Beer Styles for the public

Range of beers at a recent tasting

I've done a number of recent well attended beer tastings and its been great to talk with people who are genuinely interested in beer and want to learn a little bit more. Most members of the public struggle to define a flavour in beer but will describe a beer as hoppy, which is often true. Ask them to go on and define that flavour further as in citrus, floral, herbal notes etc, then its not easy.

This is where the brewers can help a lot more in my view. Beer Styles have are often over looked on the bottle label or pump clip in favour of branding. Indeed head to your local supermarket and you'll find a montage of labels facing you on the shelf with no apparent order to them other than perhaps by brewer. No wonder the public gets confused and often pick on names or brands they know to choose beers rather than style.

There are probably two main styles the public can identify with easily. The IPA beer they recognise, a few know the background to the name, a few might even know its going to be a hoppy beer. The other style is a stout/porter and people understandably define it by its colour. The latter is a much underestimated style of beer and people are often put off trying these beers which is a great shame as they are potentially missing out of some fine beers.

Where it all gets confusing is the middle ground of describing a beer. What distinguishes a best bitter from a pale ale, where does a golden beer sit compared to an IPA?  Where is a strong ale sit compared to a premium ale or vintage ale and just what is the difference between a double and a triple. All too confusing for many of us involved in the beer industry let alone the public!

My view is that there is a job to do for both brewers and retailers that would really help. Firstly the brewers could properly mark up their brands with beer style and make it easy to identify, some consistency in attributing beers to styles would also help. Retailers can probably have the most impact by displaying beers by style and or flavour rather than by brewer. I think this would help hugely for people to understand. Contrast this to wine displays and you will certainly find red and white displayed separately, plus perhaps a split by country and often grape variety. So just why then why then is it not similar in beer?

I think ultimately a growing interest in beer and the craft beer boom, fuelled by the impact of social media will mean the public becomes more knowledgeable and thus demanding. Those brewers and retailers who recognise this will be the ones who become favoured suppliers of beers and develop the stronger brands.

 

Plymouth Beer Tasting

The tasting commences!

A recent beer tasting with Plymouth Chamber of Trade was very enjoyable but also highlighted what interest there is from the general public in learning a little bit more about beer. It's not however the art of brewing that people want to know, fascinating as it is, brewing can be scientific and complicated with references to brewing equipment and processes that many in the trade take for granted, but for the uninitiated cause an instant glazing over! What is of far more interest is to help people understand a little about the flavours they are tasting, what ingredients contribute to them, help in describing them and above all else keeping it entertaining and fun.

As regards flavours how often have you heard someone describe a beer as hoppy? Countless times for sure, but for many people to describe the flavours you can expect from hops would be quite hard - the fruity citrus, herbal, floral, grassy and cheesy notes. It just gets described as hoppy. Likewise with malt flavours, there are not that many times you hear toffee, biscuit or roasted being used to describe beers.  However this is where the Beer Sommeliers, CAMRA members and other enthusiasts can help. It is really easy to try to impress with ones beer knowledge and identify flavours that are the merest hint in a beer. It's actually much harder to try and bring this into the every day language, using easy and obvious flavour terms and make a beer more accessible and easy to understand.

At the Plymouth tasting it was great to use simple props like bags of toffees, grapefruits, jars of coffee etc. to engage with people and help them connect every day flavours to the beers they were drinking. Add a little beer and food matching, a fun quiz, play with some actual hops and malt and of course taste a wide variety of beer styles and you have the making of a good evening.

The tasting in Plymouth went well and I have to thank Plymouth Chamber of Trade for organising it. Hopefully it will have enthused those who attended to try different beer styles for themselves and also understand a little as to why they like or dislike certain beers.

CAMRA Good Beer Guide

Swindon CAMRA at the St Austell meet the Brewer night

A recent visit to Swindon CAMRA for a meet the brewer night with St Austell Brewery was thoroughly enjoyable and what lovely people, however there was an interesting discussion with regard to the CAMRA Good Beer Guide.




The CAMRA team were in the process of compiling next year's list from the Swindon area and as ever it had sparked some discussion within the membership. Chatting with the Chairman it seems that they had around 35 or so pubs they considered worthy of being in the guide, however they only had 17 spaces available. This I think is a fairly common problem for many CAMRA branches and I guess those pubs that make the final list tend to be pubs who have appeared in previous years, favourite pubs as CAMRA meeting places and those members that shout the loudest to get their choice of pub included.

