Reflections on Weymouth Beer Festival

The annual Weymouth Beer Festival took place in Weymouth Pavilions, a much improved venue over recent years and an ideal place for such an event. Organised by West Dorset CAMRA, like many local CAMRA groups they do an excellent job, showcasing over 50 cask ales plus ciders for the locals of Weymouth to enjoy. In 2019 the theme was Cornish beers so I was invited to attend to serve St Austell Brewery beers.

First and foremost, the festival was a great success and very well attended, so much so they ran out of beer mid way through the final session! The range of beers were all Cornish and interesting that CAMRA chose to include the ubiquitous Doombar as part of their Cornish selection. A contensious call, I happen to agree with their choice. Not my favourite beer, none-the-less, it is very popular and above all a consistent, if unremarkable beer. It was in good condition and interesting that many punters remarked how different the beer tasted to what they normally experience in a pub.



CAMRA cask bar

Good as the beers were, I cannot let the festival pass without commenting on an old chestnut of mine - the subject of cooling for the casks. At Weymouth (and its common in other regional CAMRA run festivals as well), no cooling was applied to the casks. On the St Austell bar we used cask jackets with inline cooling and the beer was served at a refreshing cellar temperature throughout. The beer on the CAMRA bar was noticeably warmer and as the festival wore on the temperature increased.




St Austell bar cooling jackets

In my view beer festivals should celebrate a common passion and love for cask ale, showcasing the best, most interesting and relevant and at above all, in perfect condition. This means serving the beer at its optimum temperature i.e. circa 12 degrees c. In a market where younger consumers are searching out chilled and tasty craft keg beers, we need to showcase cask served at the correct temperature to compete with these new beers, making cask drinkable and appealing. It does not need to be over-chilled as I'm certainly not advocating the route Doombar have taken with its chilled cask variant, but at events where consumers might be trying cask for the first time, festival organisers must offer cask at its correct temperature.

So how do we address this - cooling equipment is expensive and CAMRA at a local level is an organisation run by volunteers, perhaps without the necessary funds, experience and knowhow to fit such kit.

My thoughts cover two possible areas for a solution, neither of which lay the blame at the local CAMRA branches for this situation.

Firstly CAMRA head office. Surely encouraging local CAMRA branches to run festivals and furbishing them with the correct equipment, knowhow and funding has to be a priority. Cask ale is under threat from the craft beer sector and so ensuring cask beers at CAMRA run events is served at  the optimum temperature seems really important. I am under no illusion that this is not an easy task, but if cask is to fight back against the tidal wave of craft beer then CAMRA should see their local beer festivals as the shop window to encourage trial of cask beer served at its very best. To me, this should be one of their core objectives.

Secondly, the established local cask ale brewers. The cask sector is in decline and many of the larger regional brewers are wedded to cask beer for their sales. Long term, if that scenario continues its going to be a problem for some. To my mind the established brewers could have a big part to play here as they do have the equipment and knowhow to really improve the local events in terms of the quality of the beer served. It would mean working closer with their local CAMRA groups and we know that's not a prefect marriage as local brewers and their respective CAMRA groups have not always seen eye to eye, but between them they have the funds, skills and passion to showcase cask ale at its very best. Not quite a dynamic duo, but pooling the skills and equipment of a local brewer with CAMRA's passion and army of volunteers could just work.

Finally, I would say again what a great job West Dorset CAMRA do in putting on the event. They received some adverse publicity for running out of beer, but were advised by CAMRA Head office on how much beer to order so lets give them some credit for putting on a great event. Therefore I am pleased to raise a glass to them for their Octoberfest. Well done or should I say Prost!

Weymouth Pavilions

Green shoots for GBBF

View from the St Austell Brewery bar on the Saturday

Having just returned from GBBF (Great British Beer Festival) I'm delighted to say their was an air of positivity about the 2019 event. Well done to CAMRA for managing to change direction for their equivalent of the Queen Mary, its now heading in a direction more fitting with the current UK beer market and their cabins are starting to fill up with more guests.

Its true there was a very marginal decline in numbers attending this year, but for the Trade Day on the Tuesday numbers were up and as the week progressed the numbers got better and better. Saturday, for so long the tail-end Charlie afterthought had a tremendous party atmosphere and was busy all day.

In past years GBBF has had an air of a beer festival run by senior folk for senior folk with a narrow appeal of beer being mainly cask. However this year was different. Still, there were many experienced CAMRA members who do a fantastic job in running the festival, but the beer range had really traded up. Keykegs were now not only welcome, but a whole feature was made of there availability and more importantly some craft brewers at the very top of their art were in attendance - Tiny Rebel, Siren, Magic Rock, Wild Beer etc.

