Categories
marketing

Stella up to their usual tricks

A slick CGI image from the weasely new Stella ad
A slick CGI image from the weasely new Stella ad

The geniuses behind Stella Artois really are trying to convince us of the historical worth of their brew. A new advertising campaign on the telly makes lots of intriguing references to “1366”, obviously designed to suggest that this is when the beer originated.

A bit of digging around their website makes it clear that a brewery existed in Leuven in 1366… Apparently, thanks to the “courage” of some medieval monks, Stella Artois exists today. Er… If you dig around on their website, it’s quite clear that whatever happened in Leuven in 1366 has sweet Fanny Adams to do with Stella Artois.

The funny thing is that they keep making reference to the “four ingredients”. But which four? Is this the barley, hops, maize and water proudly boasted of in their billboards? If you go into their site, they have five (not four) mini-films to illustrate different “challenges” of brewing. Hops, water and barley get a mention, as does yeast (unlike in the billboards). The fifth challenge of brewing has nothing to do with making the beer, but is to do with exporting it.

Oddly, maize isn’t mentioned in these adverts. But it would be a bit tricky to square with this historical heritage angle, given it originated in Mesoamerica and therefore would have been unknown to the good burghers of Brabant in 1366.

I’m sorry, but this kind of mock historical bollocks really, really gets on my tits. Fortunately, the campaign is way too inconsistent to fool anyone.

NB – we’ve not linked to any of the Stella pages so as not to increase their presence on the interweb. You can find it for yourself if you have nothing better to do. But you really ought to have something better to do.

UPDATE 17/08/08: image added.

Categories
Generalisations about beer culture

Uniformed bar staff

Why do pubs make their staff wear uniforms? If anything signals corporate, chain-like soullesness, it’s three young people dressed in faded polo shirts glowering from behind a faux-wood bar-style beverage service area.

If I want that, I’ll go to McDonalds.

My favourite pubs have slightly too many people behind the bar, dressed in their own clothes, looking relaxed and happy.

It’s time to say no to battery farmed bar staff and go free range.

Bailey

Categories
beer reviews

Hogs Back brewery — some of it our cup of T.E.A

Various Hogsback Brewery beers
Various Hogsback Brewery beers

Lots of people seem to rate T.E.A. (Traditional English Ale) by the Hogs Back* brewery. We’ve had it on a number of occasions (on cask and in bottle) and never really liked it. There’s just something a bit acrid about it. So we’ve never made much of a point about seeking their stuff out.

However, the other night we were in Stonch‘s pub, and he got out some of their OTT, a 6% old ale. As he says in his post, it had a “surprisingly sour, funky character”, tasting almost like an Oud Bruin. It worked extremely well and was very tasty, but we did wonder whether it was supposed to taste like that.

We’ve just drunk a bottle we’ve had stashed away for a while, and it’s a very different beer. There are elements of a dark Belgian beer like Ciney Brune in the nose and mouth. I suppose there’s a hint of sourness right at the end, but you would not call this a sour beer. It’s much more fruity. It’s very pleasant. I don’t know which I prefer — this version, or the potentially “off” bottle we had the other night!

Anyway, this made us keen to try the rest of the Hogs Back stash we’d accumulated over the years. Burma Star Ale is 4.2%, and a percentage of the revenue goes to the Burma Star Association. It’s a well-rounded, red ale, with spicy, fruity aroma. An almost creamy maltiness gives way to a nutty, dry finish. Nice.

Then came Wobble in a Bottle, which packs a powerful punch at 7.5%. It didn’t look all that great — the head vanished almost instantly — but this tasted like a good Belgian abbey brew. Similar sugary-fruity-chewiness. I really enjoyed this one.

Finally, we had to try T.E.A. again. I would love to say that the conversion process was complete, but it still didn’t work for us. But it made wonderful beer-rye bread.

Boak

*And there’s another lack of apostrophe to wind the Beer Nut up.

Categories
Generalisations about beer culture

Representing the community

A barman playing Guitar Hero in a pub in London
A barman playing Guitar Hero in a pub in London

It’s not just about where you feel comfortable yourself — it’s sometimes about where you feel comfortable taking your friends.

A Jewish friend of mine recently said he hated going to his favourite kosher restaurants with non-Jewish friends because he felt accountable for the terrible time they would inevitably have: “If it wasn’t for me and my dietary requirements, they could be in a nice restaurant eating food they’d actually enjoy!”

The funny thing is, I feel very much the same about pubs that cater for the beer geek.

I go to those kind of pubs frequently with Boak, and with those of my mates who are bothered about beer, but the couple of times I’ve gone with people who aren’t that fussed — normal people — they’ve really hated them.

A pub which, on previous occasions, has felt as relaxing and cosy as my own front room suddenly becomes cold and rather lonely. I find myself trying to make people like the pub; making apologies for it; defending it.

It’s just like when I made my brother watch Peep Show and he didn’t laugh once.

The pub should be fun. Being (perhaps justifiably) berated for making people go out of their way to get to a “weird, silent pub full of weirdos”, just isn’t.

Bailey

Maieb touched upon a similar issue a few months ago.

Categories
Beer history

My great grandma and the temperance movement

Boak (the baby...) and her great granny, a few years back.
Boak (the baby) with grandma and great-grandma

My great-grandma was born in Stepney in 1901. Sadly, I didn’t really get to know her before she died, so this anecdote comes via my mum.

Like other children of that time and place*, my great-grandma was often dispatched to the pub to get some beer for family members, in this case her grandma. However, when she was around 10 or 12 (before the First World War, at least) she took ‘The Pledge’ and joined the temperance movement. Thereafter, she refused to get any beer ever again.

I don’t know why this story tickles me — possibly the fact that something so “Dickensian” as kids fetching alcohol was actually in living memory until recently, or possibly it’s the idea of pre-teens swearing to abstain from alcohol. Or maybe it’s just the evidence of a contrary stubborn streak that persists down the female line to this day…

I’d raise a glass to her, but she’d probably turn in her grave.

Boak

*OK, I don’t have evidence that this was common practice, but Zythophile mentions a similar family story here, and here Ron has collected extracts from Charles Booth’s interviews in the 1890s with London publicans and brewers — which is an absolutely fascinating read — which mentions this on a number of occasions.