Clarity from SIBA

Last week was the SIBA AGM, in a week that was already very busy, we managed to squeeze in a day a Stratford to attend.

Moor Beer Company put forward a motion regarding unfined beer. I was keen to support Justin.

1. That SIBA recognises that historic beer styles and modern beer drinkers do not ALL require clarity in beer.
2. That SIBA removes clarity as a requirement for beer competitions.
3. That SIBA proactively markets to and educates the trade and consumers on the potential benefits of hazy beer including:
  • Improved flavour
  • Improved aroma
  • Improved mouth feel
  • Vegan acceptance (where Isinglass is not used)
  • Reduced settling time
  • Reduced wastage / ullage
  • Increased demand from consumers for more natural products

I generally supported this motion, but could see an issue with removing clarity altogether from competitions and suspected that at the very least debate would ensure and could have possibly caused the motion to fail.

Luckily someone realised this and an amendment was tabled at the last minute. Justin agreed to the amendment.

Amendment:
Delete sections 2 and 3
InsertThis meeting asks the Secretariat to consider how best to recognise this in SIBA Beer Competitions and to consider how best to educate the trade and consumers about the increased variety of styles this brings to British Brewing

I'll be honest, I was looking forward to a debate. In the event no one spoke against the motion and no one voted against the amended motion.

All in all a success for a democratic process.

The amended motion reads thus;

1 That SIBA recognises that historic beer styles and modern beer drinkers do not ALL require clarity in beer. 
2 This meeting asks the Secretariat to consider how best to recognise this in SIBA Beer Competitions and to consider how best to educate the trade and consumers about the increased variety of styles this brings to British Brewing

Personally, I think it is a shame that the points as to why supporting beer that is not pin-bright have now been deleted from the motion, but I'm pleased that a preconception about beer has been eroded.

Of course the original motion and the amendment are all on record, and so my reservations are further diminished.

Narrow field of view

We've just sent some beer to Italy, you might have heard. It's good in at least two ways. The first is that it increases our diversity of markets, something that is core to our business strategy. Second, it got us some good press, which is also part of our business strategy.

Yesterday I was talking to someone about exporting and the fact that we were successfully, if tentatively, sending beer to Italy. The conversation that ensued was somewhat illuminating, but not unusual for me.

"I didn't think the Italians drank Real Ale" the gentleman stated.

"We don't make Real Ale¹" which I know isn't strictly true, but felt I had to say it anyway; I do object to my beer being classified along with the stuffy old fashioned view of this product group.

"So, are you making lager?"

If the reader is having difficulty understanding why I find this sort of response frustrating, then best read no further.

I think at this point the conversation broke down and I lost yet another local fan. It's of little consequence as we feel, due to the large number of breweries in Cumbria, most of whom are some of my good friends, we don't wish to compete locally. Indeed, although it is possible to gain slightly higher margins locally as opposed to sending pallets out to wholesalers, the costs of transporting about this hilly county with twisty narrow roads full of tourists largely negates this.

Never-the-less, this ill informed view is an example of what is debilitating to my business. It is an example of the narrow view of beer that exists and is against our main USP²

I recently heard a story about a well meaning chap who wished to challenge the current view that CAMRA run beer festivals should consider beer that isn't Real Ale such as perhaps Belgian or American beers. It would of course be the right of the organisers to discuss and then reject the idea if that is what they wish. However, when it is listed on the agenda as "xxxxxx talking about foreign lager" you have to question if preconceptions really do need much more of a shake-up than they are getting.

We don't mention CAMRA in our press releases as a matter of course. We simply don't feel it fits with what we do. If we get an award at a CAMRA festival, then of course we do. But our progress in getting our name out nationally and internationally has been due to a lot of factors and CAMRA certainly isn't a significant part of that.

I know that the local branch do some great things for the local market. I also know that they work hard to get local beers to GBBF, and these beers have a good track record at winning awards. But I do still keep seeing examples of what Pete Brown has described as "CAMRA's noxious culture of entitlement"

I recently got an email from CAMRA, seemingly disappointed with breweries who didn't mention CAMRA in press releases. It explained that it was felt a brewery's PR would be improved by mentioning CAMRA. I very much doubt all but the most traditional brewing businesses will benefit from using CAMRA in their PR in some disconnected manor, as has been suggested. If it is relevant and focused, perhaps, but not just for the sake of it. It is a thinly veiled attempt to get breweries to do PR for CAMRA.

