Category Archives: Politics

Let There Be Beer?

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Frank Press Release

I have a disclaimer to post: a shadowy organisation gave me £500 to be at the European Beer Bloggers Conference. I am their shill! But, who are they? What are they up to? Do I now preach to the church of craft Bud Light?

They are “@LetThereBeBeer” to the public – so far just a Twitter account (that says “Must be 18+ to follow. Please only share with those of legal drinking age“), and a Facebook page I can’t see because I have no Facebook account. (US marketing/alcohol laws supposedly.) Under the hood they’re Frank. A PR firm – hired by the biggest brands in the beer world, they’re mercenary marketeers cashed up by the multi-nationals to sell an IDEA. And that idea is beer. How the idea will be formed exactly, how it will come across, it still to be found out. Who they are is summed up in the press release sitting in front of me:

“Who is behind Let There Be Beer? The whole of the global brewing industry, but to get a bit more specific Let There Be Beer has been borne from some of the world’s biggest brewers, UK brewers and pub businesses, retailer and organisations such as the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) and Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).“

– Britain Invited To “Let There Be Beer” – Press Release
(Full PR only seems to be online at heineken.co.uk.)

The claimed mission is “instilling a passion for beer in the nation’s hearts” to remind them “why beer is the nations best-loved drink” because for many “beer simply means pints of warm, flat lager“. The BBPA is involved (mixed feelings about them), apparently CAMRA “support” them (haven’t yet seen what that entails) as do SIBA. They’re bankrolled by (at least) AB InBev, Heineken, Molson Coors, Miller Coors – all of whom have CEOs “available for comment.” The press release is effusive in the support of beer, exclaims its importance, and throws some stats at us – I’m not qualified to dissect it, I suggest you read the press release for yourself (the paper copy I have has a little more detail, and less errors – but I’m not about to transcribe it – turns out AbInBev have a much better version of the PR online). I’ll keep an eye out for opinions from some of the UK’s proper beer folk, which I don’t really expect to see much of until the curtains are opened on the campaign for real. Dave of Hardknott brewery is the only proper beer type to have said anything about it as far as I have seen.[1] He is uncertain about the thing since the message isn’t yet clear – and leaning to cynical (unsurprisingly), his post is cheekily tagged “Silly PR campaigns”. As per a comment from Tandleman a lot of this seems to be very last minute, much like the crazy day-before-the-event EBBC scholarship competition I managed to win.

Why are they even involved in a conference for beer bloggers? I’m no marketer – but my guess is they need to find ideas, they need to mine the people who love beer for the edges they can explore to build the beer market. It is early days yet. The young woman from Frank who I met at EBBC seemed very earnest about the project and was pleasant to speak to and seemed receptive about thoughts on beer and its place alongside food. (Terribly, her name slips my mind, as usual.) Still at the beer discovery phase herself, learning: yes, this beer stuff isn’t actually too bad, is it? (So I gathered.) Beer can be outstanding – so long as you know what to look for – and what to do with it when you’ve found it. I suppose that’ll be the hurdle they need to leap: how to get these ideas across to the public? “There is more to beer, and it deserves a place in your life.”

What should we all think of this? Us “beer bloggers“… are we a rich seam, a natural resource ripe for exploiting? A mine of information? In a way, I hope so. If, with big marketing money, they can have some success at opening up new views on beer that would hopefully work for us all. Grow the beer market out into new areas, most will probably go dull-macro, but they’re new beer drinkers – there’s now more of a hope they can “upgrade” to better, more local, and more my kind of beer. Could this not be a good thing for ALL beer lovers, and the industry as a whole from the big boys down to the start-ups?

I really don’t know enough to make that call. I’m not a natural optimist, I’m a cynical bastard at the best of times. I don’t trust corporates – anyone with “shareholders” is automatically suspect. This campaign, however it pans out, will be all about building the market for the multinationals – who’re seeing a decline in beer sales while the “craft” side of the industry is growing. We can just hope it works in our favour as well – that good beer is a focus and becomes a bigger slice of the pie that we all can enjoy. Drinkers like myself as well as the many good breweries, brewers, and other beer trade people out there. Just don’t be fooled into thinking the CEOs and investors of the given companies actually give a stuff, at the end of the day this is all about just one thing: dollars in their pockets.

