanks to Steve the Beer Justice for the tip off) are now brewing a wide range of monthly specials in continental styles, starting with a Koelsch-style beer.

Next month, they’re rolling out a Belgian abbey-type ale, and there are German and Belgian-style wheat beers in the pipeline. They’re also going to take on Guinness next spring with a dry stout.

Innovation doesn’t just need to mean ‘turning up the volume’ or putting coconut in your beer — more subtle experiments with hops and yeast can be just as mind-expanding — so we’re looking forward to trying these.

We emailed Adnams to ask where these beers will be on sale in London, and Danielle sent us this list:

The Carpenters Arms
73 Cheshire Street, E2    6EG

The Brewery Tap
69 High Street
Wimbledon Village, SW19  5EE

The Queens Arms
11 Warwick Way
Pimlico, SW1V  1QT

The Wenlock Arms
26 Wenlock Road, N1    7TA

The Old Dairy
1-3 Crouch Hill, N4    4AP

The Pineapple Public House
51 Leverton Street
Kentish Town, NW5   2NX

The Wimbledon Club
Church Road, SW19  5AG

CAMRA's Locale scheme in practice

signposts

Locale is the Campaign for Real Ale”s accreditation scheme for pubs which sell local beer. We think it’s a great idea.

It’s really made a difference in our local, the Nags Head, Walthamstow. A few weeks ago, two of the ale pumps on the bar (those for Mighty Oak Oscar Wilde Mild, from Essex, and Fuller’s London Pride) sprouted eye-catching Locale tags. People seemed to like the idea of drinking local beer  and so sales of those beers apparently increased.

As a result, one of the other pumps has now been given over to an even more local beer: Brodie’s Red, brewed a 10 minute walk away, in the back room of another local pub.

It tasted great — better than in the William IV, I’m afraid to say — and we think signals the start of a beautiful friendship between Walthamstow’s best pub and its only brewery.

Jurassic Park

Raul Cano has successfully cultivated yeast from the contents of the belly of an insect trapped in amber 45 million years ago. That’s mindblowing enough.

When you hear that he’s entered into business with a brewer to produce Fossil Fuel Ale using this ancient, super-sturdy yeast, it just gets cooler.

Apparently, it acts like ale yeast at first, fermenting furiously at the top, before sinking to the bottom to carry on working.

Read the whole story at Wired.

And Alan spotted this last year, of course, well before Wired got onto the story…

Naughty adverts

Tandleman and Pete Brown have both written about the fact that the Advertising Standards Authority have upheld complaints against this advert for Courage bitter:

bom04267-havecourage-48-5191

But I can’t help but be reminded of the kerfuffle around this advert, from the same parent company, three years ago:

youngspool1

Given how clear the rules are about linking alcohol with increased attractiveness or confidence, these can’t be mistakes. I’ve seen the Courage ad more in the news today than I have in paid for advertising slots anywhere in the last few weeks. Contrived controversy = free publicity.

Sales of (mostly terrible) beer down

According to advertising trade mag Marketing Week, sales of the top beer brands are down 5 per cent up to April 2008.

The biggest drops are in sales of Kronenbourg 1664, Stella Artois, Carlsberg Export and Grolsch. Sales of John Smith’s Extra Smooth and Carlsberg (ordinary) are up.

Their say that the current ‘drink-aware climate’ and England’s absence from the European Championship are the main reasons.

The first certainly sounds plausible to us. People we know seem to be much happier ordering a shandy or a ‘weak beer’ than they were a couple of years ago.

And, of course, there’s been a huge defection to cider from beer, as witnessed by booming sales of Strongbow.

More pink beer for the ladies?

Kasteel Cru beer in its little pretend champagne bottle

Kasteel Cru beer in its little pretend champagne bottle

Marketing magazine brings news this week of a new pink version of Kasteel Cru, aimed at women. They’re calling it a ‘rose’. Where does the idea that women will only drink pink beer come from…? Gulpener seem to have the same idea, too.

Kasteel Cru is a quite pleasant if unexciting lager made with champagne yeast, so already aimed squarely at people who don’t like big pints of ale.

Still, better than putting brown food colouring in wine to make blokes drink it, eh?