Now, people complain about our methods of PR. It may not always be pretty, it may often be confrontational, but it does work. I really am not sure that Hardknott, or for that matter most successful breweries need to be told how to do their PR by amateurs. My immediate thoughts were along the lines of "how can I pick a fight with CAMRA" just so I can mention them in a press release.

Our beers are currently being distributed in Italy because of the way we do our PR.

I have a responsibility for my bottom line. That is the most important thing to me. It is not that I want or expect to get rich, I don't, but I do want to work up a good enough balance sheet so that I can retire on a comfortable pension.

Working in an altruistic fashion has it's benefits, and I'm sure many people will testify that Hardknott will help out their friends. In return their friends, who are many and do consist of people in CAMRA, SIBA and many breweries big and small, do things that help us out. But, and this is VERY important, we only cooperate where we feel them is a benefit to us. Life is simply too short to waste time on anything else.

There will be more of this cooperation with other brewers this year. I think it may well benefit both ourselves and our friends.

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¹Interestingly, the company who are distributing our beer in Italy is called Ales and Co. They seem to use CAMRA as part of their marketing and the use of "Ale" in the name belies the fact that they are a British beer specalist. However, many of their key brands are not afraid of picking a fight with, or at least bucking against the Real Ale tradition.

²USP = Unique Selling Proposition - what marks you out from your competitors. If you are in business and don't get this then you might as well pack up now.

For us it is being contemporary, a bit cheeky, breaking down traditions about beer that stifle progress and not being afraid of a good argument with people who disagree. And making beer that allows us to do this, along with using the arguments to sell beer that challenges preconceptions.

Cask Pub and Kitchen - Meet the Brewer

From 5pm tonight.

Tonight "for one night only" we will have a huge range of Hardknott cask beers on at Cask Pub and Kitchen.

We also have a one-off prototype keg beer called "PyroWeisse" which is a 5% smoked wheat beer. We like the beer although we are fairly sure we can improve on this conceptual idea. Come along tonight and tell us what you think of it, what you like about it, what you don't and what you think it should be.

We will be available the only ever cask (so far) of Colonial Mayhem. This beer is quite expensive to make as unlike many brewers we try to make all our alcohol out of grain, even for very strong beers. At 8.1% this is quite inefficient. I would be keen to hear from beer lovers how they feel about that. Should we reduce costs, and therefore price at the bar, by adding cheaper sugar and have a beer that is thiner and with less body, but a bit cheaper? Perhaps you think we should stick to our principles?

Most of our beers are heavily hopped from bittering right through to dry hopping. Extensive use of high alpha hops can result in a less than subtle flavour. I sometimes worry this narrows down our appeal. Thoughts on this subject are also invited.

In any case, we'll be there from about 5pm. Pitch up and have some beers with us, we'd love to see you there.

Do we live in a Western Free Country?

In my last post I criticised The Portman Group for seeming to side with the Government's propaganda regarding the use of so called binge drinking as an excuse to raise taxes. However, I notice the following words on their site.

"It is really important that we put this report in context. The vast majority of people drink responsibly.  Painting doomsday scenarios won’t help reduce alcohol misuse and calling for Soviet Union style population controls cannot do anything but alienate the vast majority of people who already drink within Government guidelines.  We agree with the Prime Minister that strong partnerships are essential to tackle the minority who use alcohol recklessly and drinks producers are committed to supporting this approach.”

Henry Ashworth
Chief Executive, Portman Group

Now, I'm not entirely sure what "this report" actually is, and I really dislike the fact that they "agree with the Prime Minister"

However, in my previous post I inserted an image from a website about Soviet Union Anti-Alcohol Propaganda. Have The Portman Group noticed that I did? Have I influenced them a little? Or is this just another one of my imaginative little guy/big guy interactions?

No, you are right, I'm imagining it.

But still, well done The Portman Group for also feeling that we may not be as free as we would like to think we are.

Alcohol is helpful as a social relaxant. When taken in moderation it can be a positive thing in a hardworking persons life. You have earned that right after a hard days work, after the stress of modern life, to a relaxing evening, don't let them stop you.

I do wish The Portman Group would just stop agreeing with The Government's silly party pooping nonsense.

