Categories
Generalisations about beer culture opinion

Ten signs of a craft brewery

Stained glass pub window reading "Stout"

We were pondering the hard-to-define, much-loathed term “craft beer” again this morning and decided that, rather than a firm definition, it makes much more sense to think about indicators or signs.

The following list, off the top of our head, is not exhaustive and, clearly, we’re not suggesting that any brewery needs to be able to tick all ten to be considered to be making craft beer. Equally, some of these apply to breweries that, instinctively, we wouldn’t consider craft brewers.

So, this is just more food for thought, really.

1. They use malts like Maris Otter or even Plumage Archer because they want a particular flavour in their beer, rather than higher-yielding, cheaper varieties. This fact is mentioned on the packaging or on the website.

2. They might well produce single-hop beers or beers which prominently feature specific hops. Their choice of hops is driven by something other than the market. It is possible/easy to find out which varieties are used.

3. It is easy to find out where the beer is made — ideally because it is mentioned on the packaging. It does not pretend to be from somewhere else. (I.e. Belgium, Denmark, Newcastle.)

4. The brewers have their names and/or faces on the website or packaging. There are identifiable individuals making the beer. They might even be contactable on Twitter or through their own blogs.

5. They lager or age beer for extended periods even though it’s expensive to do so.

6. Their beers have vintages and change from year to year: they are not entirely focused on consistency.

7. There are signs of innovation led by the brewers rather than marketers or management.

8. The brewers are the management.

9. They make beer that makes you say “wow”, not “meh”. (A beer can be 3.8% abv, brown and hopped with Goldings and still make you go “wow”, by the way.)

10. They make a dark beer: they haven’t ceded this ground to Guinness.

Any others?

Categories
beer and food Snacks to beer

Snacks to beer: Doner Kebab

Doner kebab sign, London
From Flickr Creative Commons, taken by Renaissancechambara.

We usually leave recipes to the experts but make the occasional exception when it comes to foods which are an inextricable part of our beer culture.

In Britain, after several beers, when everything else is closed, you can always rely on the kebab shop and everyone’s favourite guilty pleasure: lamb doner kebab. No-one would dream of eating one while sober. The great round of meat is often referred to as an “elephant leg” because it is so heavily processed that it’s hard to be sure exactly what it is composed of. Meat, fat and salt are the three main ingredients but beyond that… Asbestos? Industrial grease? Who knows.

Nonetheless, they are delicious, and we decided to make one at home so that we could feel a bit less grotty eating it.

We were inspired partly by Kenny McGovern’s The Take Away Secret although we ended up adapting his recipe substantially for our own. The main tip we picked up from McGovern is the importance of garlic powder. It’s the magic ingredient in most fast food.

Categories
real ale

Is old keg the same as new keg?

Watneys Red Barrel: detail of beer mat c.1968

In the ongoing discussions about whether CAMRA should or should not do more to support quality kegged and bottled British beer, one of the key sticking points is this: what makes the kegged beer of today any better than the bland kegged beer of the 1960s and 70s which provoke the campaign’s founding?

Or, to put that another way, is ‘new keg’ just the same shite as ‘old keg’?

Having read Martyn Cornell’s marvellous Beer: the Story of the Pint recently, we were prompted to contrast the motives of the makers of ‘old keg’ — big conglomerated breweries like Watneys — with those of the new breed of keg brewers.

Old keg: post-World War II, cask ale got weaker and became more temperamental until, to paraphrase Beer, a change of landlord or barmaid could be enough to push punters towards less exciting but more reliable bottled beer. Sales were dropping alarmingly. Kegged beer was the breweries’ response to that — a way of ensuring consistently adequate quality (less vinegar) but at the cost of excellence. The cask versions of their beer at the time were hardly earth-shatteringly brilliant either.

New keg: some smaller brewers, with a focus on flavour and quality, whether you agree with them or not, believe their beer tastes as good if not better without cask or bottle conditioning. (“Too fizzy” and “too cold” are subjective complaints). Others might prefer to cask-condition but, to expand their business, as an expression of beervangelism, or a bit of both, want to get their beer into as many venues as possible, and believe kegging will help them achieve that. Many of these beers are stronger, more intensely flavoured and much more varied than the cask conditioned beers commonly seen in the average pub.

What do you think? Are they the same thing?

Categories
Uncategorized

Session #57: Forgive us, Blogoshire…

A Bavarian feller with a wheat beer.

Session #57: beery confessions is hosted by the affable Steve at Beersiveknown. Here are ours.

Bailey

1. I didn’t drink until after I’d graduated from university; I used to drink Foster’s and was very pleased with myself when I graduated to Greene King IPA.

2. When Boak is away on business, I sometimes treat myself to a six pack of Becks which I drink straight from the bottles in front of CSI. (That in itself is a non-beery guilty pleasure.)

3. I like sweetened krieks — the ones that are usually described as “dumbed down”. I guess I’m dumb, but I don’t care.

Boak

1. Our corporate line is that Orval is great stuff but — honestly — I don’t really know what the I’m supposed to be enjoying so much. There are hundreds of beers I prefer.

2. When I’m away on business, I like to buy a six pack of Becks and drink it straight from the bottle in my hotel room. (Nah, only kidding:  it tastes like spit.)

3. Seriously, when I’m away on business, I often get cravings for Wetherspoon’s bargain comfort food and sneak in for a dirty burger or fish and chips.

4. When I was a teenager, I thought Red Stripe was the classy, connoisseur’s choice, once I’d graduated from snakebite and black in the Red Lion, E11.

 

Have you worked out the relevance of the picture yet? No, nor have we.

Categories
Generalisations about beer culture

The secret language of customer reviews

The subject of review websites like TripAdvisor, Beerintheevening, RateBeer, etc., is a very emotive one. They can make business people who are struggling to make ends meet, and sincerely believe in their products or services, feel under attack and powerless.

But we honestly don’t think they shouldn’t worry so much and that they should credit us, the consumers, with some intelligence in the way we use customer reviews.

We’re good at spotting rogue reviews — those totally at odds with those around them, either very negative or wildly (even implausibly) positive. We want to know what the majority of people using the service thought of it. We know there are cranks out there and can usually spot reviews written by the owner of the pub next door. (“Not as nice as the nearby Dog and Duck, which has a two-for-one carvery offer this weekend, by the way.”)

When a bad review gets a sensible, sincere public response, we consider it cancelled out.

We never look at a score and make a decision based solely on that. The content of reviews is the most important part: “This pub is terrible. It has no Foster’s, only loads of weird Belgian beer. 3/10.”

Having said all of that, if you run a business (a pub, a brewery, whatever) and you consistently get lower scores and worse reviews from ordinary punters than you feel you deserve, then maybe it’s time to stop blaming the system and take a long hard look at what you are doing.

Just because some customers are arseholes it doesn’t mean they’re not right.