Perhaps The Twain

The Pub Curmudgeon has written a good post 'Never The Twain' on his blog comparing cask beer to craft, and pointing out that many handcrafted real ales could be justifiably called craft. While he's correct, it's an argument that's probably been lost because popular linguistic usage isn't always logical - for example, did you know that 'flammable' and 'inflammable' mean exactly the same thing?

In October 2012, I was able to write about craft:

I don't have a problem with the existence of craft beer, including keg, and wouldn't refuse to try it, if I knew anywhere I could buy it, but the nearest place I'm aware of is in Manchester, 40 miles away.

There were probably closer places that I didn't know about, but the point that craft wasn't generally available was correct at the time. However, such days are long gone and it is now commonplace. In the spirit of experimenting I have tried a few and, as I've previously written, have found that some have been well brewed and have a good flavour. The main difference concerns the method of dispense, and drinking craft is to me like drinking bottled beers, which is something I might do at home or at a party. In the pub I simply prefer real ale. 

When writing about pubs for the weekly CAMRA column in our local papers, I'll always mention craft beers if they're on sale; I have been writing these for more than three years now and none of our local 800 members have ever complained about it, which tends to counter the 'stick-in-the-mud' accusations against the campaign. Indeed, some CAMRA festivals have even been putting on a craft bar.

I know some drinkers who happily drink both styles regularly, and I expect that tendency will increase as the original craft drinkers grow older and the subsequent generations of beer drinkers simply see handpumps, craft fonts and bottles as normal components of pub or bar scenery - not as defining their personal identity. If I'm right, then 'Never The Twain' will become history.

Today I don't detect the hostility between vociferous cask and craft advocates that I certainly used to see on some blogs and websites, in the risible antics of BrewDog, and in the letters page of 'What's Brewing', the CAMRA newspaper - but, oddly enough, didn't tend to encounter in the real world.

Browned off

Squaring up for a fight

Occasionally you read an article and you not only disagree with the conclusions, but you also dispute all the premises upon which they are based. In other words, you think: what planet is this person on? So it was with this report in the Morning Advertiser of a speech by Pete Brown at the GBBF about the relationship between craft beer and real ale.

Personally I am bored to death with this issue, which really only vexes people who spend too much time in the world of beer (yes, I did actually write those words), but if we are going to discuss it, let's not set up fake arguments to inform our conclusions.

He asserted that some people claim 'craft beer' is a marketing term with no relevance. Really? I've never heard that in any conversation I've been involved in. It is certainly not something real ale drinkers on the ground are likely to say - only industry insiders, by which I include beer journalists such as Pete Brown.

The article then goes on to assert that "[Pete Brown] then ... shut down real ale fanatics’ defence that the brew only came in kegs and craft beer was just sold in bottles or cans." It's not clear whether the heavily loaded term 'fanatic' is Pete Brown's term or the Morning Advertiser's, but such language is uncompromising and certainly not suggestive of being open to discussion and debate. More relevantly, I have never heard anyone make such an assertion, not have I read it in anything written by a lover of real ale. I get the impression that real ale drinkers are fully aware that craft beer comes on tap as well as cans and bottles, so I regard the premise behind the conclusion to be flawed. I have heard the perfectly sensible argument that the term craft beer can be applied to some real ales. Not all, of course: no one would seriously describe cask versions of Tetley Bitter or Greene King IPA as craft.

We real ale drinkers are apparently are hostile to craft because, he asserts, of its American origin. Again, not an argument I've ever heard expressed. I am fully aware that some real ale drinkers regard craft as the new keg, and it is not entirely unreasonable for drinkers who remember with a shudder beers such as Double Diamond, Trophy and Red Barrel to be extremely wary of what they judge to be the attempted rehabilitation of something they utterly loathed. They had good reason: real ale was insidiously being replaced by keg in the 1960s and 1970s, even to the extent of getting rid of handpumps so that you couldn't tell whether a beer was real or not until it was served. I was a student for four years in the Warrington area, then a town with three breweries, and we knew of only one pub that had handpumps; what real ale there was almost always came through electric pumps that were identical to those used for keg. Pete Brown came of drinking age in 1986 and the microbrewery revolution took off while he was still in his twenties, so he cannot fully appreciate why the term 'keg' is a such dirty word for many more experienced drinkers.