The Great Beer Duty Propaganda Coup

What seems to be fairly well accepted is that UK PLC has a national debt. It is generally accepted that the debt is higher than is good for the UK economy. To me, the biggest argument for getting that debt down is to reduce the interest payments to service that debt. It is estimated that the debt is over £30,000 for every working person in the country and that the interest on this debt represents nearly £2,000 a year for ever household in the UK. Nearly £2000 out of the taxes you pay do nothing other than pay the people¹ who have lent us the money for the privilege of us borrowing it. That's £2000 every year that can't be spent on hospitals, schools, police, roads and infrastructure investment.

Unfortunately my little brain is unable to work out the percentage of GDP that goes to pay this interest, but it seems it's not insignificant. It seems to me that paying down the debt with at least some urgency is important².

There are two ways of reducing debt. It doesn't matter if we are talking about an individual, a business or a country; spend less or earn more. Most of us would tend to say that earning more is the more preferable of the two options. Individuals can, perhaps, work harder, if they can find someone who will give them more work to do. Businesses can sell more, charge more for what they sell, or more usually, try to do a combination of the two. Spending less is more painful, less popular, and sometimes a bad long term solution, although for the brave it can be a good short term fix.

A country has more difficulties in implementing a comfortable deficit reduction program. Spending cuts are deeply unpopular with the majority of the population. At the very least we notice a deterioration in quality and availability of public services. A proportion of the population will be hit harder with reduced income or even job losses. People are right to get upset about this.

A country gets income from taxes. No one likes paying taxes. Income tax is shown on your payslip and therefore a direct reminder of how much money you would have had if it wasn't being deducted. Hiding taxes in duties, VAT and worst of all, employers NI contributions means that more tax is now raised by hidden means than the direct, and in my view the most honest and fairest; income tax.

There has been quite a bit of noise from Her Majesty's Government in the last few weeks about binge drinking. Funnily enough, the budget is coming up. The chancellor dare not put up income tax, but something has to be done other than cutting spending.

It's simple really, whip up a bit of irrational hysteria about a drink problem that is much less serious than is painted, happy in the knowledge that the whole thing will sell newspapers and help TV ratings, so the media are on side.

Wham! up goes alcohol duty again. The Government gains popular support and increases revenue to the exchequer. Job done.

I hope I'm wrong on March 21st, but I suspect I won't be.

What really is getting my goat is that The Portman Group have come out in support of this propaganda coup. So no, I feel no remorse for putting the boot in at them when they piss me off.

"The Prime Minister is absolutely right to highlight the behaviour"

From the site http://www.tululuka.net/alco/

Rather than challenge the Prime Minister's panic creating comments, The Portman Group actually supports him. I fail to see how a body that is supposed to be helping the alcohol industry, can be doing so when it is getting into bed with neo-prohibitionary sentiment. They should not be rolling over and saying "you know what? you are absolutely right, alcohol is just bad, no good thing ever comes out of drinking alcohol"

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there aren't people who could do with watching their alcohol consumption, or more importantly, look at how their consumption affects others.  I'm not saying that alcohol related illness and alcoholism isn't present, indeed, I'd be a liar if I said I'm not directly affected sometimes.  Falsely feeding the general public with the idea that it is right to increase duty, because there is a wholesale problem, is tantamount to propaganda, but that is the message we will be given come The Budget.

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For information, if a pint of 4% beer is sold in a pub for £3, out of that, £0.71 goes to the exchequer in VAT and duty. If you have also paid 20% income tax, NI contributions etc³ you will have to have earned £3.75 "top line" to be able to afford that pint. Your £3 pint has earned the exchequer around £1.46. That's not including other taxes paid by the pub and the brewery in the form of their employees income taxes, duty on the fuel to transport the beer and many other hidden taxes. And that's now, just wait until The Budget.

¹What is baffling is who are all these people who have lent the money in the first place.

²The reader my disagree. Perhaps if you have lost your job as a result of public spending cuts it is not unreasonable for you to think that a little more debt spread across the population to prevent hardship is reasonable. A valid point of view.

³The actually net amount anyone pays in income tax in complex. It depends on your circumstances but has to consider income tax, NI contributions both employee and the larger⁴ employers contributions offset against tax credits. I think 20% is a low estimate.

⁴no, not many people know that this tax on employing people is significant.

Is it lager, or is it ale?

I was asked the other day, by my children teenage delinquent offspring, which science I liked least when I was at school. Of course, I should have replied with something like "That is a bit like asking which of my darling children I liked least, my little cherubs" only their current non-human status of teenagers somewhat precluded that option.

