What’s Brewing, September 2014 – Agony Column

Posted on 12 September 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

I do my best to help the troubled writers to What’s Brewing. (Despite the pic, this is September).

Maybe they don’t receive many letters but once we start getting responses to responses, GH of Bolton that’s you, it suggests a lack of good content (mmm, I’d better get writing).

TJ of Hornchurch suggests we put excise duty and tax on coffee, ‘where people are happy to pay more than £2.50 a cup’. £2.50, yes, but only if it is an Imperial Russian Double Cappucino.

Of course, the great music and beer debate rumbles on. Apparently some people like it and some don’t. End of.

“Craft” demise! The headline must have caused a flutter of heady anticipation amongst many readers. The supermarket shelves have more beers labelled as craft, thank you Greene King. Meanwhile ‘good’ beer is still on the increase led by small microbrewers often producing keg beer.

RH of Cheltenham now wants the address of the brewer on the pumpclips too. His intimate knowledge of chemistry, fluoride adding water companies and the effects on beer make him want to decide accordingly. My advice, drink Budweiser, the sophisticated water treatment plant strips out all ions to produce probably the purest base water for any beer in the UK.

Great British Beer Festival 2014

Posted on 13 August 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

Fancy a soured, single hopped wheat beer or a beer ‘dry hopped’ with cardamom or a hoppy saison with elderflowers or an 11% tarry stout or a nice uncomplicated Berliner Weisse or a pale, sour ale with mesquite smoke that tastes of bacon? All these innovative beers can be found at the Great British Beer Festival…..on the overseas bars. Oh, what a shame, because this type of beer is made in the UK too! But the British beer chosen by CAMRA for the exhibition is with occasional notable exceptions, extremely mainstream.

More to come…

What’s Brewing, August 2014 – Agony Column

Posted on 11 August 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

My helpful advice to the troubled writers to What’s Brewing.

Two magnificent letters entitled “‘Craft’ Threat” this month. KW of Walsall generously says ‘…if micros can improve the quality then that is a good thing but it must never, never [sic] be placed in status alongside cask beer.’ So there we have it Greene King IPA on cask, say, will always have a higher status than, say, a Kernel IPA on keg. That’s a relief.

GR of Tooting, wonders that ‘most customers…will not really care how it is served as long as it tastes good to them’. Heaven forbid we let taste decide!

It’s easy to mock these letters and I haven’t fully explained my position, that’s something for another post. But in brief, I started drinking real ale roundabout the start of CAMRA because of taste. In those days there was no good keg beer, nor good bottled beer (with a couple of notable exceptions), the handpump was the best guarantee of a decent pint. How it was made was always of interest to me but taste was the driver. Three things drive my choice of ‘regular’ beers – taste, locality and I prefer to support smaller companies. I believe CAMRA supported this at the outset and the real ale term was a convenient way to weed out the bad stuff, that’s no longer the case.

London Drinker – June/July

Posted on 31 July 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

Now I like the London Drinker, it’s very CAMRA, low production values and basic artwork but it is a good read with interesting content, and as we all know, content is king. Nevertheless, it does provide a few giggles.

TH writes that young people are asking for dimpled mugs and that these are common in Antic pubs. He then goes on ‘If young people are drinking beer…’, well yes they are TH but you never see them because they are drinking modern beer made in ways that CAMRA does not recognise as real ale.

We learn that GT ‘reacts badly’ to Cascade hops, yet professes to like hoppy beers, though it sounds as though this does not include dry hopping.

The price of a pint rears it’s ugly head when RC visits Tap East (makers of the brilliant Coffee in the Morning) and has to pay £6.80 for a pint of porter. Although he recalls it saying four pint something on the tablet I can only see their Smokestack Porter at 6.5%. Well that’s why they tell you the price before pouring it, and RC declined. Products sell on quality or price or a combination. Without trying it or understanding the ingredients and brewing process it went through I can’t see how he could possibly comment on the price. Pssst RC, don’t go to The Rake! Isn’t it amazing how all these pubs selling expensive, modern, innovative beer are doing so well and the ones selling the same old best bitters at crucial price points are struggling?

BL went to Colombia and discovered the Bogotá Beer Company whose beers ‘were certainly better than the normal ones available in Colombia but they were not a patch on real ale’. That’s a relief then.

On microbreweries you just have to read the whole BO letter and RP rebuttal, this why people turn away from CAMRA (or love it).

MC is confused. ‘I have no interest in going to pubs which only sell beers from microbreweries and having to drink beers I’ve never heard of and no idea what they are like even if they are LocAles. This also applies to some CAMRA beer festivals. In short I want choice’. OK, so that’s a choice of beers that you know what they taste like from large breweries that you have heard of, simples. I’m sure he didn’t mean to imply that the bar staff were unable to tell him what the beer tasted like or too mean to give him a sample.

Ealing, Oxted and Wandsworth Beer Festivals

Posted on 30 July 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

The last three beer festivals I’ve attended are Ealing, Oxted and Wandsworth Common/LBA.

Compare and contrast as my school exams always used to say. Beer festivals, tap takeovers, meet the brewers, there are so many events, which do you choose? In my fair handed, even way, I’d like to say they all have merit, it depends what you like. Continue reading →

What’s Brewing, July 2014 – Agony Column

Posted on 11 July 2014 by Intoxicated Rich

My helpful advice to the troubled writers to What’s Brewing. Now I have to admit, CAMRA have given me much less to play with this month and published some quite sensible letters…

So first of all, hats off to NG of Southport and DS of Chelmsford for the voice of reason.

Now, NW of Needingworth, this is an intriguing thought, beer pricing according to colour could be the way forward. The Irish might disagree of course. But anything that brings down the price of Brooklyn’s Sorachi Ace, witbier and numerous IPA’s can only be a good thing.

RJH of Southport, shout louder! We can’t hear you. Frankly, I’m too busy on my smartphone to pay you any attention anyway. Addressing the chemicals and hops issue, whatever next! Big manufacturers using synthetic ingredients shocker. Get yourself down one of the other 1000 or so small brewers in this country.

BH of Tewkesbury, omg, you have opened a can of worms now! It will surely not have escaped anyone’s notice that the Indian sub-continent is poorly represented at CAMRA events. India alone has 22 official languages. And having joined using your Welsh application form – how many publications are you able to read? (Don’t bother asking if the website has application form or content in Welsh).

Before we start laughing at the Welsh though, let’s note that the modern craft brewer Tiny Rebel picked up gold at the Champion Beer of Wales. Congratulations! All the Tiny Rebel beers I have tried have been excellent. You won’t see a brewer like that winning anything from CAMRA in England or UK wide.

Intoxicated

…by Beer, Brewers and the Brewing Industry

Tag Archives: CAMRA