He asserts that Americans don’t discount real ale as "boring and British", and that the contrary is the case. I've not heard anyone assert that Americans do think that, but I have read British craft beer aficionados make exactly that point about real ale, so perhaps he should direct some of his criticisms in their direction. In the CAMRA circles I move in, craft is rarely mentioned: there isn't a real ale Taliban at work determined to root out all deviance from the path of real ale purity. When it is mentioned, it is more along the lines of "Fine if people want it, but not for me", which is pretty much my attitude. It seems to me that it's only people in the bubble of the industry and beer journalism who see a significant schism between true believers and heretics. They're too close to the subject - or perhaps like rock journalists in the late 1970s who all converted to punk overnight, decrying the Genesis albums they'd been praising 6 months earlier, they're anxious not to appear old fashioned and fuddy-duddy.

If Pete Brown was trying build bridges, he hasn't succeeded, but having come across his antipathy to CAMRA types previously (even though he actually joined in 2012), I'm not sure he was trying to. In general, I detect a certain impatience that some of us refuse to be persuaded by the arguments of those who regard themselves as experts. They seem to forget that customers can spend their own money on what they like, and if they don't wish to buy craft beer, they don't have to. Drinking beer - whatever form it takes - is meant to be a pleasure: it is not an evangelistic duty, nor ultimately is there any right or wrong. In my local which sometimes has up to 11 real ales, there are plenty of drinkers who choose lager or John Smiths Smooth. I would never berate them - it's what they want, after all - so why should we real ale drinkers be criticised for our choices?

Ignorant people would probably regard me as a real ale fanatic, because cask real ale is the only beer I really enjoy, but they'd be wrong because my preference is driven by my taste buds, not dogma. Even real ale in a bottle isn't to me as good as draught. I have tried craft beer a number of times, out of curiosity as much as anything else. I wrote in June last year about the Pied Bull, a brewpub in Chester: "They're also brewing their own craft beer of which they gave me a sample, which I found quite heavily hopped. Not my bag, but not too bad at all." To be more specific, I found it full of flavour, but as the half pint went down I could increasingly detect the carbonation. My few experiences of craft have led me to conclude that if I were in a social situation where such a beer was all that was available, I'd find it more than tolerable. However, I'd still prefer real ale.

Cheers!

Some other beer bloggers have broader tastes than I do: both Tandleman and the Pub Curmudgeon have written about having enjoyed a pint of lager in certain circumstances, whereas the last time I drank a pint of keg lager was more than a quarter of a century ago when my line manager bought me one in error. Before that was in the 1970s, but that's through personal preference rather than some fundamentalist principle. Each to their own.

I also like tea and drink quite a lot of it. I occasionally drink coffee. Personal choice, not tea fanaticism.

Craft keg fans - look away now!

An extract from a recent CAMRA press release:

New research released to mark the launch of CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide 2015 shows that over a third of young people aged 18-24 have tried real ale and of those 87% would drink it again. The book’s publisher CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, say that interest in real ale is increasing year on year and more young people are being attracted to the joys of Britain’s national drink.

...

 The research also shows that new real ale drinkers are far more likely to be in this 18-24 age bracket. 65% of 18-24s tried real ale for the first time within the last three years, compared to 11% across all ages. So it is clear that real ale is not only attracting new drinkers – as one in ten real ale drinkers tried it in the last three years – but these new recruits are far more likely to be young.

This is curious, because it means that certain beer bloggers who present their own opinions about beer as though they were incontrovertible facts seem to have got it completely wrong. So often I have read on various blogs that real ale is a drink with an ageing customer base, only served in grotty spit-and-sawdust pubs to men with Capstan Full Strength hacking coughs, cloth caps and whippets. Instead, the future of beer is grossly overpriced craft keg supped by the fashionistas of the alcohol world in bars designed to look as little like pubs as possible. Ignore the fact that such beer is still scarce and hard to find - unlike real ale which is now sold in more than 50% of pubs - this, we are told, will leave us boring old stick-in-the-muds behind until the Grim Reaper has disposed of the last of us.

