The Cask Anomaly

Life goes on, and you might be surprised to know; so does Hardknott. We have plans afoot to continue, perhaps against my better judgment, and will be involved with the business of making beer for a while yet I hope.

We have definitely stopped brewing at Millom. The brewhouse is just old, tired and in need of serious upgrade. We simply cannot justify solving that where we are. But we have some nice tanks and a bottling line. It seems there are people out there who believe they could use them, and perhaps use me too. People who might just be able to help me with the issue of lacking a decent brewhouse. It's all top-secret, and I might even be jumping the gun by leaking this little snippet.

That preamble is relevant however. As part of working out what to do for the future I've thought long and hard about a number of aspects of the beer market. My conclusions are that the British beer culture is still largely stuck with a huge number of preconceptions, traditional practices and frankly stupid dogmas that inhibit microbrewing from emerging out of the twentieth century.

I've contemplated the issues regarding cask beer before on several occasions. As part of my review I have considered cask very carefully indeed and have come to some fairly decisive conclusions, key to it is the following point.

The vast majority of draught beer brewed by brewers below 200,000hl/yr production is cask. The vast majority of keg beer is produced by brewers over 200,000hl/yr production and these brewers produce nearly no cask at all.¹

Something is very wrong with this situation, very wrong indeed. I do not think one can understate how this is linked to another fairly important point.

Cask beer represents less than 10% of the total beer sales in the UK and around 16% of the total draught sales. The remaining 84% of draught sales are keg beers and the vast majority of that volume is from the big global producers.

The total beer market is shrinking, partly due to overall reductions in alcohol consumption but also critically due to changing customer preference to what are seen as more artisanal products. Cask remains roughly static as a proportion of the overall beer market. Cask in the free trade also appears to remain largely free from dispense equipment ties and this is in itself an interesting observation.

People like cold and fizzy

It is undeniable that people like cold fizzy beer. Only the deluded would try to deny that, and indeed it is important to note that contrary to the message CAMRA have put out for years, people who drink keg beer are not morons simply influenced by the advertising campaigns of large multinational brewers. Drinkers really do prefer beer that is cold and fizzy.

The artificial restriction of microbreweries largely to cask rather weakens their ability to capture a larger market. If a drinker's enjoyment of a beer experience is inferior under certain circumstances then that consumer is likely to be swayed away from that situation.

I have long pondered this situation. A long-time lover of the pub experience, brewer of cask, keg and bottle beers, twice over publican, past lover of cask beers and now a firm believer in keg as the future of great beer has come from observation and thought about the whole market.

What is wrong with cask, surely it's the best?

Have no doubts, cask beer is technically easier to produce, needs less capital investment and is less expensive to produce. It is ideal in many ways as a method for a brewery to gain an entry to the market.

Cask beer has a number of serious disadvantages;

• ·      Served at a warmer temperature and with less "fizz" making it less palatable to many consumers (this is true, get used to it)
• ·      The open container results in the beer noticeably deteriorating in a couple of days (actually, in my experience, a few hours)
• ·      The lack of carbonation inhibits the demonstration of great hop aromas
• ·      Variability in the quality of dispense resulting in brewer's beer not always being as they'd intended
• ·      Significantly more skill required by staff to ensure quality is maintained
• ·      Poor cellar cooling and cleanliness impacts on cask over keg
• ·      Due to significant over-supply in the market the wholesale price of cask beer is very depressed
• ·      Simply not funky and trendy enough for youngsters resulting in microbrewed beer losing out to trendy spirits, fruit ciders and fizzy rancid grape juice from Italy

The dichotomy

The beer market is still very much sliced in two by the terrible dogma instilled into the culture of British beer. Whilst there is no denying that some changes have been made and craft keg has become a thing, despite many people being sceptical, it is still very much a niche and confined to craft beer bars and a few very bold progressive pubs.

