When Craft Beers Attack!

I get to try lots of different beers, most of which are wonderful, taste good, look good and have a nice aroma. However I've also experienced a number of poor beers recently and sad to say they seem to have a couple of things in common. They masquerade under the "craft" name and disappointingly they are often produced by small micro brewers.

Recently I tasted an IPA that definitely had a strong rasping hop bitterness, but sadly it was overpowered by an immense diacetyl off flavour, the sort that the first sip tastes good but you know the second will be a sip too much. Another lager was full of phenolic flavours (that's most unpleasant), whilst an IPA was infected with acetaldehyde. The branding on these beers looked great and very appealing but sadly the beer just did not live up to that resulting in an attack on the taste buds of an unwanted kind!

What is a little concerning is that it seems possible to hide behind the word craft and produce beers that are less than great. To some it's perhaps the charm that there is a bit of funkiness going on, but actually I really want to taste the malt, hops and fermentation enhanced flavours that the beer should have, I'm not so keen on flavours that should not be there!

If you read the descriptions on these bottles they make no mention of the off flavours experienced above so they should not really be present and are unwelcome guests. Regretfully, the layman cannot easily identify some of the promised flavours that should be there let alone off flavours, so they become the norm and acceptable. Also many are packaged in the smaller 330ml bottle and this too might be a smokescreen to indifferent quality, as most people are used to drinking the larger 500ml so expect the smaller bottle and the word craft to offer a different experience.

So where do I stand on this. I am all for encouraging choice and innovation from the brewers but it should not come at the cost of quality. The word craft has invigorated the beer category, recruited new younger drinkers and forced many established brewers to innovate. However, I think too much can go into trying to make a beer standout with unusual or higher than normal levels of ingredients, rather than working on balance, quality and above all making sure the beer that's offered for sale is consistently good and drinkable. To this effect perhaps some of the smaller brewers should take a leaf out of the larger brewers quest for quality and consistency, add that to their armoury and an attack of craft beers brewed by the small brewer would always be welcome!

Once Great Ale Brands

Courage Best Bitter

I grew up with Courage Best Bitter (CBB) in the villages and towns of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, where every other pub was a Courage pub so it was quite ubiquitous. The good thing about CBB is that for a young man, the flavour was never that challenging and far more accessible than the other locally brewed beer, Morland Original. The latter was a proper bitter beer, the sort the younger palate struggles with, whereas CBB, well that was easy. Having said that, CBB was not a great beer, but it was a great brand.

As I grew to enjoy real ale more and more I quickly realised that the insipid and sometimes wishy washy CBB was an average beer with limited flavour. It was also inconsistent as the cellar practices of some Courage tenants left a bit to be desired and the beer not robust enough to take any malpractices. However what made CBB a great brand was that is was so easy to drink making it accessible to most; its critical mass where every other pub stocked it and finally the marketing investment to encourage drinking it.

The real demise of CBB came as a result of its various ownerships over the years (including Imperial Tobacco, Fosters Brewing, S & N and latterly Wells & Youngs); the growth of standard lager in the 1990's with its huge marketing investment and finally the demise of a tied estate where sales of pubs and permitted guest beers eroded sales as a result of the 1988 Monopolies and Mergers Act.

Marketing for Courage tended to feature around its London, Thames Valley and West Country heartlands and who can forget "Take Courage"strap line that ran for years or the Cockerel logo. The Courage brand also featured heavily as a sponsor of sport including rugby union and Reading FC. However, the trends in the 1990's saw a rapid growth in standard lagers, where the likes of Carlsberg and Fosters attracted all the new drinkers to the market. Slowly the CBB drinkers began to die out and the beer found it hard to attract new drinkers. Sadly for CBB, its not part of the recent interest in craft beers and has been over taken by the equally bland Doom Bar as the ubiquitous beer for the South of England.