No Colin, Garret Oliver is not for eating!As for the conference itself, my thoughts on that belong in a separate post which I shall try to find the time to create. I wasn’t originally going to the conference as I don’t consider myself a “beer blogger”, I’m just a chap who happens to blog about beer. That makes sense in my head at least. I’ll try to get around to explaining what I mean. I did have a great time, and it was a good event, and UTTERLY amazing value for £95 – I hope it is a worthwhile exercise for the good breweries & folk who put their time and money into it. I have Let There Be Beer to thank for being able to go… and I do & did thank them. But I won’t fawn, promote, or even be optimistic – I’ve never been comfortable about this sort of campaign in any industry. The tech scene is full of it, and this is why you’ll find most of us tech folk will be cynical and won’t trust you. (I used to be in InfoSec, can you tell?)

In the meantime, certainly “let there be beer” – really good beer, and plenty of it. Cheers!

Beers!

[1] Dave’s post somehow passed me by – I’ve been busy – I found it just now as one of just two hits for the quoted intro from the press release’s final “about” section: “Who is behind Let There Be Beer”. I see there is a video. I haven’t seen it, I don’t have the right plugin installed.

 

KeyKeg, KeyCask, and what is “Real Ale” anyway?

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CLICK HERE FOR AN UPDATE – 2013-02-28

Key Cask © KeyKegWhat is “KeyCask“? Last year I had it from the manufacturer that “KegKeg”[1] and “KeyCask” are the same thing, the assumption on my part being that the latter is merely a re-branding to make it less contentious amongst cask ale drinkers. To quote KeyKeg’s tweeted response to me:

“KeyKeg = KeyCask. KeyKeg is perfectly suited for Real Ale. CAMRA acknowledged this. KeyKegs for Ale will be branded as KeyCasks.” (20th Aug 2012)

On the other hand a CAMRA internal post on the matter states:

“In KeyCask the bladder is made from a semi-permeable material to allow reaction of the beer with oxygen.” (23rd May 2012 — CAMRA login required I’m afraid.)

In essence there is some confusion on the subject — and several Twitter conversations I have had over the last few months imply I’m not the only one who is uncertain. The only relevant information I can find on the KeyKeg website states “Special laminated inner bag for Ale” — does “special” mean “oxygen permeable”? Meanwhile the KeyKeg online shop lists just KeyKeg as an option for purchase, but perhaps the elusive KeyCask is only available wholesale?

I have no clear confirmation one way or the other on this one. I have sent the KeyKeg folk an email asking if they can provide any further information on the subject.

Update 2013-02-28

Now here we have it, lifted straight from a Lightweight Containers newsletter:

The KeyCask has now become a full-fledged member of the KeyKeg family. Several English and German ale brewers have opted to fill their ales in KeyCasks. With the exception of the name and the instructions on the packaging, the KeyCask is still identical to the KeyKeg – for now.

However, the Lightweight Containers R&D department is continually testing new types of inner bags for the KeyCask. If a different type of inner bag may turn out to perform even better for particular ales, it will be installed instead. For the time being, ale brewers are completely satisfied with KeyCasks. They keep the ales fresher for much longer, which suddenly means that ales can be exported.

Read on for the original KeyKeg/KeyCask oxygen WTF-confusion… but really there is no need, as it was just that: confusion. KeyKeg = KeyCask (“for now”) and for the life of me I can’t imagine why this shouldn’t be the case. If, for example, beer racked off “bright” to a poly can be served at a festival as “real ale” (it can) then KeyKeg is certainly no different. Better yet you do have the option of conditioning in KeyKeg, I spoke to Batemans brewery folk at Craft Beer Rising last weekend and they said they had been experimenting with this with definite success. I don’t think KeyKeg is always the ideal solution — but it seems like a good option for pubs with lower turnover or pubs that’d like to put something a bit stronger on that may not sell fast enough to make a 9g cask a good idea. There’s also factors of reduced transport weight and no need for container return. Anyway, more on that another time… perhaps.

However the debate doesn’t stop there — exactly why must the bladder be “semi-permeable” in the first place, why does this matter?