Mainstream pubs generally have a number of keg fonts almost exclusively for multinational brands. They may well, if free of tie, have handpulls serving locally produced cask beer, if they serve any microbrewed beer at all.

Beer drinking customers can be broadly divided into two types; the cask drinker, who might default onto smooth-flow if desperate and the solid keg drinker who wouldn't wash their socks in that cask stuff.

Admittedly, there is a group of wise and discerning people who are much less blinkered, and who will drink based on their mood, thirst, level of sunshine or just because they are curious, but I'd suggest this group of people are in fact a small proportion of drinkers.

The future really is keg beer

A bold statement you might think, and indeed it is only part of the future, but a very significant part of it. It's not an easy road though. Much investment is needed along with working out the route to market.

Equally there is the task of convincing cask-only drinkers, who are only so in my view due to the pressure from CAMRA, to love microbrewed keg along with gaining trust of the keg-only brigade to try new beers. Changing that is likely to be a bit of an uphill battle, CAMRA AGM voting continues to prove this point.

Not only that, we have to tackle the stranglehold of the multinationals on the bar front. Various "soft ties" that effectively prohibit microbreweries from even being permitted to sell their keg beers to pubs in fact tie much of the market even where a pub is apparently free of tie. This last point is important. Many observers are getting their knickers in a twist about PubCos and brewery owned estates forgetting that this is actually not the really big issue we have to deal with.

And for Hardknott?

It is almost certain that in whatever form we finally re-emerge we will be focusing on keg much more than cask, very probably eliminating cask all together. For a start, the most likely solution to continuing would be to join with an existing cask producer thereby possibly forming a conflict.

My task then for the next few months is to work out how to tackle the various barriers to getting really great keg beers available and better accepted by the beer drinking public.

I think a return to a much more combative, confrontational and outspoken ethos for Hardknott is required; there is a lot to change in the minds of the public if we are to see microbrewed beers on keg fonts in many more regular pubs. I do not think there is any good reason for this not to happen other than inappropriate inertia emanating from a Luddite attitude.

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¹OK, so I expect I'll get some challenges here. Yes, there are the likes of Fullers and Marstons who put quite a lot of beer into cask, but even so, that vast majority of beer produced by breweries over 200,000hl/yr is keg beer.

Existential Crisis (probably part 1)

"Craft Beer Doesn't Exist"

So, CAMRA is having a rethink about how to remain relevant. I'm torn in several directions on this one. Instinctively, my first thought is "good, about time" My second reaction goes along the lines of "well, can it ever change enough to satisfy me?"  Finally my mind drifts to the question of "why does it matter anyway?"

I think it's a question of perspective. There is a dissonance between the commercial considerations of the beer industry and the underpinning principles of the hardcore activists in CAMRA. I became acutely aware of this very soon after I first entered into business in the beer and pub sector over 12 years ago.

Part of the motivation for starting to write this blog was that, as I saw it, the vast majority of the words about good beer were written by CAMRA sympathetic writers. Therefore it was a given that the beers that were lauded as good were all cask or bottle conditioned and everything else was rubbish. Unless of course they were foreign, because…… well I never really did understand the reason for that.

Equally, there were a whole load of things CAMRA told me I should be doing, to make them happy, that I didn't really think were sensible from the point of view of making an honest living¹. I could list them all here, and perhaps I should in another blog post, but it is true that there is a commercial barrier to any significant changes being achieved.

The real consideration for any beer business is not whether it should engage positively with CAMRA, because it make direct business sense, but because there is a softer PR and community relationship to consider. Doing things to make CAMRA happy might make them say nice things about your pub or brewery. This is definitely a successful strategy for some businesses, but certainly not for all.

The alternative view is to consider if setting ones business against the ethos of CAMRA, a way that might be considered more craft, sends out a powerful message about whom you are and what you're trying to achieve.

Hardknott has been a little fickle in this regard. We've tried to engage positively from time-to-time. We've also been antagonistic on other occasions, mainly because we believe in certain things that are appropriate for good beer, things that make our beer better, and things that do not. 