After some thought, and after trying to remember what I did actually think all those years ago, I decided it was probably Biology. You see, Physics is certain. At least it is certain, assuming standard temperature and pressure. Chemistry is kind of fun; we got to distil alcohol when I was at school, under strict supervision I might add. We even made things explode, occasionally, although that might have been due to a lack of supervision.

I did remember getting interested in things that happened in petri dishes. I also developed a deep fascination of the nervous system, neurones, synapses and other things that made us "wired" As it happens, my "O"¹ level results showed me to be slightly better at Biology than Chemistry, which was a shock to me. Or perhaps that was the Van de Graaff generator, not sure.

The longer I spend in the beer brewing industry the more there seems to be to learn. There is knowledge needed in micro-biology, chemistry, physics and a good handful of engineering to go along with it. There also seems to be a lot of mis-information, half truths, old wives tales, urban myths and damn annoying lies from some, just to make the beer drinker think something other than the facts.

Lager is different to "ale" we are told, because it's made with "bottom fermenting yeast" where as "ale" is made with "top fermenting yeast" Other people, who are more knowledgeable, talk about bottom or top cropping yeast. However, I think even this is a flawed explanation.

As I said in my previous post, I'm no yeast expert, but I'm fascinated by the subject. I have read about the fascinating organism, I've used them in various forms and have enough experience to be sure that most beer experts and some brewers still have a lot to learn, me included.

What I know is that when yeast is at the bottom of the tank, or floating at the top, it does a very poor job of fermenting. It only ferments when in suspension. So we could all do with cutting out this top and bottom fermenting false-jargon.

I also know that it is perfectly possible, and indeed probably preferable, to bottom crop nearly every yeast. Most big breweries and some of the more progressive micro-breweries crop their yeast at the bottom, even when making "ale". There may, or may not be a crust of yeast forms on the top of the beer after primary fermentation, but some of the more modern "ale" strains, especially if supplied dried, completely fall to the bottom of the primary fermentation tank.

The use of he words top and bottom are completely misleading, in my view.

Wort, the sugary liquid on which the yeast works to make beer, has a number of various complexities of carbohydrates dissolved within it. The precise types of carbohydrates depend on a number of factors including the grain used, other carbohydrates used like corn starch and whether or not any additional enzymes are added. Broadly, in brewing terms, we talk about fermentable sugars and un-fermentable sugars. However, the boundaries are perhaps not clear.

Various yeast strains are able to digest different carbohydrates, in different environments, with various degrees of success. It is mainly to do with the enzymes that the yeast cell generates. And, just to complicate things, there are enzymes available that will allow a brewer to ferment just about anything, irrespective of the yeast used.

It is true that a traditional lager yeast will drop to the bottom of the tank and will crop at the bottom.

It is true that in traditional ale making the types of yeast used would readily crop from the top and quite a lot of the yeast remained on the top of the beer after fermentation.

Generally ale yeast is known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae and lager yeast as Saccharomyces pastorianus or Saccharomyces carlsbergensis. However, there is some reading I have done that suggests that they really are all the same thing and just different strains of the same yeast. All strains have different behaviours.

However, the key real practical differences seem to be to do with temperature of fermentation and ability to attenuate the wort.

"Ale" yeast, or what I would prefer to call "warm" fermenting yeast is normally fermented at perhaps 20 degrees centigrade and fermentation might be done in 3-7 days.

"Lager" yeast will work at perhaps 5-12 degrees and might take a little longer to get around to turning all those sugars into alcohol, perhaps a couple of weeks with very long maturation times.

However, I can assure you, "ale" yeast does not stop working at 12 degrees and there are brewers who will deliberately ferment "ale" at lower temperatures to achieve required flavour profiles. Equally, modern lagers are often made much more quickly than the traditional lagers and this can only be done with at least some of the fermentation being done at a higher temperature. The line is not as clear as the beer geek would like it to be.

But, what we can say about lager over other beers, is that it tends to be much more attenuated. That is to say the yeast has got to more of the sugars and turned them into alcohol. The beer is drier and has less calories. Perhaps that's the major difference with lager yeast; the fact that it makes a drier beer.