On the reverse most licensees are thrilled to included in the guide, considering it a real badge of honour and are justly proud of the recognition. Also many breweries and in particular the Regional Brewers, have long been bastions of improving and enforcing quality of beer in pubs. As a result, the numbers of pubs who serve fine good quality cask beer has increased considerably.

So how then do you decide if a pub should be included? Surely the pub that serves two cask ales of consistent high quality deserves to be in the guide as much as the pub who serves five quality real ales. Its just perhaps his trading style and location means he only has the trade for the two beers. Presumably it often comes down to the trading style of a pub, but as pubs cater for a multitude of classes and spend, then that's not always easy for an individual to judge either.

Perhaps the real problem is that the Good Beer Guide needs to change and that CAMRA might need to find another more encompassing way of recognising their best recommended cask ale pubs. There has never been as much interest in cask ales as now, driven by the digital age and the growth in small craft/micro brewers, the public wants to know more, which pubs serve great beer and also local beers. CAMRA can have a huge influence here and a general marque of quality of recommendation might be the best way forward. It would still have to be earned and could be taken away if quality falls year on year, but I for one believe there is scope to recognise more pubs for the quality of their beer, welcome and ambiance and it should not necessarily be restricted by the size of the book.

Christmas Markets

Craft Bottle Beers at Royal William Yard

Having attended a number of markets and Christmas Fare's with Craft Bottle Beers it is interesting to see stall holders different approaches to selling their wares. Our latest market was at Plymouth's Royal William Yard, a popular and growth area of the city it was an interesting venue.  The one thing we have learned and was reinforced at this market is that is you have the give customers a reason to buy and its not sufficient just to make something and then try to sell it.

We were selling a selection of 25 + local South West craft bottled beers from 8 different brewers. All were fantastic beers, a little quirky, a little different but all very tasty beers. Other brewers were also at the same events selling equally fine beers. Indeed, all of the stall holders sell excellent items from pastries, honey, juices to arts and crafts. There is no doubting the quality of their wares.

The one thing we noticed is that it helps hugely if you can give customers a reason to buy. At this time of year people are looking for Christmas gifts. We packaged a 3 bottle pack with simple but clean"Happy Christmas" branding so it looks like a gift. In addition a jute bag 6 pack with a general Craft Beer message had a wide appeal and the customer also gets to select from a range of oddly named beers with interesting labels that suit different interests. Other brewers focused on gift boxes with their own branding, great for brand awareness but not so good for giving customers a reason to buy.

At this time of year the gift pack is a sure fire best seller. However after Christmas the challenge will be to come up with another reason to buy. Clearly with beer birthdays and Fathers Day spring to mind but I'm sure there are other reasons to be found. Its really about thinking from the customers perspective rather than that of the producer.

You also need to make it easy for people to buy with sensible pricing. Remember people only have so much cash on them. We invested in a card reader that worked through the phone. It turned out an excellent purchase with a significant value of our total sales being through this.

Thinking about what customers want rather than what you perhaps want to make or sell is quite a different way of looking at things, but if you can apply this principle to your business it will potentially reap huge benefits.

Christmas Gifts

Bellingers Sleigh Fuel 5.2% abv

What a great opportunity Christmas offers to introduce friends and family to the charms of real ale and craft beers. Beer makes an excellent gift and there are so many different styles and tastes to choose from that for sure you can find something to suit.

The local supermarkets offer a full and interesting choice of bottled beers but often you are faced with the same familiar brands to choose from. What is more fun is to seek out your local brewer and see what they have to offer. Or, find a beer that has a name that suits the person in mind in terms of their interests or character. You might even find a Christmas gift pack or Christmas themed beer.  More brewers are brewing seasonal beers and at this time of year you can expect to find some wonderful full, malty, fruity and spirituous beers, liquid Christmas pudding in a bottle!

Now-a-days, every town, even village seems to have a small but industrious craft brewer, producing beers with passion, pride, often using local ingredients and with names that reflect their geographical locality. You can make this even more appropriate by introducing some local foods - cheese is a great fit for beer. A local beer with locally produced cheese is very tasty and offers something out of the ordinary, plus of course it supports local business!