Generally, engaging positively with CAMRA has rarely helped my business, and has rarely produced a return on the time and effort invested to be worth doing.

If I just ignore CAMRA and try and rub along, don't shout too much, and just get along with my job of brewing great beer, things are OK, but the world isn't set on fire.

If I start to mark out the differences between what I think is great for beer, and the way CAMRA sees beer, I get noticed as that antagonistic HardkntotDave and more people want to buy my beer.

As a relevant aside, I've been known to be skeptically antagonist towards SIBA (Society for Independent Brewers) – this has almost entirely come to a halt recently. Initially, when I first started brewing, I was of the view that they were also out-of-touch and detrimental to the progression of small breweries. Last year, when Mike Benner became chief executive of SIBA, having moved from CAMRA, I was concerned this would be a backwards step for SIBA. I feared Mike would bring too much of the old CAMRA dogma to SIBA. I was wrong, and BeerX proved just how wrong I was. SIBA have listened to what is going on, and moreover, looked to the future. But that is the subject of a separate blog post altogether.

So, in summary, I discount the idea that I should just sit back and ignore CAMRA. I can't, and shouldn't. What they morph into, or not, will effect me one way or another. The remaining two thoughts will continue to be relevant. It certainly is about time for a solid review, but will it be enough? We'll see.

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¹I am more and more minded about the negative vibe created by me pointing out that my foray into the beer and pub industry has, over the years, generated a negative trend of the real-value for my personal wealth. Pubs and brewing are not a game for anyone who wants to get rich. It is possible to do quite well, depending on how you wish to go about it. This blog has had the MO of remaining fairly candid about my perspective. Yes, I've sometimes slipped into an alternative up-beat kind of way of projecting my thoughts, by way of trying to big-up my own PR. The reality is that I'm significantly disappointed in the overall financial performance of my business ventures compared with how I'd be if I had stuck with PAYE way of living. I find CAMRA persuasion difficult in helping my business and the Craft Beer bandwagon the reverse. So, my executive summary is; CAMRA ethos = = bad for my business. Craft beer ethos = = good for my business.

Propaganda or Maverick Opinion?

The Craft Keg verses CAMRA thing has kicked off this week. Poignant really, it's a bit like a certain struggle that occurred about 2000 years ago. I'm just wondering who is going to be crucified this time, and what will be the new replacement in the growing independent brewing empire.

Firstly, it seems there has been a CAMRA motion put forward to AGM proposing the banning the use of the term "Craft Keg" or similar in any CAMRA publication. I believe there is a good chance that this will be thrown out. If nothing else it would represent dangerous censorship, which I hope CAMRA would have nothing to do with.

Secondly, at Wandsworth Beer Festival, the program demonises keg in a generalised and un-knowlegable manor, and weaves into the rant various references to CAMRA.

This is all very unfortunate for all of us who care about the debate. Firstly, and a point I think that is extremely important, craft keg, micro-brewed keg beer, beer in-a-keg that has been less processed than the big brand pasteurised and filtered to death stuff, is different. The fact that it is more difficult to define than Real Ale¹ might be a problem. But to demonise this growing sector of the beer world is, in my view, helpful to neither CAMRA nor the brewing industry in general.

But, is it CAMRA's fault?

Well, "yes and no" is my answer.

The debate is important. CAMRA must allow the debate to occur, just the same as the rest of us should. There is no reason why the debate should not occur in CAMRA publications. It does from time to time, and that is healthy. For it to occur, there will naturally be opinions that differ from mine, and those of other people who believe there are a lot of good things about keg beer made by independent breweries.

CAMRA does not have to support Craft Keg if the organisation feels they shouldn't. I would like them to do so, but that's just my view.

It is not the fact that CAMRA allow the debate, and therefore the inevitable maverick opinion that is the problem. It seems to me to be that the debate is perhaps biased in favour of the mavericks. However, to censor would be just as bad as the proposed censorship being put to the CAMRA AGM.