Perhaps, but remember those enzymes you can buy? They'll help just about any yeast turn wort into a dry beer. For that matter, miss out a whole load of barley and add in easily fermentable sugar made from corn starch, and away you go. This is probably the process used by most bigger brands of beers and, interestingly, even small brewers are encouraged to add enzymes to help out with difficult fermentations. Certainly measured amounts of enzymes would tighten up ABV variations. No doubt if a brewers bonus² depended on satisfying over a hundred different QA checks, he would be tempted to use it.

Of course, there are other ways of fermenting down lower in gravity, as in the case of Orval and lambics, other yeast strains or even bacteria might consume more sugars and dry the beer out.

I may have some of my facts wrong in this piece. I apologise and I am very happy for the more technically adept reader to chip in and correct me. What I am trying to do here is show the reader that to pigeon hole beers by some notion of exactly which yeast strain is used is perhaps less certain than it might be.

Lager is dryer than ale and can use more delicate hops as they are not overpowered by excess sweetness. Ale is sweeter than lager, generally and needs more hops to counter the sweetness. That, perhaps, is all you really need to know.

I hope I've broadened the readers mind a little.

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¹For you young people, "O" levels and CSE qualifications were later replaced by GCSEs. I know most of you won't remember that far back.

²Perhaps another indicator of craft?

Yeast

At least 10 trillion¹ yeast cells are made, do their work and die.

This happens, every single week, in our brewery.

And we are only a very tiny brewery.

They do this, selflessly, so you have beer to drink.

Makes you think it does.

We used to use dried yeast from Fermentis. Good stuff it is too. We still use it when we want a yeast that has a different character. Fermentis yeast does the same thing every time with generally a very good consistent fermentation. There can be a little bit of snobbyness in the brewing community that suggests that a brewer is somewhat inferior for using dried yeast. I disagree, although that isn't really the point I'm trying to get to.

Cost is the main driver. A pack of dried yeast each brew gets expensive. A good clean brewery is as good a yeast production facility as you need for most purposes.

Hardknott now has its own house yeast. However, most of our yeast knowledge has been supplied by BrewLab and conversations with other brewers who are also BrewLab trained. The strong advice is that to ward off bacterial infection, that might ruin that house yeast, regular acid washing² is required.

Mentioning this on twitter generated an interesting reponse. Many brewers I love and respect, including Eddie Gaedd, Dominic Dirscoll and the lordship himself, John Keeling, are very much against acid washing. As far as I can determine the argument goes along the lines that it does damage yeast and a good brewer shouldn't get bacteria in the yeast anyway.

Other brewers have stated, including my close neighbour and fine chap Ian at Coniston Brewing Co, that acid washing before every single pitching of the yeast is great.

The problem is that if I do get a yeast infection³ it might take a while to find out, as I have no in-house facilities to check for contamination, other than our palates. By the time I know I have a problem I would have to wait a couple of weeks for a new batch of pitchable yeast to be cultivated. I would in the interim have to choose to stop production, or continue and make infected beer. Either that or negate the advantage of the cost saving by regular micro-audits or premature routine recall. The argument goes, if done regularly the yeast get used to acid washing and it saves cost in the long run. The small reduction in viability can be compensated by upping the pitching rate.

I know of larger breweries who might only pitch-on their yeast for as  few as 6 generations before ordering a new cultivation as routine. With in house laboratories to check for problems and to re-cultivate this is not a cost issue.

I don't know what makes the most sense. Obviously many, many good brewers make very good beer with many different types of yeast management systems.

I guess the results are in the taste of the beer.

In any event, yeast is great. Go yeasty beasties!

I point out that I am by no means a yeast expert. We bow to any advice or opinions other brewers might have to chip in here.

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¹generally, a trillion is 1x10¹² or 1,000,000,000,000

As Doulas Adams would say, mind bogglingly big. There are about the same number of stars in our galaxy and about the same number of galaxies in the universe.

I'm guessing the number of yeast cells in the world that die every day to make beer is probably the same order of magnitude as the number of stars that exist, give or take an order of magnitude or two.

²No, acid washing is not the introduction of LSD, as one wag suggested. It simply involves reducing the PH of the yeast slurry to 2.1 at a low temperature just prior to pitching the yeast into the wort. This kills 99% of bacteria and nearly no yeast.

It is done by adding controlled amounts of a food grade acid like phosphoric and measuring carefully with a calibrated PH meter as you do.

³In my brewers yeast, before the reader jumps to any lewd conclusions.