Current owners Charles Wells Brewing have done a good job to arrest the decline but the future for CBB looks bleak, its not interesting, it has limited marketing support and no real tied pub estate. How much longer will we see this beer, I suspect sadly it will be a very minor brand in 10 years time, appealing to the Reading and Bristol areas and may not even be brewed at all.

Wadworth 6X
Unlike CBB, 6X is a great beer and was also a brilliant brand, so just what has gone wrong here. It was once revered by many in the 1970's, quickly becoming a very fashionable beer and attracted many younger drinkers to the sector.

The beer is actually a fine beer. A nice fruitiness matched with a nutty malt flavour, it does not lack for taste. Perhaps that malt driven flavour has fallen out of favour a little where the search for hop bitterness by the craft beer fraternity has taken preference, but that still does not explain the fall from grace for such a great beer.

In my view I think you have to look closer to home with some regrettable decision making by Wadworth . This included selling the marketing rights to the brand to Whitbread in the 1990's where a sudden growth was then followed by a loss of love for it as this multi-national company moved onto other objectives. 6x reached a peak but from then on it was on the decline and received no focus. Wadworth took the ownership back and spent big marketing bucks to try and arrest the slump with an advertising campaign around sex. It was high risk and an attempt to appeal to the younger market. Sadly it failed and at the same time turned off many existing drinkers.

Wadworth then decided to focus more on their pub estate and then sold off much of their distribution, making sales into the freetrade harder. Beer sales continued to decline and Wadworth have recently undergone redundancies.

Today, 6X is still a great beer, it has the support of a pub estate which helps, but receives only limited marketing spend. It has been overtaken by the likes of St Austell Tribute in sales and its difficult to see things changing much. The future of the beer is entwined with the future of Wadworth and their pubs. They might one day decide to get out of brewing? I hope not as this is a classic beer and one which all beer lovers want to see survive and thrive.

Craft Beer Rising 2015

An amazing event in many ways, Craft Beer Rising did not fail as being its usual annual eye opener for the established brewer.

A trip to London and in particular Shoreditch is always interesting. We visited a few pubs in the area and one thing that struct me was the lack of established ale brands on show and the increase in beers and brewers I'd not seen before. Also it was clear that the 300ml bottle is an ever popular pack size, many full of funky beers with wonderful names I'd not heard of. So all very exciting that there are lots smart young brewers out there producing great new beers and stretching the boundaries of style and flavours, or so it would seem........

Because, in some ways Craft Beer Rising also showed that every small brewer seems to be doing the hopped beer and the IPA style in particular to the extreme. The IPA category is still blossoming and its certainly the most well known ale catagory (apart from Stout) that consumers seem to recognise. However I could not help wondering what comes next, where does it go from here? Even more hops, new varieties perhaps? Maybe there will come a point where the strongly hopped beer or beer with the latest hop variety ceases to be fashionable!

Every brewer at the event had an IPA style beer, most had a Pale Ale, lots had Ryle Ales as well as the obligatory dark ale or Stout. There was some innovation, on our bar, the St Austell Brewery bar we had a superb German Gose style beer that was brilliant and caused much interest. However for me there was one classic beer style missing?

Missing or over looked by most was the traditional English Golden ale. A very drinkable and commercial beer, the hops used provide balance and a touch of savoury refreshment rather than dominate a beer. Perhaps these beers have grown out of fashion over the past few years - their flavours don't grab you by the throat but instead gently tip-toes across the taste buds, whetting the appetite rather than overpowering it ready for the next delicious slurp. Sadly they just don't stand out in a crowd and there lies the problem. In a market that is constantly looking for the next most hopped beer, the golden ale will always get overlooked.

A common question on our bar was "What have you got that does not contain lots of hops? The consumer is still looking for the lighter colour beer but one with less bite, so the real challenge might be less hops to brew a beer that consumers really want to drink rather than more?

There are lots of fine golden beers out there, many brewed by the established brewers. Maybe their labels and pump clips have become too familiar or old fashioned but don't overlook them, they have a lot to offer and you'll find them a very pleasant and enjoyable drink.

Cheers!