Except for that embarrassing piece of research. Unusually, I agree with Roger Protz who said, "That old stereotype of real ale drinkers being in their dotage never was true, but now it’s dead and buried."

I have no doubt this research will be dismissed by CAMRA detractors for no better reason than it was commissioned by the Campaign. I look forward to reading any research they can produce to the contrary.

Having said all that, there is no room for complacency - I'm not like the CAMRA regional director from London who claimed we've won the war for real ale. The situation is never static, new drinkers reach 18 every day, tastes can change and - it is true - as drinkers get older, quite often they don't drink as much as they used to. Add to that the expensive marketing that tries to lure young drinkers in any direction except towards real ale, and it becomes clear that CAMRA's work is by no means complete. Nevertheless, that research is encouraging.

The great craft beer "debate"

Definition of craft from my Cambridge dictionary: "(a job or activity needing) skill and experience, especially in relation to making objects."

Most beer drinkers won't have noticed because they've got better things to do, but in the extremes of the beer drinking world, there are snooty, superior beings who consider they are discerning iconoclasts: they drink craft beer. What is craft beer? Basically, posh keg.

My view is: fine - whatever turns you on. But that's not good enough for these beer snobs - they want the Campaign for Real Ale to embrace these new keg styles, or (they keep on saying), it will be left behind, and become an outdated irrelevance. Some write about this in a carefully cultivated "more in sorrow than in anger" manner, while others shower unrestrained abuse upon CAMRA and its members. You'd think it was an organisation of devil worshippers sacrificing virgins - in beards, sandals and Arran sweaters, of course - rather than a collection of quite disparate beer drinkers with only one thing in common: they all like real ale.

Definition of craft keg: well, there isn't one. Hard to rally to this particular cause, then: "What do we want?" "Not quite sure." But individual lovers of craft beer each know what they mean by the term. Then you have another "debate" as to whether real ale can be craft, with opinions going both ways.

The issue has arisen because some new breweries have decided to follow the American example and brew quality beer to put it in kegs. The main reason why American brewers do this is because they don't have an ongoing tradition of serving beer in real form after the Prohibition wiped out most old American beer styles; it wasn't a deliberate rejection of cask beer. Scottish brewery BrewDog produce only keg beer now, and Hardknott, Meantime and Thornbridge are some of the breweries producing the new keg beer alongside real ale. The beer is often sold in modern bars at inflated prices, but that doesn't matter because craft drinkers love to pay over the odds to show how discerning they are.

Looking again at the definition of craft at the top of the page, it's clear that real ale can't be excluded. Some craft drinkers argue that the term should apply to small, artisanal breweries, which ignores the fact that the term "craft brewer" was coined by the American Brewers Association, who define it as a brewery producing up to 6 million barrels of beer per year! And as one wag pointed out, artisanal is a good term because it breaks down into art is anal.

The craft drinkers yearn for a definition they can all rally around, ignoring the fact that, with no broad agreement, there'd immediately be a load of dissenters muttering terms like sell-out. Real ale has a definition that is not only in the dictionaries but has the backing of law, but there can never be a craft beer equivalent because there is no consensus as to what it is. To be fair, though, I'd bet most people who drink it don't give a stuff about a definition, don't ever go near a blog, and never give a thought to CAMRA policies or what real ale drinkers prefer. It is, after all, a beer style, not a movement, but you'd never know that from the way some people write about it.

Is there anything in their predictions, such as CAMRA going into decline? Membership is increasing year after year; a lot of organisations would welcome that type of decline. Craft is the beer of the future? Real ale is the only sector of the beer market showing any increase in market share, and it now outsells keg, craft or otherwise.

I don't have a problem with the existence of craft beer, including keg, and wouldn't refuse to try it, if I knew anywhere I could buy it, but the nearest place I'm aware of is in Manchester, 40 miles away. I become very annoyed when craft drinkers start telling the Campaign for Real Ale (clue in the name, chaps) that it should embrace a style that most of its members don't want, as proved by repeated democratic votes at its national AGM. Either form your own organisation - after all, CAMRA began with just four men in a pub - or join CAMRA, get active and try to change the system from within. But, for heaven's sake, just stop whingeing on blogs.  