The CAMRA internal post on the subject has a short comment thread attached that asks some pertinent questions:

“Could do with a bit more detail here. For example: the difference between a keykeg and a keycask how to prevent one being passed off as the other what are the venting difficulties? Is there a technical report I can see?” — Peter Alexander (23rd May 2012)

From the perspective of a CAMRA volunteer running beer festivals this is a somewhat important question. Regardless of my personal views on cask/keg I want to work within the rules when running a CAMRA festival. If there is a real difference and CAMRA really only approves of one of them then us festival buyers/organisers need to know how to tell which is which. However Hardknott brewer David Bailey then asks:

“Not sure why semi-permeable bags are needed. Why do we want beer to come into contact with oxygen? Oxygen makes beer go off, not improve it. What is the problem with beer that is conditioned in the container from which it is dispensed and dispensed without any contact with extranious gas?” — David Bailey (24rd May 2012)

This was my initial reaction on hearing about the whole semi-permeable/oxygen issue. I don’t remember seeing a CAMRA definition for “real ale” that says it needs to come into contact with oxygen. The primary online CAMRA definition of “real ale” makes no mention of oxygen — then again it is pretty useless in any technical sense. All we can really garner from this definition is that secondary fermentation in cask/bottle/final-container-of-your-choice is the important part — making it “living” beer.[2]

With tank-conditioned beer going into cask near-bright for speedy pub sale being not uncommon I wonder if any of these definitions hold up in practice. Can you tell if a cask breather is being used, or if the cask ale you’re drinking was tank-conditioned and racked off near bright? What if it was tank-conditioned with injected CO² — does cylinder CO² taste different to that farted out by yeast? No. Pubs are excluded from the Good Beer Guide if they’re known to use cask breathers — even though others who do use them are often in there. (How many CAMRA branches ask their GBG pubs to confirm they never use breathers — how do they ever know for certain?) If pubs start using KeyCask then things get murkier still because even fewer branches are going to understand these newfangled devices or whether they’re being used correctly within the definition of “real ale”.

What we need if we’re to pursue “real ale” realistically are guidelines that normal people can read and understand. Ignore the container, ignore everything up until the point that you have a drinking receptacle full of beer in your hand, and from there beer in your mouth. People who like traditional beer can then rate it on their perception of carbonation level, temperature, flavour and overall quality — which is JUST AS IT IS CURRENTLY DONE in practice. But then the waters get muddied by all these borderline technicalities that have little to do with the quality of the beer.

The “definition” of “real ale” we have is inadequate, and unmeasurable in any case. It is little better than “craft beer”. What is “real ale”: “I knows it when I sees it!” — no, you just think you do.

[1] For the unaware, what KeyKeg/Cask is is essentially a “bag inside a ball“, the foiled bag contains the beer and the polycarbonate ball holds everything together under pressure. This all comes in a neat cardboard enclosure to hold it upright. You need a KeyKeg coupler to connect this up to a dispense system — as with any other keg. Typically you get beer out of the keg by introducing gas (CO² or pressurised air) between the ball and the bag, thus squeezing the beer out of the bag. Alternatively you could suck beer out of the bag with a straw if you’re desperate — or a proper hand-pump will do the trick too. Leave the air inlet on the coupler open, and the beer engine will happily pump beer out of the bag. I’ve successfully hooked beer engines up to KeyKegs at a beer festival, it works pretty well.

[2] The published “What is Real Ale” page leaves a lot to be desired. Not only is its definition of “real ale” of little technical value it makes other brash inaccurate statements, which you could call “lies” I guess: “Brewery-conditioned, or keg, beer has a longer shelf life as it is not a living product.” That’s a mean & misleading thing to be telling the general drinking public. Firstly I know of “brewery conditioned” beer that goes into cask as a “living product” so this term is not a synonym for “keg”. Secondly I know of “keg” beer that is unfiltered and unpasteurised and tastes incredibly good. Beer does not exist in a black and white world of “cask” and “keg”, as much as CAMRA policy continues to espouse the idea that it does. And “Why isn’t all beer real?” — seriously? *goesforapintofunrealbeer*. Sometimes I’m vaguely ashamed to be a CAMRA member, let alone an active one.

The Murky World of Rating Beer

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I don’t rate beer any more. I’ve always struggled with the concept, and I’ve given up. Too much is dependent on context – place, time, temperature, company. The drinking of a beer is far too complex an experience to pint down with a number on a single-axis scale. From now on I don’t give beers ratings in Untappd, and any I have rated before I re-rate to ★★★★★ if I have them again.