By not condemning the examples here, it is seen by those of us who dislike Craft Keg bashing that CAMRA official line is to condemn all keg.

So, shall we continue the debate?

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¹A point that I have on many occasions disputed, but to go into that discussion detracts from my main point here.

Are CAMRA's Wetherspoons vouchers good for The Pub?

CAMRA like to champion the "Community Pub" I applaud that. When we ran The Woolpack Inn I was a little unsure about the term Community Pub, as ours served the Tourist Industry more than locals, but still, a minor point I feel. Even a pub that serves tourists is serving the tourist as a transitory local I guess.

Anyway, a problem I always had was the Wetherspoons voucher incentive is that the pub chain is as much, if not more of a problem for established pubs than supermarkets. If the reader thinks about it, there are only so many drinkers. Those drinkers only have so much money to spend on beer. Most Wetherspoons open in buildings that have never been pubs. One I know is a huge cavernous building that used to be part of a bus station garage. I reckon that every Wetherspoons that has opened has taken away the revenue from numerous smaller pubs.

Now, the commercial minded side of me says that competition is good. If the public want Wetherspoons over other forms of pub then that is fine. However, CAMRA on the one hand fights to keep pubs open but then instigates a commercial partnership that is contrary to that. If CAMRA want to support Wetherspoons then they just have to accept that other pubs will fall as casualties as a result.

Harry Berger bought The Woolpack off us. He and his wife are making a fine job of running it. They buy our beer and as far as I know have it on the bar most of the time. Harry phoned me up the other day, quite outraged really, because CAMRA had asked him to help recruit members, and display information¹ about the Wetherspoons vouchers.

He isn't pleased. It's not that he doesn't want to help increase CAMRAs membership, and would happily display the information if it didn't contain the reference to a competitor. But to ask a favour of publicans with this lack of sensitivity seems slightly ill thought out and so I agree with him. I feel this is one of the many issues that irritates a lot of publicans when it comes to CAMRA.

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¹The information is in the form of a tent card which is designed to be displayed on the tables in the pub. I expect it was a waste of money on CAMRA's part as Harry probably isn't going to display them, and to be honest I wouldn't either.

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.

A question for CAMRA

I have repeatedly complained about the High Strength Beer Duty levied on beers over 7.5%. I still question CAMRA's approach on this matter. On my last writings on the subject it was suggested I talk to CAMRA. I decided to write to Mike Benner, Chief Executive of CAMRA.

I was delighted that he replied. Many will no doubt see his reply as satisfactory. It will probably disappoint, but not surprise those people to know that I don't see it that way.

However, my views have been made and some assurances have been given that my concerns are being addressed. Most importantly I very much welcome that fact that Mike took the time to reply and agreed for his words to be published.

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Mike,

I hope you don't mind me contacting you, a commenter on my blog suggested I should talk directly to CAMRA, and it seems appropriate that I should approach you.

You may be aware that I am one of an increasing number of CAMRA sceptic "noisome" bloggers. Indeed, I suspect you are already familier with the views I wish to communicate. I should also point out that I have held CAMRA membership for some years now, and intend to retain that membership even if I disagree with some policies. I understand that CAMRA must follow policies that are for the benefit of the majority of the membership. I recognise that the organisation's aims are not to provide a blanket beer-related organisation but a cask beer and pub focused organisation.

However, I still feel that it is better to have a general consideration for the wider beer community if we wish not to see further fragmentation within the community.

CAMRA helped to introduce the progressive beer duty system along with strong help from SIBA. Without progressive beer duty it is unlikely that the beer market would be shaped the way it is. There would be significantly less microbreweries and there would very certainly be much less consumer choice.

Part of the choice that has developed is a much wider range of beer with a wider alcohol content. Many of these beers are extremely flavoursome and have revitalised the whole market. This revitalisation has also encouraged many bigger brewers to up their game significantly and further stimulating a broader choice for consumers. The fact that there has been an increase of more flavoursome beers, I would suggest, has helped to contribute to a much more responsible drinking culture amongst the consumers who have been persuaded into this market.