Keykegs in a cellar ready to serve

Featuring craft brewers is the future for GBBF and the said brewers should wake up to the opportunity here. GBBF attracts over 36,000 drinkers, that's hugely more than many of the craft beer festivals and the audience is much wider and a little older, but they are all established ale drinkers and potential customers and opinion formers. Any craft brewers who are remotely serious about building brands whether for their beers or the brewery should take a serious look at GBBF as a great opportunity to showcase their brews.

Some of the traditional family brewers you might have hoped to see were not in attendance. Fullers, now part of Asahi were not there, neither were Greene King, disgracefully booed last year by CAMRA members when their fantastic Mild won a prize - not one of GBBF's finer moments! However, both St Austell Brewery and Adnams were there exhibiting their wonderful beers. It was also good to see far more smaller cask brewers with stands, these brewers are becoming the lifeblood of cask so we should welcome and celebrate their beers. Bottled and can beers, yes canned beers were now accepted. The gin bar had trebled in size and a GBBF balloon gin glass was even available. Street food was in abundance, catering for tastes from Indian, Mexican to Cornish! My word, how the event is changing.

At this point I must add that from the organisational point no one does beer festivals better than CAMRA. I have attended a number of craft beer festivals as a trade exhibitor and no other festival comes close to CAMRA and GBBF for their knowledge, passion and organisational skills with beer festivals. Please keep up the good work.

So what for 2020? Perhaps GBBF would benefit from shrinking a little to make it more compact. Music also needs to become more of a backbone of the event - beer and music fit together perfectly in pubs so why not at GBBF? The good work from 2019 with keykegs needs to continue and expand. CAMRA's organisational skills must remain and new younger members encouraged to become more active. Above all, GBBF needs to be what the name says, The Great British Beer Festival, showcasing the very best from the UK beer industry, whether its cask, keg, bottle or can! There is much to look forward to with GBBF.

Normandy Hill

Commemorative sign at the top of Normandy Hill

If you are looking for a my usual blog about beer then I'm afraid my subject here contains no such content. Instead, I wanted to write something about the 75th Anniversary of D Day. Local military history is something I've always found fascinating so this sign I pass regularly whilst out running prompted me to find out a bit more.

The sign for Normandy Hill commemorates Route 23, the final journey in the UK for many US servicemen before embarking on ships from Saltash Passage, which is the Plymouth side of the River Tamar facing Saltash, ready to begin Operation Neptune - the navel component of Operation Overlord, (the Normandy Landings).

US Army Route 23 was a route for infantry men who marched from various camps in South Devon to the bottom of the hill at Saltash Passage, departing from a purpose built embarkation hards slipway onto landing craft before transferring to much larger ships off shore. Many would have come via the Vicarage Road Army Training Camp that overlooked the River Tamar adjacent to Route 23. The camp was built to house 2,000 US servicemen and would see over 60,000 servicemen pass through it before closing in mid 1945. One of the camps main roles was to assist the loading of personal and vehicles whilst training for D Day and for the actual event itself.


The embarkation hards slipway at Saltash Passage

Embarkation hards as they were called were concrete slipways and were installed at embarkation points along the South Coast. They were concrete blocks that resembled blocks of chocolate and for this reason the troops nicknamed them chocolate box hards - some, like the ones at Saltash Passage can still been seen today which once stretched over 200ft into the river and was 5,000 square yards in size.

For the invasion over 36,000 troops embarked from Plymouth and were primarily part of Force U which was loaded from Plymouth East and Force B which was loaded from Plymouth West. The former was charged with the initial attack on Utah Beach and the latter was the follow up force for D Day plus one on Utah.



US Troops embarking from Saltash Passage, Plymouth

Plymouth was the main embarkation point for troops assembled in Marshalling Area A in the South West of Devon. These were part of the US 4th Infantry Division (VII Corps). Troops were loaded from 1st June for the planned invasion on the 5th June. Bad weather would intervene and the invasion was delayed for 24 hours to 6th June. Force U was split into twelve convoys with around 800 vessels and loading ports along the South West coast from Falmouth to Poole. Force B, the follow up force consisted of 500 vessels. From what I can gleam I believe troops that were part of Force B certainly embarked from Saltash Passage.