Tandleman has posted quite sensibly on this subject, but some of the comments below his post are bizarre, while Meer For Beer decided that this disagreement wasn't one she wanted to engage in. I don't blame her.

Perhaps with me, it's fools rush in ...

Move aside CAMRA

It's dangerous to begin reading too many beer blogs - I try to keep my intake to around four units a day - because you sometimes read some outrageous rubbish that you feel you have to respond to, but then a quiet voice at the back of my mind will say, "Leave them, Nev, they're not worth it!"  Mind you, I don't always take notice.

My friend Tandleman wrote a cheery post that it's the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) next week and let's all have a good time (you can read what he wrote here).  A simple enough suggestion, you'd think, but no:  controversy raged in the comments below his post that CAMRA was stifling innovation in the beer world, that the Campaign should embrace "alternative methods of dispense" (a euphemism for keg), and whether the withdrawal of egomaniac Scottish brewery Brewdog from the GBBF was CAMRA's fault or the brewery's.  Who cares?  As I wrote myself, some beer bloggers certainly know how to party!

I've written about Brewdog and the craft keg debate before, but there was a novelty in this selection of rantings:  Tandleman pointed out a bizarre suggestion that "the GBBF is outgrowing CAMRA & their approach. Is it time someone else organised this countries [sic] flagship beer festival? I think so."  Tandleman wiped the floor with that stupid comment, pointing out that the GBBF is CAMRA's, not the country's, and it would be difficult for anyone else to organise a festival on such a scale without the army of volunteers that CAMRA can call on - he said a lot more, but you can click on the link above if you'd like to read it.

Another stupid comment was that as it's the Great British BEER Festival, CAMRA should not be selling ciders and perries, and as CAMRA promotes real ale, there should be no continental beers.  Well, as it happens, I was outraged the other week when I went into a café and discovered as well as coffee, they also served tea.  Even more damning, they even sold food.  Don't they know the word café means coffee?

In case anyone thinks there is a sensible point to be answered here:

• CAMRA has since its early days supported real ciders and perries because they are traditional British drinks which have been even more at risk than real ale.  I expect the reason why they're not included in the name CAMRA is because CAMRACAP is a bit of a mouthful, but they are clearly written into in CAMRA's aims.
• Continental beers, although they often do not conform to CAMRA's definition for British beers, are served at CAMRA festivals in a manner appropriate to their own traditions.  After all, that's all CAMRA wants for British beer:  that it be served in accordance with our beer traditions.  It is not inconsistent to respect other traditional styles.

As for all those who say CAMRA should do this, or shouldn't do that (usually not members), they misunderstand what CAMRA is:  a campaign whose policies are decided by its members, and not by certain embittered beer bloggers, of whom a few admit they rarely or never go to pubs, preferring to sup their supermarket selections of bottled beers in their own living room.  I have no problem with people enjoying a beer at home, but when that's all you do, you've reduced beer to a private pleasure, like eating a box of chocolates while watching TV.  To me, beer is not an end in itself, but is a part of my social life - quite a big part, I'd agree, but a part nonetheless.  I rarely drink beer at home.

Most beer bloggers are fine; I enjoy reading what they write, and I sometimes chuck in my own two penn'orth.  Disagreements can be fine too.  I suppose that some of the simmering rage that occasionally shows among a noisy, aggressive minority is because they know that, whatever they blog about, it won't make the slightest bit of difference to CAMRA, or the world of beer in general.  Having spent years involved in a trade union and a political party, I've learnt to accept that it's no good merely ranting about how things should be.  Either you get involved to try to change things, or you don't bore others with your impotent frustrations - in other words, put up or shut up.  Besides, don't you know that beer's supposed to be fun?

Blogs can be interesting, and there are quite a few links on the right to a variety of blogs:  the Pub Curmudgeon has three categories of blogs among his links, one of which is headed:  Beer and pub blogs (may contain nuts).  And yes, that's where he's put me!

I'm not going to the GBBF this year, but if you are, I hope you enjoy yourself - and just ignore the nitpickers and hair splitters, but if they're at home supping their bottles, I don't suppose you'll come across them.  Cheers!