Unfortunately, introduction of the low and high strength beer duty bands is in danger of undoing all of this excellent work. It is effectively undermining the benefit of progressive beer duty. The discount given to small producers of beer is designed to address the fact that stagnation was occurring in the beer market. It was almost impossible to start a microbrewery and remain competitive as the larger breweries had economies of scale which cannot be achieved in the microbrewing sector.

The low strength beer duty discount is benefiting larger producers who already have a competitive edge due to economies of scale. The microbrewers cannot take advantage of any further discount. This is resulting in the very large breweries having significant advantages when producing products under the low strength threshold.

The high strength duty increase, which Government documents state is being used to pay for the low strength discount, is creating additional costs for microbrewers who choose to make beers over 7.5%. This is likely to inhibit further product development in this area. Beers in these strengths are looking likely to provide an export growth market. however, if it is uneconomic to develop for a domestic market first then this is likely to inhibit the development of this important part of the British brewing industry.Exporting is one of the potential areas to generate economic growth.

I understand that CAMRA are now asking for an increase in the low strength threshold to 3.5% and so allow big brewers to retake this bread and butter market. My sources are confident that any widening of the low strength beer duty band will be paid for with significant changes in HSBD too. I ask that CAMRA rethink this policy for the sake of the many microbrewing businesses. If this proposal goes ahead there is likely to be a decrease in the number of breweries that will remain viable.

Dave Bailey


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Dave

Thanks again for your e-mail.

The key point is that CAMRA is totally committed to the retention of small brewers relief and are keen to see the scheme extended further to assist small brewers to grow.

Additionally, we would like to find a way of ensuring small brewers can benefit from the reduction in duty on low strength beers and would be very keen to work with SIBA on this.

CAMRA opposed the levy on beers above 7.5% along with SIBA and the BBPA.

Increasing the EU cap on reduced duty for low strength beers from 2.8% to 3.5% would require a change to an EU Directive to make it possible. That is quite a challenge and wouldn’t happen overnight. CAMRA would also like to see this Directive amended so that small brewers can benefit from this concession, which I think would deal with some of your concerns.

Cheers

Mike

Beer lovers scran

I didn't want to be involved from the start. I'd been last year and been quite appalled at how badly the beers had been matched to the food. This year I'd been asked to contribute beer free of charge, two firkins no less. I insisted on the beer I would present being Infra Red at the very least. Of course, I'd have been happier to match something even stronger with the food, but this was a CAMRA dinner and it just HAD to be cask.

The event was the Cumbrian CAMRA branches annual awards and beer lovers dinner. Last year it was very clear that almost universally the beers chosen were session beers, which are rarely very good at matching with food. The one beer that was, if I remember rightly, about 6% gained inappropriate and over-the-top warnings from the jug runner about how strong it was.

Having been persuaded to attend this year, and having received no real benefits from the fact that we had donated beer, not even a free seat, and payment demands for the 4 tickets we had agreed to buy being somewhat less than tactful, I was below optimum mood for the event anyway. Being a person who works, lives and breaths beer nearly every waking hour of the day and being extremely busy with it, a Friday night in front of the TV was then, a week ago, very much overdue. I could still do with scheduling it in right now. A beer dinner like that is work you see, it has to be absolutely splendid to fire me into enthusiasm¹.

I'm not against session beer. I've made the point many times before that I drink a lot of it. However, when it comes to beer and food matching, session beer just does not cut the mustard, or for that matter any other condiment.

The menu was fairly dire. OK, it's hard to cater for 200 people, but what was presented seemed ill thought through and lacked flair, imagination or any substantial quality. The technical complacence of the cooking was fine, but overall it lacked any decent interest.

