Monthly Archives: October 2015

Bite Size Reflections on #EBBC15, Belgium and Bloggers

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EBBC15badgeSo the dust settles on another European Beer Bloggers Conference and once again the first place to start is with a massive thanks to all the sponsors and Zephyr Adventures for a brilliant few days of generous hospitality, high quality beers, stimulating discussion and much revelry. It really wouldn’t be possible without them and the conference represents astounding value for money.

Much has been written as a result and a good place to catch up is the Facebook page. For now I’d just like to add some bite size reflections…

Quaint – Before and after the conference I’ve started to follow the sponsor breweries on Twitter, as you do. Several have clearly joined just recently, it’s a long time since I started following a world famous brewer who had only tweeted about 20 times with a few hundred followers. I guess we’ll have to tell them about Facebook soon. Or are we wasting our time? They have been successful enough without it.

They are family

They are family

Family – The Belgian Family Brewers were a major sponsor. They are family, they care. No fast track entry scheme, 50 years it is. They will experiment, they will innovate – but not on you. Once they have got it right, then they will release it. Admirable imho. Some modern breweries make me feel like a guinea pig, they know some stuff won’t work, they don’t know which, are they real brewers?

Heritage – The Belgian Brewers are a more inclusive group as the name suggests but there is still a massive thing about heritage. Although diminished from the numbers in their heyday they know they brew some of the most famous and iconic beers in the world. Why would you want to change that? Belgian traditions and heritage are such that anything new is viewed with healthy suspicion. It might be good but experimental does not necessarily equal good and consistent quality is paramount.

Bloggers – Quite a lot of introspection here. The British blogging scene certainly represents a bit of a love-in sometimes. No surprise when a fair percentage are doing it partly as a reason to get free beer and ‘access all areas’ invitations – and there’s nothing wrong with that. The real writers are a slightly different kettle of wort, but again, there is not much constructive criticism. People trying to make a living (or a ligging) can’t afford to be too critical it seems.

Language – It was taken for granted that the whole conference was conducted solely in English. Yet the non-native speakers (viz, every Belgian brewer for starters) consistently had impeccable colloquial English. Bravo. I am ashamed of myself.

Belgian Beer & Food – Paul Walsh, the editor moderated several of the talks and Brendan Kearney (sorry for the omission of your crazy Irish accents). Proper journalism. Asking probing questions, not stopping until answers were given instead of lapping up the marketing PR along with the free samples. There is a big gap in the UK market for something like this in my humble opinion. If you are travelling to Belgium or just interested in keeping up to date with the Belgian beer scene this mag is indispensible.

Belgian beers – It’s all been said and it’s all good. I feel slightly sorry for Pilsner Urquell, they bought a lovely fresh tank of beer which we didn’t make a big enough dent in – all eager to go exploring and pub crawling Brussels.

Innovation – We saw dry hopped beers, we saw saison in cans, we saw Cantillon in disposable kegs, we saw a brewer encouraging us to blend his beers in the glass, we saw popular old beers that had been revived. We also saw history, tradition and the heritage of some of the world’s great beers, beers that people try to copy everywhere in the world. We didn’t see any experimental brews on sale that hadn’t been fully developed, or brewers with a ‘we’ve brewed it so we might as well sell it’ attitude.

The Wars – Don’t mention them. Older British brewers should feel incredibly lucky that their businesses and breweries and kit were not destroyed by invading armies. Mentioned several times this is clearly a big factor in the reduction of Belgian breweries and the renaissant state of the industry for the last 40 years.

Beer Tourism – Major sponsors included Visit Flanders and other Belgian tourist groups. They know what they’ve got. I’ve never seen any tourist board activity of this sort in the UK. Certainly in Surrey you can’t even get a brown road sign pointing to your brewery.

It’s going to be a hard act to follow.

I’ve sat on these thoughts so long that I’ve forgotten my other incisive comments. The end.

Not the greatest beer festival London has ever seen

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Chutzpah is us

Chutzpah is us

Billed as ‘the greatest beer festival London has ever seen’ you’d never accuse the Craft Beer Co of lacking chutzpah. These guys know how to organise festivals, their Craft100 festivals have featured 100 of the best beers in the country including several rare, special and new releases. In fact it’s been a victim of it’s own success in some ways, the Clapham bar is nowhere near big enough.

