A Day at the Races

A day at Salisbury races earlier this summer was thoroughly enjoyable, I'd recommend it to any racing enthusiast, good quality racing, friendly staff and good pubs locally, in fact we go every year. However this year was a little disappointing on the day and it has bothered me ever since. Nothing wrong with the racing or the service from the course staff etc, but previous visits have always been accompanied by a pint of Hopback Summer Lightning. Sadly, this year the only ale offering was a pint of the ubiquitous Doombar!

To a beer enthusiast one of the fun things about visiting other towns and counties is the enjoyment of drinking the local brew. I confess that Summer Lightning is a long held favourite of mine and a few pints have always helped to offset a bad day with the bookmakers at Salisbury. This year it had to be Doom and coming from Cornwall it was bit like coals to Newcastle and not a particularly welcome sight.

One thing that Doombar was doing, or should I say Molson Coors, was sponsoring a race on the card. Great that they were doing this and I have noticed a number of race meetings subsequently that have Doombar sponsored races in the card. The recent meeting at Goodwood being a good example. I am delighted to see Doombar using racing to build brand awareness, its a good medium and if they are investing in marketing the brand, then it will encourage drinkers to the overall ale category and not just to Doombar.

My concern though is that I hope it does not come at the expense of choice in the racecourse bars. The drink supply deals at courses are part of much bigger agreements, not just for ales, perhaps covering a multiple of courses and certainly different drink categories (lager, cider etc).  Also, Molson Coors will also want Doom to be available if they are sponsoring racing at a course which is only fair. However, there still has to be choice for the consumer so surely there is room on racecourse bars for the local ale to sit alongside Doombar?

I write with a marketing background so can see the benefits of promoting Doom via the horse racing world but I am also a consumer so I want to see choice and ideally, a choice that gives the local brewers a chance as well. Doombar will continue to grow for sure and hopefully racing will benefit if they choose this as part of any sponsorship strategy. Doom really does seem to have taken the country by storm and quite literally every other pub seems to stock it. Its an ok beer, very commercial in that the flavour will not challenge you too much, so is acceptable to most palates and quite consistent in its quality. But, exciting and interesting? No it certainly is not.



With Lisa at Salisbury Races

So how long will it last? I'm sure Molson Coors have not bought the brand for fun and they will have aspiration's to make it the UK's largest ale brand which they surely will achieve. However history has numerous examples of bigger brewers acquiring regional brands to turn them into national brands with mixed success. Courage of course with its "Best" was a huge brand in the 1980's/90's, but where is it now? Whitbread once owned the marketing rights of Wadworth 6X, but where is that now? Perhaps the biggest example is Boddingtons, the "Cream of Manchester", a massive brand from the 80's/90's, but again not what it once was. Will Doom go the same way? Only time will tell, but for certain Molson Coors will not want to fail.

So finally, back to Salisbury races - we'll be going again next year so a request would be to please offer a another ale in addition to Doom, Summer Lightning would be lovely but so long as there is a choice I will be happy.

GBBF 2014

Starting to get busy at GBBF 2014

What a fine event GBBF turned out to be this year. Over 800 different beers were available plus many ciders. Beers were featured from not just the UK, but also beers from around the world including a bar dedicated to American cask ales and also a German beers bar.

I had the privilege of working on the St Austell Brewery bar for the week and saw first hand the success of the event. Perhaps we have become too accustomed to the craft word and its innovation, but have forgotten just how much interest there is in good old fashioned cask ale - its just huge. Sure, this years event had its share of older more mature people but there was also a refreshing intake of much younger people. Also of note was the balance in choice of beers by abv. In regional festivals you tend to find the choice dominated by higher abv beers, but not at GBBF. There was a good selection of beers less that 4.0% abv. Perhaps peoples drinking habits are changing as they look to try more beers with great tastes rather then just topping up on alcohol.

Belgium style Blonde

Also, who says innovation is contained just to the mystical world of craft beer, no there's lots of it going in in the cask area and anyway, is cask beer not a craft beer? Of course it is! There are so many small brewers now all producing great beers, infact the only way the traditional regional brewers can be sure of getting their beers to the festival is by having their own bars (as with St Austell). I looked at all of the CAMRA run bars and pleasingly all were busy. I knew only a small number of the brewers on show, let alone beers which I think is great as its recruiting new younger brewers into the market many with fresh and interesting ideas.

This years winning beer was Timothy Taylor Boltmaker, a beer I've not heard of before and not a beer I had a chance to try. The good news is this beer is produced by a traditional regional brewer so they should be able to produce plenty of it so that all of the CAMRA regional festivals can acquire a barrel to showcase the UK's champion beer.

CAMRA work really hard to make this event a success and although they can sometimes polarise opinions with some of their views on beers and brewers, you can only give them credit for putting on such a great event. In the brewing industry we tend to forget that CAMRA is comprised mainly of volunteers who do it just for their love and interest in beer and pubs. Indeed, some brewers are all too quick to dismiss them but actually they do great work in promoting the sector and creating interest in cask ales. So to conclude, good luck to CAMRA and their members and long may the GBBF continue!



Having fun with CAMRA volunteers