The first course was a "Cumbrian canapé Breakfast on a plate" Please, what was that? A miniature breakfast essentially. Clever maybe, but the only flavours were salt. black pudding and prune. The only positive thing I could say was that the pale session beer it was matched with helped to quench the thirst that the salt created. It did not go at all well with the dominant flavours of the black pudding and the prune.

The second course was more salt. Ham hock and potato terrine and this was possibly the best of a poor bunch of session beer matches. However, the food was bland other than the salt and overall failed to impress me.

Beef, which was actually the best food, was matched with an otherwise superb and very popular pale session beer. The result was a little bit like trying to get morris dancers to perform to Punk Rock. Never before have I ever tried a food and beverage match that was so clearly influenced by organisational needs over and above flavour.

By the time I got to the dessert, matched with my beer, I was already very unhappy that I had spent £120 of my money on tickets and also donated around £200 worth of beer. I was by this time quite convinced I should have gone with my original gut feelings of having nothing whatsoever to do with the event. The Infra Red would have been a far more suitable match for the beef, and I was expecting complete failure of a match it had been chosen for, which was the dessert.

Damson and almond tart. This would have gone well with Stringers Damson beer, for instance, or perhaps a Kriek. I believe Hawkshead do a damson beer too. But, Infra Red, I was sure, was not the best match. I'll be honest, out of the whole menu it probably was the best beer/food paring, but in my view this only goes to highlight just how bad this beer dinner was.

The beer with the cheeses was OK. Sorry, the beer is one of my favourite Cumbrian Beers after Infra Red and would have gone well with the beef perhaps slightly better than Infra Red. But still, it was only just OK with the cheese.

On top of the matching issues the whole event suffered from the major problem of delivering beer in jugs to tables. Decanting beer into jugs knocks out condition by the double decant. All the beers were flat, completely. I nearly ordered a bottle of wine.

All the very best beer matching events I've been to either use beer in bottles, or where logistics are practical, the beers are dispensed on draught directly into the glass. However, this is a concern I have with beer judging where beer is often dispensed with a double decant to ensure quite rightly that blind tasting is ensured.

Quite apart from the fact that this event effectively cost us over £320 to support, which I regret deeply, I also despair at the entrenched ideas of some beer "lovers" How on earth are we ever going to overcome the preconceived ideas of the like of Saturday Kitchen if the organisers of beer diners like this fail to understand that session beers are for drinking in the pub and beer and food matching needs a different approach? If this is the standard of beer and food presentation we will always fail to overturn the general public's view that wine goes better with food.

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¹I need to point out that many very good beer events do inspire me. We recently organised a beer dinner at Fayrer Gardens for instance. Also, we had an absolutely splendid time at Thatchers Arms with Tim Atkin and Adrian Tierney-Jones where beer and wine went head-to-head and proved that either, when done well, can be equally as good with food. Indeed, it is cooperation between menu design and drinks matching, along with bucking against influences for political reasons that make these events a success.

Low ABV, low duty, low IQ

Duty on beer has been slashed. Unless you are a micro-brewer that is, in which case beer duty goes up.

I blogged about it more than once when it was first announced. Unfortunately, the arguments I put seemed a little to complex for most of you to get on your high horse about it then.

I'll put it simply:

• The low ABV duty discount can only be claimed by brewers who do not get small brewers discount.
• CAMRA campaigned for the low ABV discount.
• Below 2.8% cask beer is not practical as it has low demand and goes off faster.
• The duty rise on 7.5% beer is to pay for the low ABV discount.
• Low ABV discount can only be claimed by supermarket own brands, large brewery "mid strength" lagers and perhaps some large cask beer producers.
• At present, we are unsure how the high ABV is to be calculated¹, but there is a suggestion that micro-brewers making beer over 7.5% might be charged 150% more due to us loosing our small brewers discount on these beers.
• Until now beer duty was completely fair - duty was charged per unit volume of alcohol. Not any more.

Overall, CAMRA are claiming it as good news. IT IS NOT.