So the London Beer Carnival was going to be different. 50 of the best beers from around the world chosen for taste, not marketing considerations (no tittering at the back), unlimited 90ml pours, £50 a ticket, a venue in Waterloo. It had to be done. So imagine my surprise dear reader, when I received an email advising me monies were being refunded. So what went wrong? Who knows? Team Stonch normally have their finger on the pulse but may or may not have missed the mark, though Craft Beer Co’s Martin Hayes left more questions unanswered than answered with his reply.

But never fear, the beer was bought and various events were planned instead. The headline act was ‘Route CBC’ at the Clapham bar featuring the American beers. Now we know rare, strong, artisanal beer does not come cheap but some were £6.50 for a 1/3? In some cases they were not high abv and, according to the check-ins on Untappd, not particularly rare. (I am currently sitting in a Brewdog bar where a De Molen/Fyne 9.5% collab is £4.90 a half and Stone Old Guardian, 11.2% is £4.55 a third). Unlike Craft100 festivals there was no programme, just a menu mentioning name of beer, brewery, abv and price – nothing else. And there was £3 deposit for a glass, why? The bar at the front was operating as normal but also with deposits on glasses.

Some of the beers were great, they were all in good condition, lots of BA goodness. The number of breweries represented curiously low. But hey-ho, there was also the free bus to the Brixton bar where they had the Nordic beers. We cashed in our glasses and headed out front. Sightings of the free bus had been rare (not every 30 mins as per menu), but it did exist. So we had a couple of nice ordinary beers in the front bar – still having to pay a new £3 deposit. Eventually we gave up waiting and took an ordinary bus. Of course we forgot to get our £6 back, it’s so unusual to pay a deposit for a glass when you are sat at a bar for simple half. Halfway to Brixton, sat on the bus I realised this. I could faintly hear the kerching of the CBC accountant’s till and a triumphant ‘gotcha’ ringing in the air.

This was my first time in CBC Brixton, it is small but in a trendy area, the serving area of the bar is particularly small. A nice bar on a normal night, this wasn’t. First impression was a relief to see normal prices, most were under £3 a third. Regrettably the beers were exceptionally normal too, this was a poor showcase for the Nordic lands.

Intrepid is our middle name at Team Intoxicated. We could still make it to Leather Lane in the City for the German and Polish beers. The evening took an upturn with the arrival of a Scotch egg and the militant wing of Bexley CAMRA but otherwise more dreary beer, not even a menu here as far as we could see.

On the Sunday there was an uninspiring list of Irish and Italian beers to coincide with the rugby. Then a week later Covent Garden CBC had some of the Route CBC beers with new additions. The Intoxicated litigation fund being what it is, I will not call them the dregs.

What a letdown. The more so because of the previous great beers at Craft100 festivals. So what went wrong? Staffing issue, low ticket sales, some weird H&S concern? I would suspect that craft beer bubble has reached an optimum size, it hasn’t burst. There are a lot of people who really enjoy a beer festival where they will pay a fiver a pop for half a dozen premium halves (or more). But the thought of sticking up £50 in advance is a different matter, one that appeals to a limited audience – indeed if the beer list was the same as we saw at the events above even I would have felt short changed. And nobody likes ticking a box (or getting a badge) as much as me.

Craft Beer Co competes in the London market with Brewdog, Draft House and Barworks. To my mind, despite being a ‘family firm’, they are the most achingly hip. As a beer salesman they are the most difficult to engage with. Their beer selection is certainly no better than Barworks or Brewdog. The vibe is cooler in Barworks, more laid back in Draft House. Brewdog service and knowledgeability is, I hate to say, the best.

Without doubt though, CBC have the worst toilets. Now, when I was young drinking gallons of cheap session bitter in spit and sawdust pubs this didn’t matter. Now I am in my dotage and drinking premium beer at a premium price I expect a premium sanitary experience as well.

Have CBC got a bit up themselves and not noticed the trends? Is the firm run by accountants, not beer lovers? Did you enjoy the events? Have I got it wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time.