Some photos from Saltash Passage of the embarkment (or perhaps training) show landing craft with the insignia PA33 which indicates they belonged to the USS Bayfield. The Bayfield was an assault transport able to carry 1500 troops and records show she was based at Plymouth from late April 1944 and was used as a flagship command vessel for Utah Beach.

Troops embark in landing craft from Saltash Passage with insignia indicating USS Bayfield

Landing craft motors towards Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge

Whilst the landings at Omaha Beach were to prove both bloody and tragic, the landings at Utah went a lot better. Troops from the 4th Division touched down at 6.30am, quickly overcame weak enemy opposition and pushed inland as much as 10,000 yards with only 197 casualties from 21,000 troops landed. Much of the initial success can be attributed to the power of the covering naval fire and airstrikes. The latter was done by Martin B26 Marauders whose pilots decided to drop their bombs from low altitudes to overcome cloud cover. The result was highly effective with the loss of only two aircraft.

The 4th Division went on to fight through France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. Battles included the Battle of Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge. They crossed the Rhine on 29th March 1945 headed South East across Bavaria reaching Miesbach on 2nd May before finally being relieved and placed on occupation duty.  All told they lost 4,097 men killed in action plus another 461 missing in action.

Memorial at Saltash Passage



To commemorate the men who left Saltash Passage for D Day, a memorial and garden was built overlooking the River Tamar with Saltash on the opposite river bank in the distance. It is a peaceful well kept garden where one can sit, relax and perhaps imagine the hustle and bustle of the D Day embarkation and the thoughts of the young American servicemen, noisy with nervous anticipation of what may lie ahead for them.

I often run down and less off often run up Normandy Hill, like most hills on the river banks in Plymouth and Saltash opposite, its long and steep. I sometimes wonder about the men who left here and what became of them. If you are ever travelling the A38, do stop off before crossing the bridge and visit the memorial, its small piece of history on your doorstep and a fitting tribute to the young men who fought and perhaps died that left friendly shores at this point.

Memorial Inscription

Troops march at the top of Normandy Hill

Troops loading from Saltash Passage at the bottom of Normandy Hill.  

Will Fullers transfer leave cask facing relegation battle?

"Well we never saw that coming" was the comment that many made after Fullers announced they were selling their beer business to Japanese multinational company Asahi. Indeed, it was quite a shock, but for Fullers an understandable move. The majority of their profit is contributed from its pub and hotel sector, in the order of 85% apparently. Inside knowledge from working in the industry for many years I know this to be a fact, brewing and selling beer is not as profitable as running pubs and hotels. So for Fullers, on the surface the right decision, but for the cask ale sector it could be yet another nail in the coffin.

For many years Fullers have been one of the major players in championing the cask sector. They understood that cask ale not only needs to leave the brewery in pristine condition but furthermore, ensuring it's quality on its path to being finally served in the pub is just as important. Fullers have been one of cask ales major lynch pins in recent years, demanding quality and consistent beers and showcasing their ales at their best where-ever possible.

I might use an analogy of a football team. Cask AFC playing in the Premier League - Fullers were the solid dependable centre half and captain of the team, successfully defending all attacks and leading from the front, setting an example to the rest of Cask AFC. Now Fullers has been transferred to PubCo Rovers and a new player, Asahi has been signed from abroad as a replacement. As with all new players Asahi will need to adapt quickly if Cask AFC is not to be relegated from the Premier League, he can't afford too many errors. He has some strong fellow team members, the spine of the side; Marston's another centre half, Greene King, the much disliked midfield player who never gets the plaudits but when he's not in the team they often lose; gifted playmaker St Austell Brewery, much maligned centre forward Doombar (Molson Coors), fast and tricky winger Thornbridge and experienced goalkeeper Shepherd Neame.

Ok, its a bit of fun, but the point I'm making is if Fullers were a top player in Cask AFC, without them and their commitment to maintaining quality and a desire to sell cask ale, the future for Cask AFC could be threatened with relegation from the Premier League! Lose one of your best players and many teams have faltered as a result.

How new boy Asahi does in the number five shirt remains to be seen. One has to have doubts. Will he really take the long term view on cask, nurture London Pride on hand-pull with a desire to build the brand so it's cask format can challenge for the top honours in the world of beer, or will London Pride be re-focused on export markets and UK keg format allowing its cask brother to slowly sink down the leagues? If one has to have hope then looking at how Japanese companies have established themselves in the UK Car market and their commitment to the long term is commendable. If Asahi can follow this lead and become the next Honda or Nissan of the UK beer market then perhaps there is hope. Only time will tell.