If you are stuck for a present for a loved one, then you could do worse than find an appropriate beer. Go on line to find a local brewer, you can often buy through the Internet. If you are lucky, some of the larger towns have a their own specialist beer shops which are also worth a visit. You wont necessarily find cheap beer here, but you will find quality beers and often an informed assistant who can help guide you through the morass of labels to ensure you select a suitable beer.

Beer as a gift is great, but its meant to be drunk. To enjoy bottled beer in particular at its best, you need to drink it sooner rather then later. Don't stick bottled beer gifts in the cupboard and forget them - beer ages for the worse unless its designed by the brewer to improve with age, so make sure you drink any beers you receive within a reasonable time frame.

Finally, above all else, beer is meant to be fun, so relax and take your time both choosing and drinking beer at Christmas.

Swindon Beer Festival

 

What a great event Swindon Beer Festival was in 2013. Set in the fabulous Steam Railway Centre, which is the most splendid venue for such an event. The main room where the festival is held can hold over 700 people comfortably in the one session, creating a superb friendly atmosphere.

The big regional beer festivals such as Swindon do a tremendous job in promoting cask ales and their importance should not be under estimated. They offer consumers huge choice and spark real interest and debate, all of which is very healthy, plus of course they are great fun events and there is never any semblance of trouble. In a way they make real ale down to earth and accessible, helping to take away some of the fear of trying new beers. It is a chance to experiment with different tastes and styles and no one minds if you don't like a certain beer.

Swindon CAMRA had done a great job in selecting a fine beer list with beers from all over the UK, including CAMRA GBBF winner Elland 1872 Porter. Three South West brewers had separate bars. St Austell Brewery, as I was there with my day job show casing our beers. I'm really very lucky to get to do that as there is no better selection of ales to represent. The other two brewers were Ramsbury and I've written previously about what great beers they brew and Box Steam, the Wiltshire brewer who also have a fine selection.

Both of the aforementioned brewers have won Champion Beer at Swindon before. Ramsbury with their excellent Silver Pigs Stout and Box Steam with Derail Ale. The latter is a big tasty IPA, full of hops and plenty of citrus, its a very popular style at the moment and Derail is one of the best examples you can get.

However, back to the festival. for me one slight disappointment was not to see local Swindon Regional Brewer Arkells with a brewers bar. They have a new young brewer now in Alex Arkell who I believe is brewing some interesting and different beers and it would have been great to try some of these. Hopefully next year they will attend again. I've known Arkell's beers for many years having grown up around the Swindon area. They would not be favourite beers but I do have a certain fondness for them so hope to enjoy them next year.

Finally, congratulations to Swindon CAMRA for organising another excellent beer festival and also to the venue for hosting such an event.

Weymouth Octoberfest



CAMRA organisers Dave, Russell & Rich.

A recent visit to Weymouth Pavilions for the CAMRA organised Beer Festival (or Octoberfest as its called) turned out to be a excellent couple of days. The pavilion is no longer council run and was due to be demolished, but a community group has now taken over the venue and although the building is run down, its good to see this great facility looks likely to be saved.

The Beer Festival on the other hand has gone from strength to strength. A very well run event by West Dorset CAMRA, it attracts people who are both local and those from further afield. This year the beer list focused on brews from the South West and what a great selection of beers it was too.  Across the UK many smaller craft brewers are brewing some good and interesting beers and its great to see the South West has a fine selection.

However, it was not just great beer that made the festival. Friday evening featured a quiet session, but it was actually a really sociable night with lots of people wanting to talk about the beer selection available. This is the opportunity for people who are genuinely interested in beer to meet and discuss all things beer. I was doing my day job show-casing St Austell ales and there is no better selection of beers to represent and be proud of. Needless to say the St Austell beers were very popular, so much so that Big Job was runner up in the champion beer competition.

Festival goers enjoy the music

The Saturday evening featured two great bands, selected by a local licensee who new their music and they turned out to be great choices. Beer and music go together so well. This year the bands played at the right volume so chatting was still possible. I was able to enjoy the music as the St Austell bar had been drunk dry by 9pm on the Saturday leaving time to sample some delicious beers from competitors!

All told this was a great event and over 4750 pints were consumed. I'd certainly recommend a weekend in Weymouth in early October if you want to enjoy some great beers at a well run festival in a town that's really very welcoming. Congratulations to West Dorset CAMRA and we look forward to 2014.