Rating beer can be a rather personal thing for both the rater and the ratee. I’d suggest that breweries try not to pay too much attention to individual beer ratings, that way far too much angst lies!

I live with two different rating systems. First there is CAMRA NBSS. This is used by most of us CAMRA geeks/branches to pick pubs for the Good Beer Guide. Importantly it is a rating of the condition of the beer, not the beer itself. We’re rating the pub’s ability to keep and serve the stuff, not the brewery. (Sometimes the brewery is responsible for beer being in bad nick, but in this case the pub shouldn’t serve it!) Personally I find it difficult to judge a 4 from a 5 in NBSS terms… the level of technical “perfection” is pretty high already at this stage and 3 is already pretty good as it is. I expect that I and others often let personal beer preferences & general mood and atmosphere determine the difference sometimes.

NBSS is the first “beer rating” scale I ever really used. Nowdays I use Untappd far more often though. My NBSS scale of rating has bled through to this, but judging on a scale of “preference” (subjective) rather than “condition” (objective). I’ve copped a little flack a couple of times from brewers I know who think I’m saying their excellent beer is a bit “average”. I use Untappd mainly as a personal record of beer with the primary purpose of ratings being to record whether or not I think a beer is worth trying or buying again. Importantly, in the way I use it, anything from 3 starts to 5 starts is “good to perfect”.

This is my attempt to explain how I use Untappd ratings:

  • (0) — (Not sure this exists as a counted rating) Not rating this beer, either I’ve had too many or I can’t be assed. Also in the case where I think the beer condition is flawed at point of sale or I think the bottle/cask is broken/infected in some way.
  • ★ — “Yuck!” — Pretty awful. Covers drainpour through to just barely drinkable. Leaves a lasting negative impression, will probably never touch the stuff again. I try to avoid giving this if I think there is a technical flaw along the lines of infection or keeping.
  • ★★ — “OK” — Good beer, about average. I’ll be quite happy to finish my pint. I’d not order another one immediately if there was something I know to be better available or something I hadn’t tried before, but I’d have another without complaint. If a bottled beer then I’d probably not buy it again. Whether or not I should buy a beer again in the future is one of the reasons I bother with ratings.
  • ★★★ — “Nice” — Very good beer. I’ll probably have another immediately. I’ll definitely buy again. Most beer I buy is “very good” in my experience, but I tend to be an “informed purchaser”. Normal British cask ales are unlikely to score higher than this, even if I think they’re perfect for style. If I give imperials/etc a 3 then I probably do think they’re a bit average. It all depends on the beer.
  • ★★★★ — “Wow” — there is something special about this beer. It pushes past normal boundaries of flavour. It tickles my tastebuds in exciting ways. I may have to buy a case.
  • ★★★★★ — “Oh, fucking hell, this is fucking amazing!” — As good as the beer experience gets for me. Extremely unlikely to be given to anything that doesn’t have “imperial” in its name. That’s just the way I roll.

So, there you have it. Don’t be offended if I think your beer is a ★★★ this probably means I think it is perfect.

Amusingly it appears to me that just about every beer in the world scores between 3.5 and 4 starts on Untappd.

As a resource for researching beer I find Rate Beer much more useful and worth paying attention to than any other similar resource online. Its aggregate scoring is one of the best beer-picking resources on the web IMO. They seem to use decent analysis & statistical methods to turn “ratings” into good rankings by style. But I don’t have the time for the level of detail Rate Beer entails to be a direct user of the system.

Stop The Beer Duty Escalator – Hobgoblin Petition & EDM 2785

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I’ve got myself caught up in the seemingly futile battle against the UK Government’s continuing attack on humble beer. The attack seems to be based on the premise that making beer more expensive (i.e. adding more tax to it) will help cover the cost of the ills it does to society. In my mind there are many things wrong with this argument, they have been well addressed by Pete Brown (and here) and CAMRA has some input too, so I won’t repeat here. Today is budget day I’m pretty certain nobody interested in this issue was waiting with baited breath for Osborne to get to the the the matter of beer duty, as expected beer duty will escalate yet again. This is no reason to stop trying – there is always the next budget.

I’ve signed the “Stop The Beer Duty Escalator” petition and emailed my MP asking him to support EDM 2785. Maybe you should too? I’ve even bought some of the Hobgoblin posters promoting the campaign, which I’m distributing to some of my local pubs.