Drink to me only with thine eyes

An American study has shown that people said they preferred a glass of wine that they were told came from Italy over one that came from India, when they both came from the same bottle.  Similarly, they preferred chocolates supposedly from Switzerland over ones from China, when they in fact came from the same supermarket brand.  The full story is here.  We know that people will knowingly buy counterfeit goods and pretend they are the originals, but this goes much further - people detect differences that don't exist because their preconceptions, or prejudices, tell them one product is better than another. 

I wonder how far this applies to beer.  Judging by how some people write on the subject, probably quite a lot.  We have now moved beyond the realms of the real ale snob:  some real ale drinkers blithely dismiss what they call brown beer, meaning I suppose traditional bitters; some condemn many of the products of micro-breweries as being poor quality beers produced by hobbyists rather than serious brewers; some won't have anything to do with the old regional brewers; and some declare that the big brewers are incapable of producing anything worth drinking.  I'm oversimplifying for illustrative purposes, but I'm sure you get the general point.

There is some truth in all of these opinions, because the quality of products across brewers will obviously vary; the mistake is to generalise from them.  The current buzz word is 'craft', an undefined term imported from the USA, which is really quite meaningless in the British ale context, but is employed to imply a level of discernment:  if it's a craft product, it's good, but as far as I can see, we are simply replacing one set of assumptions and generalisations by another.  The problem with using undefined terms is that there is nothing to stop anyone from using them.  The term 'real ale' was invented and defined precisely by CAMRA and is now accepted to the extent that it's in most modern dictionaries; any brewer who described a beer as real ale when it wasn't could be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act.  This is not so with the term 'craft beer', which is often used to describe the new style of keg (which I wrote about in March - here if you're interested), and I can see nothing to stop Tetley's or John Smith's describing their beers thus, even their smoothflows.  Certain craft keg fanatics are so evangelical that they condemn CAMRA for not supporting the style, one which is almost certainly undefinable and is excluded by the very name of CAMRA. 

To me, all of these people, those who nitpick about real ales and those who advocate craft keg - whatever that is - remind me of those who took part in that wine and chocolate study that I opened this post with.  They like to draw lines and say, "This is what I like".  We all like boundaries; they make things easier to understand and defining what you do and don't approve of so much simpler.  However, if you go too far down that path, like the wine and chocolate people, there is a real chance that what you taste may be influenced by what you see, or what you've read on the pump clip or bottle label.

Most drinkers would probably agree with the statement that you should drink with your taste buds rather than your eyes, but I'm certain from what I've read that many do quite the opposite.  Well, that's their loss.

Is keg beer the new cask?

A debate is taking place on certain beer blogs, but not in my experience in the real world among pub goers, about something called craft keg.  It has spilled over into What's Brewing, CAMRA's newspaper, with an article in the current issue by Roger Protz; I've reproduced it below because I can't find a link on-line to direct you to it.  A small number of craft brewers with their blogging fan clubs are in favour of this new type of keg beer, and they tell us it's far better than the awful keg beers that caused CAMRA to be launched in the first place, and superior to the smoothflow ales that adorn most bars nowadays.  I have absolutely no problem with craft keg - no interest, but no problem either.  I might try a glass if I ever find it in a pub, but I haven't so far and, as I've visited at least 15 pubs this month alone in 5 different towns, if it's the next big thing, how come I can't find it anywhere?

Be that as it may, I think Roger Protz, with whom I don't always agree (we were on opposite sides of a debate at the CAMRA AGM a couple of years ago), has got it absolutely right.  I vividly recall the beer scene in the early 1970s, the time I began going to pubs, and it was just as he describes it.  CAMRA does what it says on the tin - it campaigns for real ale, and to whinge that it doesn't embrace craft keg is like complaining that the Cats Protection League doesn't save dogs.  If the craft keg fans find CAMRA doesn't satisfy their beer campaigning requirements, why don't they just go and start their own campaign?  That's not pie in the sky: CAMRA was founded by four blokes in a pub 40 years ago this month, but I expect that sounds too much like hard work, so they'd prefer to gatecrash someone else's campaign and pervert it to their own purposes.  Here's what Roger wrote: