Observations – Page 10 – Beer Tinted Spectacles

The thorny issue of ‘craft’

Over a quiet beer or two, I have been wrestling with a dilemma. Actually, no, that’s not right, as a dilemma is something you can’t satisfactorily resolve. Rather, a thorny issue: when is craft craft or not craft? To stretch it further, are big brewers who sell ‘craft’ beer simply responding well to the drinker trends in the market, or are they being just plain crafty?

The Motley Fool (www.fool.co.uk) – a network of bloggers offering advice and gossip on companies and share performance – recently penned an article on US craft beer sales. It made for interesting reading: although craft beer is only 6% of the market place, they are growing strongly, up 14% in the last year according the American Brewers’ Association – in an overall market where per capita consumption is declining. Interestingly, the big brewers’ performance within this was marked. Miller Coors’ Blue Moon brand grew by 50% between 2009 and 2011, and Leinenkugel’s grew by 20%. Anheuser Busch is also a player. They have bought Goose Island and also launched their own craft brand, Shock Top, the latter growing 70% year to date*. In comparison, more established players – the genuine craft brewers it is argued – are growing much more slowly.

We drank Shock Top Raspberry Wheat in the Salty Dog in Sarasota – with no idea it was an ABI beer. Inspired marketing or a confidence trick?

There are two really interesting dynamics going on here.

First, that there is a debate going on about ‘craft’ at all. Big companies get big for a whole host of reasons – luck, daring acquisitions, market expansion, exploitation… and brand building skill. If they spot an opportunity to sell brands to drinkers, they’ll do it, and endeavour to do it with scale. As far as I’m concerned, if a drinker is happy that a beer is a craft beer, then whether we agree on principle or not becomes purely academic: it is. Get over it, and start competing.

Second is the debate about what constitutes craft? The answers are invariably couched in a hotchpotch of measures: volume brewed; use of adjuncts purely for taste, independence. This is missing the point – a point bigger than beer. What manifests itself in beer as ‘craft’, is a slew of market trends impacting right across food and drink products: national, regional, local, provenance, authenticity, passionate producers, natural ingredients, interesting tastes & textures, original recipes – I could go on. It’s popping up in tea, coffee, wines & spirits, across all foods from fresh meat and veg to ready meals and snack foods.

So what’s the connection? These trends are tapping into our desire to emotionally connect in some way to our roots – however we define them as individuals. This could show itself as national pride or local knowledge; it can show itself as truly authentic or re-interpreting the past, but importantly it doesn’t define itself by scale. Look at Rachel’s Organic or Yeo Valley – organic, touchy-feely, yes. Niche – no. Or Tyrell’s Crisps, Red Sky or Kettle Chips. Made from potatoes (not substitutes), interesting natural flavours, lovingly fried in kettles, yes. Niche – no. Or Sam Adams, Blue Moon, London Pride, Doom Bar – interesting, unusual, brewed with care? Of course. Niche – no.

It’s good news all round for brewers, but as it’s about more than just the beer – it’s great news for brewers great and small.

*Clearly, that’s in the year to the date of their earnings release, not the year to date this year. Mind you, January sales up 70% would be no mean feat.

Am I missing something?

This Saturday morning just gone, my copy of ‘Beer’ dropped on to the door mat, and due to rigourously enforced exclusion zones, didn’t get shredded by the dog. I like ‘Beer’, and clearly others do too – Pete Brown finally joined CAMRA last year because it’s the only decent magazine available on the topic on these shores.

But it was ‘What’s Brewing’ tthat accompanied it that struck me most. ‘Triumphalism’ is too strong – but it’s not far off. The front page: ‘Growing Cask Ale Sales Inspire Confidence’; page 5, an ad for SIBA Beer X, ‘British beer is thriving as never before’… it’s a vein that’s been showing through the skin more and more in recent months. There’s a warm glow emanating off brewers and cask drinkers up and down the line.

It’s like Railway Mania all over again. Look at the facts, if you will. One: the UK economy has been flat lining – going into the sixth consecutive year. Two: beer sales are down. Hellooo? Anyone here me? Down. The on trade was down 5% in the run up to Christmas and it’s accelerating as the annual figure is 3%. Three: it’s because we’re all drinking at home, right? Wrong. The off trade was down 7.5% in the last 3 months of 2012 and almost 5% in the full year. Four: in the last 10 years, the UK beer market has declined by, wait for it, 23%. Twenty Three Per Cent. Five: there are now over 1000 craft brewers in the UK. Six: yet cask beer remains in decline by 2.5% (better in the run up to Christmas 2012 – only down 1.5%)

I draw three conclusions from this:

a) Now is not the time to be opening a new brewery if you have any ambition of scale. The honeymoon but will be lovely but give it a year or two and you’ll be struggling for sales.

b) Behaviour has changed. Beer is no longer recession proof because it’s no longer the default thing we do when we socialise. Breweries need to face the new – repertoire – reality.

c) I intend to enjoy as many interesting beers up and down the land before the next round of consolidation.

So am I? Am I missing something?

*Thanks to Chris at Ashdale Business Consulting for the up to date figures – forgive me Chris if I have used them rather imprecisely, I know what you’re like for your decimal points (www.ashdale-consulting.com)

©Beer Tinted Spectacles, January 2013

The pub. Where next?

So Vince Cable is finally going to do something. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like the man. Through prescient knowledge or serendipity, he was one of the few voices of sense as the banking crisis hit and the world plunged into what seems to be a generational recession. And his Ballroom isn’t bad. But he seems to be a provoker – someone who critiques, and does so ably, but seems less comfortable when it comes to having to make decisions. Years in opposition, perhaps.

But now he is going to clamp down on some of the nefarious practises of the pub cos. And about time too. I once sat in a pub in the Lake District chatting to a two brothers about their respective businesses. One was a pub manager. He could survive, just, complaining that whilst he could buy the brewery’s beer from a wholesaler cheaper, overall he didn’t get a bad deal on rent and the brewery looked after the pub. Not so for the Licensee (or Lessee) – he had a pub owned by one of the big PubCos and was on his knees. He broke his back building the business up and his reward for increasing turnover? Higher rent – significantly higher rent. His beer was even more expensive that the Managed Pub and the PubCo had installed a system to stop him from ‘buying out’ (buying from suppliers other than the PubCo). On some bottled brands, they even had PubCo specific labels so the local management could spot if he’d bought his Bud from Tesco or whereever. The same in my village – still blessed with 5 pubs but one, the jewel in the crown until recently stood empty and decaying precisely because the entrepreneurial couple who had built it up got screwed over by the pub company with ridiculous rent rises (and in fact, in recent weeks, a second one, from a different company stands empty for a similar reason).

Look, Beer Tinted isn’t Rose Tinted about this. My firm belief is that a smaller pub ‘universe’ in the UK will be a good thing. We can’t ignore the fact that the way we spend our lives and social time is changing. We can’t ignore the fact that whilst 100 years ago, people wanted to escape their homes, today they don’t. Today, in the main, our houses are comfy, warm, have entertainment, feature indoor toilets and running water. The night soil man no longer has to call. We take it for granted how much we have moved on in a staggeringly short time.

Yet it doesn’t mean that our pubs deserve the behaviour of many of the PubCos. In fact, most are not pub co’s at all. They’re property companies and when the balloon was inflating they were raking it in, but now it’s popped. The sure knowledge that they could run a crap pub but still pay a healthy dividend has gone too – thank goodness. The b’stards now need to work for their money and I for one only hope that Mr Cable’s reforms enshrine the law in favour of the free house. Of course, just like the Beer Orders, there will be unintended consequences for the intellectually swift and action orientated business type, but at least we’ll get Pub Companies and Publicans who care about their Public.

Leftovers

As sure as Autumn passing to Winter; as sure as repeats of TheTwo Ronnies or Morecambe and Wise, as sure in fact as Eggnogs is Eggnogs, Christmas is here again, and with it the routines of our Festive Period. Anticipation; excitement (and not just for the children); lie-ins (well, a bit); the decorations gradually getting more irritating by the day; so many presents that they bring on a spurt of generosity of spirit that has you giving to the Charity appeals on the TV; adverts for DFS, holiday cottage brochures landing on your door mat, copious amounts of food, and food that’s far too rich at that, and with it, like a sinister shadow of gluttony, leftovers.

Cooking in the Tinted household is never easy. A lifelong carnivore partnered to a virtually lifelong vegetarian; an elder child with a penchant to nibble on the cooked carcass of dead flesh once carved, whilst the other revolted by it. This means more leftovers, as multiple meals must be cooked. Then there’s the visitors, before and after the Day itself, and often long after the ‘safe leftover period’ (SLP), that critical timeframe after which you know in your Heart that you shouldn’t really give your them the remains of the Ham or the salmon or the Roasties, and you’re not convinced that cold white sauce goes that well with mini sausage rolls anyway.

This year, I decided to deal with leftovers of a different kind. The strays; the bottles that, for whatever reason, got away, escaped consumption. For some, this is an unknown phenomenon. Alas, this is not the case for me. Call it fashion, call it tastes, sometimes I just get locked into a beer or a beer style and struggle to pull myself away; other times, it’s the taste that has left them on the shelf. And occasionally – rarely – there is the forgotten stash as was the case with this year’s first Leftover, from Sharps in Cornwall. Chalky’s Bite, a beer whose task it was as it says on the bottle blurb, ‘to create an English beer with the character, individuality and quality to stand along the Belgian greats’. This prompts a number of questions, firstly, if it’s designed to be that good, why the heck is there any left, and secondly, woah! Taking on a beer is OK, but taking on all of Belgium’s finest is a bold – and erroneous – claim, surely? I mean, where do you start? Are we talking Lambics; brown ales, sour red ales, Trappist…? Goal posts are useful, but not necessarily when they are larger than the pitch and moving. But the first question – ah, yes, a hidden stash? I’m lucky enough to have a cellar in my house (it was, to use the marketing parlance) the ‘tiebreaker’ when deciding to buy a house that was at the time, ‘delapidated’ (thanks Dad, for that confidence boosting assessment). Talk about getting your priorities wrong – whilstthere was no boundary in place between our house and the next door neighbour, whilst the old coach house at the back was structurally questionable, and whilst the drive flooded with even the merest drizzle, the previous occupants decided instead to paint every room à la Changing Rooms. This, rather bizarrely, included painting the cellar in bold Adobe shades, inspired by the rustic hues of the native pueblo Indians of America’s Old West. In Staffordshire. The other rooms were far worse, but they were dealt with rapidly. The cellar to this day on the other hand, transports me to the Mesas and Buttes of Arizona. But it’s damn fine for storing beer, wine, and books. An even temperature all year round. It is, in short, the perfect Man Cave.