乾杯 which is  pronounced Kanpai, cheers in Japanese (according to google).

Reflections on Swindon Beer Festival - there's life in the old dog yet!

St Austell Brewery bar

An odd title for a blog post and no reflection on the 32nd Swindon Beer Festival which again was well up to standard. Congratulations to Swindon CAMRA and also the venue, the Steam Railway Museum. Both combine to deliver a unique and interesting event. There are not many more attractive venues than Steam, its the museum for GWR showcasing a Swindon that was at the very heart of rail travel development to the South West for many years. It's a very fitting venue for an event that promotes traditional cask ale.

I attended for two days bringing some fabulous St Austell Brewery beers from Cornwall for the festival goers to enjoy. There were 120 different cask ales in total and four brewery bars. CAMRA make it very easy for brewers to attend and this year besides St Austell - Ramsbury, Hop Kettle and Flying Monk were in attendance. The latter three are local brewers to Swindon and there are fewer better ways for such brewers to build their brands and encourage sampling with their local market than attending here.

Cooling jackets & cooler shown behind the bar

Thankfully all brewers except Flying Monk were applying cooling to their beers, although the first blast of artic air of the autumn did mean that casks without cooling were served at an acceptable temperature. However, there is certainly a case that if you want to showcase your beers at their best, an investment in cooling is a must for these events. The beers served by CAMRA had no cooling, but they have a bigger challenge to provide cooling for a vast number of casks which is both expensive and logistically challenging, so that's another story.

So back to my headline which is really an observation on the number of people who attended the festival. Attendances for the Thursday session were down, about 100 people was muttered under the breath of some CAMRA members. I feared the worse in that the significant decline in the cask beer market was showing itself at this grass roots level and there would be vast amounts of beer left. However, I need not have worried!

I was delighted that the following two sessions were significantly up with the final session a sell-out. Even better was CAMRA had an excellent selection of beers. Most brewers, let alone their beers I had not heard of before so there was interest to try lots of new flavours. It was great to see so many people enjoying cask ales, all served in good condition hence my blog title, there is life in the old dog yet!

On the St Austell bar our Halloween beer, Bucket of Blood is an old favourite at this event and a past Champion Beer of the festival. We sold double of this beer than any of all our others, but it was also very pleasing to see established brands like Tribute and Proper Job sell very well. As much as people like to try new beers, there is still plenty of scope to build consistently good brands that stand the test of time that customers recognise and want to drink.

To sum up the event, I would comment that beer festivals bring people together and are very social events, where those with a passion for beer can share their enjoyment of trying new brews or remind themselves of some old favourites. If cask ale is to survive the current fashion for keg craft beer it needs well run beer festivals like Swindon to provide entertainment, but most importantly of all, to showcase what's great about cask ale. Bravo Swindon CAMRA and Steam, here's to the 33rd featival in 2019.

The humble Bottle Opener

My favourite opener

At beer talks I normally tell people that the start of drinking and enjoying a beer is their choice of an appropriate glass. Before they buy any beer they should first acquire a glass they enjoy drinking from as it will enhance their enjoyment of the beer. However, I now realise there is something that comes before the glass and that is the humble bottle opener. For ones pleasure in enjoying a beer does not start with a favourite glass, it begins with a favourite bottle opener!

Just like a glass, a bottle opener is a personal item and we'll all have our favourite. For me, if I can't use my favourite opener the beer drinking experience gets off to a bad start. Of course, the bottle opener has no impact on the quality of the beer but its about the subliminal relaxation of enjoying a beer, so the very start point of opening the bottle is very important. It is the first impression that counts and that begins with the use of your chosen opener, the kiss as it breaks the seal and releases the CO2 pressure within, which leads to the expectant anticipation of the delicious contents that are about to be enjoyed.

My favourite opener is a Homer Simpson Duff Beer opener, not that I'm a big fan of the Simpsons, it was a Christmas present from my wife's grandsons around eight years ago and I have used it ever since. I know they chose it for me so its something special and even though its now somewhat rusted, I still enjoy using it. A bottle opener is a very personal thing, much like a cherished tie or coffee mug.


Church key style traditional bottle opener

The bottle opener has been around since the invention of the crown cork. As ever with new inventions there is some conjecture as to who was responsible but its generally recognised to be William Painter in Baltimore in 1892. Until the invention of the crown cork soda and beer bottles were round ended and mostly sealed with corks. They were then stored on their sides to avoid the corks drying out. The invention of the crown cork not only changed the seal, it also changed storage methods and bottle shapes as bottles could now be stored upright.