I personalised my email to my MP, Peter Lilley, this is what I wrote:

Dear Mr Lilley,

I’m a local CAMRA member, beer drinker, and regular at a few of my local pubs in Hitchin. Some of the pubs in my area are having trouble, some have shut down, they’re squeezed from so many directions that life is becoming more difficult for landlords by the day.

I do not – nor have the time to – understand all the details about the beer duty escalator or the EDM in question, but I trust CAMRA and the wider beer industry’s advice that supporting EDM 2785 is a good thing for our pubs.

As an Australian living in the UK (I’ve been resident here for about 6 years) I feel compelled to support the British “local”. It is something unique and worth taking care of – a community hub, a place to meet people (it is in local pubs that my OH and I have met most of our non-work community of friends), even a place for business & professional networking. Good pub goers can do their best to help their locals by using them – “use it or loose it” has become a common mantra, but people can only sensibly drink so much and really are being driven out by the cost of a pint.

I’m a full time employee in a professional industry so the cost doesn’t bother me too much personally, but most of the locals keeping my favourite local pub alive are labourers, van drivers, etc, or retired – many of them are earning less now than they were 4 years ago. The price of a pint in my local has gone up 60p since we’ve been in town (less than 4 years) and some people really have stopped drinking in the pub as a result. This doesn’t mean they have stopped drinking, in fact I met one of them the other day drinking a can of lager in a nearby park. He wasn’t drunk, it was his first drink of the evening, he had picked it up for 60p from the supermarket to get one in before going to the pub because he could only afford a couple of pints at pub prices (£3.20+). EDM 2785 won’t reduce this price, but it might mean that folk like this will keep drinking a couple of pints with their friends at their local rather than resorting to supermarket beer (or worse) at home – or in the park for that matter. This helps keep the local alive so that both they and I can continue to enjoy the facility it provides.

All the best,
Yvan Seth

The story about the bloke in the park is not made up – this sort of thing is REALLY HAPPENING. The bloke in question, who I don’t know all that well, is a pretty sensible drinker from what I’ve seen. He has a few pints while playing his darts then heads home. Though I haven’t seen much of him lately, a loss for the pub in my opinion.

The day after I sent the message above I received this response

Thank you for contacting Peter Lilley. Mr Lilley understands your concerns on this mattter and has already taken up the issues raised on behalf of other consstituents of his and will be in touch as soon as he receives a reply. However, the Deputy Speaker has warned Members that Early Day Motions are in danger of losing all credibility as they are being signed indiscriminately. Mr Lilley, therefore, makes it his practice to sign only those which relate specifically to his constituency or with which he has been personally involved.

Regards

Fiona Parker
Constituency Secretary to the Rt Hon Peter Lilley MP

This is pretty much exactly the same as what I saw published as a response from Peter Lilley [pdf – page 2] in our local CAMRA newsletter around budget time last year. (Except in my case they appear to have not bothered with the spell checker.) I only found the Pints of View reference because I did a search about the issue of EDMs loosing their credibility, our local newsletter was the top link. I’m wondering how credible the issue of them loosing their credibility is? Are they actually credible anyway? I don’t know… I’m new to UK politics.

I worry that Peter probably doesn’t really care much about pushing anything but his own personal agenda. He holds an extremely safe seat and from what I’ve seen barely bothers to campaign at election time – I’m not sure how these things work, but it looks like the seat was specifically created for him. Anyway, Peter Lilley’s recent EDM activity is mostly concerned with euthanasia and immigration/border control – though I’m glad to see signed the Fish Fight EDM (probably just for the PR I suppose). None of this is  specifically related to his constituency, so making that statement in the boilerplate response seems pointless.

In turn, I’ve responded to the response with this:

Hi Fiona,

Thankyou for your reply.

I would put it forward that the plight of the British pub is of importance to all constituencies. All communities stand to loose out from the ongoing closure of public houses. Especially in the countryside and our smaller villages, where residents stand to loose their only social meeting places.

Kind Regards,
Yvan Seth

I’m interested to see if I get any further response that isn’t a boilerplate standard reply.

In the meantime, please sign the petition (it takes near to no time) and email your MP if they haven’t already signed the EDM and you’re feeling eager (also next to no time if you use the CAMRA standard email, but I do recommend adding a personal note of your own).

I’m left with one lingering concern though: if the Save-the-NHS folk failed, then what hope do we have?