Categories
Generalisations about beer culture Germany La Ronda

How do you maintain a good beer culture?

En Español

La Ronda (the Spanish speaking version of the Session) takes on a weighty philosophical topic, with Jorge Mario of Columbia asking:

How do you construct, consolidate and maintain a good beer culture?

I’m going to define a good beer culture as one where there are lots of different breweries, and where there is a good range of beers available. In other words, there should be choice for the consumer. Spain has a great bar culture, but I would be being kind if I said there was a great beer culture there.

The question of creating a beer culture from scratch is a fascinating one, but I don’t feel I know enough to comment. (Perhaps some US bloggers could help?). But here’s a few suggestions for what you need to maintain a good beer culture.

Pride is good, but palate is better

It’s good to be proud of your brewing heritage. But it’s important to be proud for the right reasons — does it taste good? The Germans are very proud of their beer, but this usually translates to being proud of drinking your local beer, just because it’s local. When the big corporations take over local Germany breweries, they almost always keep the names and the brand identity.

Whereas I get the impression in Belgium that people are proud of the fact that Belgium produces such a weird and wonderful range of beer, and this must surely help maintain the hundreds of breweries that you find in this tiny country.

Get organised — grass-roots campaigning

You can’t really talk about the British beer scene without mentioning CAMRA. We have our little moans from time to time, but there’s no denying that CAMRA saved cask ale. In doing this, they have promoted a culture of supporting small breweries and offering choice to the consumer.

The focus of CAMRA on real ale can make for a “four-legs-good, two-legs-bad” mentality at times — all real ale must be good, and all “unreal” ale is bad. Then again, a narrow, well-defined focus makes for an effective campaign.

Support your local decent pub

This one is obvious really, but the easiest to put into action – if you have a good pub that is committed to offering a range of beers, support it! The UK would not be able to support the hundreds of breweries it does without all those pubs creating the demand, so get down to your local and start boozing!

Boak

3 replies on “How do you maintain a good beer culture?”

CAMRA ? Narrow, well defined focus ? If only we could get back to core campaigning and offload all the other stuff. Cider ? Pah !, Pub Heritage ? Pah ! Real Ale in a bottle ? Pah ! Full Pint ? oh please ……….:-)

We’re not massive fans of the full pint campaign, I have to say. We’ve always said we’d happily lose 20p’s-worth of beer for a decent head on our pint. Being a bumpkin myself, I quite like the support for cider, although maybe it’s a ‘brand extension’ too far…?

Real ale in a bottle doesn’t seem to much of a stretch to me, although I guess even that is a compromise on the founding ideals of the organisation.

Did you see this story in the Guardian today, by the way?

Comments are closed.