More importantly, the new crown cork required an opener. These were traditionally flat pieces of metal and some resembled ornate church keys, hence they become known as "Church Key" openers. There is no record as to how and when they officially came by their name but there is certainly a similarity between the church key and the bottle opener of yesteryear.

From the 1900's onwards bottle opener designs literally exploded like an over conditioned bottle beer. Brewers and soda producers in the USA were quick to see the marketing potential of such items. Some even included a pin on the reverse so they could be spun like a spin the bottle to see who bought the next round. Other designs included the speed opener, which is now known as the bar blade and of course the wall mounted opener allowed bottled beer to be opened with one hand.

British brewers were more conservative with their bottle openers, but wonderful vintage designs for the likes of Guinness and Carlsberg are readily found via google. What has changed very little for the past century is the design of the crown cork, so all bottle openers have the same opening mechanism. Everyone should have a favourite opener, whether its a traditional design or a promotional item and it should be cherished and loved as the start point of many an enjoyable beer drinking experience.

Reflections on GBBF 2018

Another Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) done and dusted for this year. Well done to all the CAMRA members who work so hard to put on the UK's biggest and yes, best beer festival. We should not forget that the vast majority of these people are unpaid volunteers so a big thank you goes to all of them. I was lucky enough to attend for the whole event so here are my thoughts on the good, bad and the ugly reflections for 2018. Lets start in reverse order, the ugly.

CAMRA attracted Greene King as a main sponsor and well don't both parties for the marriage. GK are perhaps the UK's largest cask ale brewer. I don't like all of their beers but respect them hugely for their efforts in promoting their cask beers and brewing consistent beers that their customers want to drink. If they invest in promoting the likes of Old Speckled Hen it helps lift the whole cask market - they are not just investing in their own beers, they are investing in the category. Why then when the GK XX Mild was announced Champion Mild was large booing heard in the main hall. If you are a CAMRA member and were part of this may you hang your head in shame. The beer was fairly judged to be the winner and as such deserved its place on the winners podium. Furthermore, you don't bite the hand of your major sponsor!

Hopefully the GK marketing team will not be put off by this ill-judged response from a minority. I for one tasted the mild and agree its a fine beer, worthy of the award.

Now for the bad. It has to be the attendance figures. I never saw the final figures but was keeping a daily track. I estimate this to be at least 5,000 down on the previous year. A very disappointing response. Its easy to blame GBBF and say its all the fault of the festival, but the facts are cask ale is having a tough time at the moment with sales significantly down so its as much a declining interest in the category. CAMRA wont be able to sustain the event at Olympia if the figures continue to decline so we all hope this trend begins to reverse next year.

It is also true other established regional food and drink festivals are struggling for attendances so GBBF may well be caught up in the same scenario.

Lets finish on the good. CAMRA are trying hard to bring a fresh look and feel to the event. The Planet Rock sponsorship was a great fit. Beer festivals have to offer more than just beer and the band line up for the Thursday seemed to attract a lot of interest. CAMRA need to take a leaf from the craft beer festivals where they have a programme of DJ sets running. It attracts younger people, its not just about the beer. The street food line up this year was also excellent, a big variety from the usual pie and pasties to Indian and Mexican. I think there were circa twenty-five food stalls so the choice was superb.

One interesting newcomer to the event was Budweiser Budvar. they were serving live tank beer, at last a lager style beer readily available. CAMRA do need to grasp the nettle here and extend and actively promote key keg, tank, craft beer, whatever you want to call it. Cask beer will always be king at this festival but the other beers attract a different customer that the festival badly needs.

A busy night on my brewery bar

Brewery bar support has been declining but this year saw significant players Greene King, Fullers and St Austell all supporting the event, plus their were interesting new comers like Thornbridge. The brewers really need to support this festival, why would you not want to showcase your brands at an event in the capital city that attracts lots of media interest with an attendance of circa 40k people? The cask market has big problems at the moment so rather than shunning such events the brewers should be actively supporting both this event and other major regional festivals and working with CAMRA. Both brewers and CAMRA want the same thing, to promote cask ale so cost/budgetary restrictions accepted, it seems a little odd that more brewers don't want to be represented.

Finally, having spent the last week at the festival on a brewery bar I can say its hard work at times, but also very rewarding with the chance to share a love of beer and pubs with lots of like minded folk. I enjoyed my week and look forward to 2019.