And it was here, tucked away between the rather empty looking wine rack, an old toaster and the deep freeze, that there lurked a partly broached case of Chalky’s Bite. It was dated November 2012, but at 6.8% and bottle conditioned, that meant nothing. Particularly as the beer has apparently been matured for 3 months, so another 8 weeks won’t harm. I released the case from its jail and prepared the bottles for potation. The first thing that struck me for a beer brewed with Wild Cornish Fennel was… well, the lack of fennel. The other Sharp’s / Rick Stein beer – Chalky’s Bark – has ginger in it (Wild Cornish Ginger??) and whilst it isn’t strong it’s clearly there. In this beer, the fennel seems to be more in the aroma – which frankly, is still slight – and also the texture, the mouthfeel. There’s definitely a smooth, enveloping richness which the fennel seems to contribute to. It’s also deceptively drinkable – a surprising light colour, I’d say a bright honey mustard would be about there, a decent crème fraiche coloured head and a taste that doesn’t drink it’s 6.8%. Perhaps a touch of extra aging has assisted in this regard. Certainly, I’ll be doing a spring clean of the cellar to find more.

There was another Molson Coors beer, in fact two of the same from their Worthington’s Brewery on the National Museum site, slumbering down there as well – Red Shield. One was new carrying the new (‘old’) design which is pleasingly retro, and the other, that inspired by the old ‘copy heavy’ White Shield design. So again, probably a year between them and it would be interesting to compare the two. Alas, both were disappointing. For a beer with a moderate and moreish alcohol content, and a good dose of Bramling Cross hop, it promises much. But the palate (in bottle form, I haven’t had draught for a while) is dominated by the Worthington’s yeast, with a tinny metallicness which unhinges its drinkability. Bramling Cross should give properties of many of the enticing US hops, but sadly they are not generously given here.

Hoegaarden Grand Cru was next; there were only two, mislaid as I had laid them down in a wine rack. I’m not sure why I did this at the time – no corks to keep moist here, but equally no adverse effect either. It’s a funny one Grand Cru; I certainly expect more of it, perhaps desiring greater difference with Hoegaarden itself, yet I always feel it’s an EPO fuelled version. Dresses the same; looks the same in the glass and is clearly a very similar beer….just, performs better. In fact, perhaps it’s more like Team Sky’s performance methodology, Grand Cru shows marginal gains across the piece – a thicker, creamier head with greater longevity, a denser body yet still with a that, almost orange shimmering, hue. And more cloves, more curacao orange character, more bananary esters. Actually, no. It’s been doping. It’s the Lance Armstrong of beers – impressive, award winning, yet somehow with the suspicion lurking that something behind the scenes isn’t quite right. Mind you, I had that second.

A couple of cans of out of date Bass and unbelievably John Smith’s, which didn’t make the cut and are now on slug prevention duty in the back garden. Yet the exercise was enough to have me thinking ahead…planning next Christmas and in particular, the leftovers.

At Lowlander

London’s Drury Lane is famous for its theatres of course. The Theatre Royal, The New London, all in their time have witnessed the great and good of thespianism grace their boards. Up at the top end, towards High Holborn, are the interesting sights though. Narrow buildings made from small blackened-buff handmade bricks, with that vertiginous sense of perspective as your eye tracks them upwards. Here, strangely enough, was the original Sainsbury’s store, and here too, inspired perhaps by the visual echoes of Amsterdam, is Lowlander.

It’s a favourite bar of mine. Inspired by a Brussels Grande Café, every attempt has been made to authentically reproduce and convey that feel. From the long bar with the wide aperture beer taps with glass washers below; to the enamel wall plaques advertising and celebrating some of the glotally tongue-twisting brands like Delirium Tremens, Echt Kriekenbier and Trippel Karmeliet; to the reverential alter of glassware behind the bar, celestially lit and tempting you to order one of the bottles to fill them: Westmalle, Trappiste Rochefort, Rodenbach Grande Cru. And the tables: I’m just a sucker for these long tables, forcing you to sit next to a stranger; inviting you – threatening you perhaps – to strike up a new dialogue or forcing a little smile as you observe groups play out the unspoken dance of rule-finding around who can invade personal space and to what level.

Perhaps Drury Lane is the right location: because ultimately it’s all a faҫade – authentically fake if you will. But as I refamiliarised myself with a smooth De Koninck last night, I was transported, albeit momentarily, to a real homeland of beer, and was all the happier for it.