Morland of Oxfordshire

Old Brewhouse now converted to apartments

A recent trip away from the South West gave me an opportunity to call into Abingdon and visit the site of the old Morland Brewery, once the second oldest brewer in the UK, dating back to 1711. Morland are dear to my heart and as much as I love working for St Austell in Cornwall, it was in Oxfordshire that my love of cask beer and pubs began.

Morland of course are more famous now for being the birth place of Old Speckled Hen, but that particular beer was a fairly recent arrival in Morland's history. Formed from a combination of small breweries including the Reading and Wantage breweries, at its height Morland operated well over 400 pubs spread largely across the south of England and primarily in the Thames Valley area.


The beers were wonderful but like a lot of regional beers it really helped if you  grew up with them and were accustomed to the taste. Morland Original was, when brewed by Morland a proper beer drinkers bitter. It was a well extenuated beer which often led to it being described as thin, but it was a true bitter beer and there were no citrus hops present as is the current fashion in brews. I loved it, a real savoury beer but not to everyone's palate.

Morland Best Bitter became Old Masters and this was a blend between Morland Original and Old Speckled Hen - blended beers are more common than you think and it makes them no less a beer. Old Masters was a lovely beer but again failed to attract the publics eye.

The real winner was Old Speckled Hen and I am so proud to have been part of that story. I remember it going on trial on draught and we knew we had a winner when one of the trial pubs had to sell the drip tray contents off to a customer it was so good! Old Speckled Hen has gone on to achieve fame and fortune and to be fair to Greene King who now own the brand, they have done an excellent job in growing it further and establishing Hen as the number one take home beer.

The old Maltings, my office mid centre front

Morland as a brewery was bigger than you think. The brewery was a traditional gravity brewery, the malt went in at the top and six days later out at the bottom came cask beer. I recall the Fermentation room where all the vessels were open fermenters, we used to show people around there on brewery tours and I'm sure you would not be allowed to do that now. The buildings were also stunning, examples of early 20th century buildings in many cases but they looked wonderful. Malting also used to take place on the site and some of the building designs reflect this. I recall the attic to our office contained the malting tiles which had small holes in them to allow the heat through.

Many of Morland's pubs contain a unique marker of their former ownership, a distinctive brewery plaque in the wall featuring the brewery artist logo. Morland was named after the celebrated artist of the 18th century, John Morland so all things artist/painting became linked to the brewery. Some of these pubs have now become houses and the only reminder they were once pubs being the artist plaque set in the wall.

All told I've a lot to be grateful to for Morland, a firm grounding in the brewing business, the chance to be part of the famous success story of Old Speckled Hen and also the enjoyment of working with some lovely people. It's a great shame that events led to its closure, but things move on and today, the housing development containing what must be a hundred dwellings or so reflects the brewing heritage and is full of character that befits a once thriving beer business.




 

Favourite Beers of 2014

Here are a selection of my favourite beers for 2014. You will notice that I'm not a great fan of heavily hopped beers, so sorry all those who are looking for a Punk IPA or Oakham Citra. Also, living and working in the South West then my beer selection is clearly going to be driven by what's readily available. I also think occasion of drinking has to come into things - a beer might be particularly satisfying because its refreshing, or paired with the right food. So here goes, here is my choice and in no particular order in true Strictly fashion......

1. HSD. For starters this one is a bit of a surprise, even to me. HSD, Hicks Special Draught, High speed Diesel or High Speed Death, whatever your pet name for this beer, its a really under-rated and a sadly unfashionable beer. Full with fruity esters and soft toffee flavours this beer is St Austell Brewery's oldest current recipe beer but one that only sells in limited volume. At 5% its quite a big beer and the full luscious mouth feel extenuates this. However above all, this beer is really well balanced. It originates from a decade (1970's) when the objective was to brew beers that were drinkable and not flavoured too far in one direction or another.

The bottle version of this beer lacks a little of the esters of its draught brother but none-the-less, its still a fine beer. The bottle label could be bolder and that does not help, but inside is a really good beer.

2. Bellingers Gallipoli. A First World War commemorative beer and actually a really fine way to do this. The label depicts a family member who went to war in this horrific campaign but who was also one of the lucky ones to come home. The beer is 5.3%, a full dark Porter, nice rich bitter chocolate with a touch of roasted toffee. Bellingers are a very small brewery based in South Oxfordshire and seem to brew some really good dark beers and I prefer these to their lighter brews.  Well done to a small brewer who got a lot of things right with this beer and found a niche opportunity to market a beer many of the larger regionals overlooked.

3. Ramsbury 506. A 5.0%  beer that never fails me, this is a golden beer, almost akin to a lager, but its really a fine example of a English golden ale. Unlike many lighter beers this is not bursting with hops, its just really well balanced, a little fruity with hints of honey and offset by biscuit malt flavours. This is a very drinkable beer. Named after the American 506th Parachute Regiment that was based in and around Ramsbury during the Second World War and not readily available on draught. You won't find this beer in any supermarkets so its quite rare, but I rate it highly.

4. Black Cab Stout. At 4.5% a lovely creamy stout, but not necessarily a favourite beer. However in 2014 for me it was perhaps one of my most satisfying pints. A busy and industrious day setting up at the Great British Beer Festival left us in need of refreshment. Matters got worse when leaving Olympia when it was pouring with rain, so a quick pit stop in a local pub was called for where we saw this beer for the first time.

That first pint went down so well, rich tasty, hints of liquorish and coffee but refreshingly cold. A lovely beer, great branding but the right beer for the right moment! Fullers have done a fine job in creating this beer. The name is just perfect for London although I doubt it will prove quite so popular outside the capital. Do try this beer if you find it, I assume its largely confined to Fullers pubs and local free houses and although I've yet to see it in bottles I think they are available.

Finally, beers that I've also enjoyed dinking in 2014 are St Austell Tribute and Proper Job, both of which are hop driven beers. The latter is a great beer, I personally find the draught on the bitter side, but the bottled beer is truly amazing and one of the best IPA's you will come across. I've also loved all of the Christmas beers and Hunters Dashers Dinkle was just like drinking a fruit cake, just superb.

My least favourite beer of 2014 has not changed from other years. I had a bottle of this beer lurking in my cupboard all summer. Eventually I gave in and popped the crown. Sadly my worst fears were exposed and confirmed that I still really don't like cloves, so although I know there are some people out there who adore you, I'm afraid Clouded Yellow you are just not for me.

Happy New Year to all and more blogs to follow in 2015.

Christmas Events 2014

Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre

A busy few weeks for us at Craft Bottle Beers, Christmas really is the time to maximise beer sales as so much goes out as gift sales. Firstly let me say how delighted we are to make such sales and I'm sure that anyone who received this gift from Santa will be delighted with our beers. However the gift sale is a real opportunity for brewers to make an impact on consumers and entice them into cask, craft or bottled beers.

The most popular beers we sold were Christmas branded. I understand the problems with over producing and getting stuck with festive stock, but why on earth more brewers don't come up with a bottled beer with a festive theme is beyond me - it should really be a matter of brewing a set amount and once its gone, then that's it. Many ladies in particular just don't know what to buy their partners/relatives so the Christmas beer/pack presents the perfect solution. Christmas beers also offer a great chance to engage with the public, people who would never talk about, or buy beer at any other time of the year are for the once a year opportunity, interested in buying beer.

Christmas beers in pubs should be no different. People are there for a few drinks to celebrate or perhaps enjoy the works Christmas dinner, so a festive beer on the bar is a great chance to encourage people to try cask beer. More licensees should consider such beers, their pubs are busy with eager revellers looking for a reason to celebrate and chat to friends, the Christmas beer offers the perfect chance to start a conversation - what does that taste like, that's a silly name etc etc.....

At Craft Bottle Beers we had some great Christmas beers on offer. Old favourites Sleigh Fuel, Reindeer Fuel and Dashers Dinkle are great beers. Full, sweet, spicy, fruit cake like, a hint spirituous, warming and alcoholic, with quirky labels, just as a Christmas beer should be and I'd be very happy to receive one. Box Steam Brewery offered a more upmarket branding approach, but one I think worked well. The Christmas Box Blonde and Dark were exceptional beers and the branding was quality. I'm sure many will be enjoyed over the festive period.

Of the events we did Cotehele, Crocadon and Mount Edgcumbe Christmas Fayre's were wonderful events. Our Christmas beer gift box really did sell like hot cakes but more importantly, it attracted people to our stand and gave us the chance to engage with customers and help them choose the right beers for the person they were buying a gift for. Yes, lots of Christmas beers went, but then my husband drinks Tribute, Doombar or Jail Ale so what should a I choose? -  was also a common question. As a Beer Sommelier it was great to be able to help guide people into what beer is best suited for the gift they wanted to buy. I think it really added to the gift that they had some advise from someone who could recommend and impart confidence, rather than taking pot luck on a beer!

So Christmas is nearly upon us, do venture into a local pub to enjoy a pint, or buy some bottled beers from the supermarket to try. Christmas is a great time to enjoy a beer, it brings people together, creates reasons to chat, breaks down social barriers and shyness, so do have a pint, or buy a bottle of beer, you just might enjoy it!

Beer Talk with Plymouth WI

I did an unusual beer talk a few weeks ago as a guest of the lovely ladies of Plymouth Women's Institute. To make this more interesting we did some beer and food matching. I have to say I was very impressed with the ladies and in particular their palates, which seemed quite deceptive to the extent that unprompted they were able to describe many of the hop and malt flavours present. So perhaps their is some merit to the belief that ladies taste buds are more receptive than those of men?

On with the evening and we started the tasting with a locally brewed beer in South Hams Eddystone. A tasty 4.8% IPA style beer with the cascade hop being the most dominant. This was paired with some fine pistachio milk chocolate that was quite sweet. I've found the bitter citrus hops of an IPA can match quiet well with the contrast of the sweet chocolate. The ladies loved the match but found the beer a bit of a challenge.

Second came a beer at the opposite end of the flavour spectrum with Penpont Beast of Bodmin, a big bold brassy 5.0% malt driven beer which was paired with a strong mature cheddar. The two flavours worked well together, there are few better matches with beer and food when if comes to a mature cheddar! The ladies liked this one a little better, the sweet biscuit flavours and hint toffee of the beer being more to their palate.

Next to the favourite match of the night, St Austell Brewery Clouded Yellow paired with a Bavarian smoked cheese. The ladies loved this beer, its low bitterness levels scoring highly with them and many were able to identify this wheat beers banana and clove flavours. Again the smoked cheese offers something different with the food match and Clouded Yellow seems to work well in cleansing the palate with this lightly smoked flavour.

The least favourite came next. Not unexpected, the stout matched with chilli chocolate. Nothing wrong with either, indeed Ramsbury Silver Pig stout is a wonderful beer with traditional liquorice and roasted camp coffee flavours that were a match for the bitter chocolate and its late chilli kick, however the stout flavours were just too challenging for the ladies palate.

The final beer and food match was St Austell Tamar Creek and pate. The former is a proper Lambic style cherry flavoured ale with enough tartness and acidity to make the lips purl. The oily pate was a fine contrast and this was perhaps the second favourite match of the night. A very challenging beer, the ladies were very prepared to give it a chance and they appreciated its character and understood its role as an aperitif beer.

The purpose of the night was to showcase beer to the female palate, but I was both surprised and delighted with the expertise with which they were quickly able to describe flavours and their interest shown in beer. It was also a fun night matching the beers with the food and I'm sure many ladies will have left thinking about the weekends meals and matching to beer rather than wine. Hopefully it will also mean some husbands and friends receive interesting tasty beers as Christmas gifts this year to accompany the obligatory boxing day jumper!