Chasing a discount on beers under 3.5%, which CAMRA are doing, will only cause the Government to put up beer duty somewhere else - you have been warned.

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Magic Rock also have some stuff to say on the subject.

¹Since I first published this post I looked into the facts. HMRC have never sent any information, but I did research when the budget announcement was made. As I suspected it is confirmed that we are still permitted the discount on the regular part of beer duty but not the High Strength Beer Duty. Our duty will go up by 50% on all beers above 7.5%

"Small Brewer's Relief is still available on the general beer duty element of beer above 7.5% abv. However, it does not apply to HSBD and no further relief will be applied to the reduced rate for lower strength beers."

There is information on the HMRC site for those concerned.

This is NOT anti-CAMRA

This is NOT anti-CAMRA, it's just against the facade of traditional Real Ale as a means of selling beer. How many times have we heard "brewed using traditional recipes, English barley and English hops" and we find that the beer is anything but inspiring. It might be cheap. It might be a brand name that has been around for decades, but no one deserves to be able to sell beer that fails to inspire. Cask, keg, chill filtered and bottled or properly bottle conditioned, we love them all providing they have some flavour.

We think the brand group of Real Ale is looking tired and old. What the alternative is for the 21st century we don't know, perhaps just good beer.

Meanwhile we've been busy making some video. When I get some time I'm going to blog about the making of this.

Hardknott Beer from PiciFilms on Vimeo.

Music, incidentally, is composed by me and almost entirely performed by me. @WithoutaVision did the hitting things with sticks.

Cast is:

@HardknottAnn

@JeffPickthall

@HardknottAlfie

@HardknottSarah

@BarmanAlex soon to be @HardknottAlex

@WithoutaVision

Marketing and Position

Yesterday we had quite a busy day racking, doing some CIP improvements, training my new secret production technician, transferring beer and getting ready to bottle today. It wasn't until quite late I found out that BrewDog and CAMRA had fallen out.

Upon learning this HardknottAnn immediately insisted on commandeering my MacBook for the purposes of writing a blog.

Last night and this morning we got carried away with discussions on twitter regarding GBBF and how beers are selected. I touched on the subject last year as it happens, and it is interesting for me to look back at what beers were actually on. I'll admit to being surprised to see that Punk IPA was there. The fact that it was on the same bar as Cumbrian beer is a little baffling.

It may be that I have a few facts wrong about various specifics regarding GBBF, but despite that I maintain that there are interesting selection influences at play. It might well be that various officials can attempt to reassure that it is all fair and transparent. The impression I am left with is very different; There is a massive disparity between local breweries who appeal to local markets and those of us who are more successful further afield.

Besides all that, the fact that BrewDog will not be at GBBF is no great surprise to me. This was a win-win situation for them in many ways. If they got their beer there in KeyKeg it would have been a result, the fact that it eventually fell through is also a result. PR win again. I seem to remember several people, including me, forecasting that this would be what would happen.

It has been pointed out to me that BrewDog are no different to any other brewery in as much as they want to sell more beer. Spot on there, we all do. What we all have to work out is if CAMRA, and indeed cask beer, are important to us or if they are more useful in opposition.

I'm still working that one out, but it appears to me that the latter might be more successful if a brewer is looking for a gap in the market. Also, it could very well be a useful marketing and positional ploy to be quite public about the fact.

A bit of perspective

Beer is a highly scalable product. It is highly industrialiseable. It can be made in large quantities, in big breweries, with inevitable economies of scale. It can be made really economically, by faceless multinational corporations, by cutting costs on ingredients so that the result is a bland, fizzy, cold product, sold to numpties who know no better. Oh wait, I'm denigrating 90% of beer. Never mind, that's what CAMRA started with 40 years ago, it was OK to do it then.

Beer can also be made in small sheds, hand crafted by passionate artisanal brewers who care more about the flavour of the beer rather than saving a few pennies on the production costs. The consistency of the resultant beer can often be highly variable and the experimental nature often produces beers with dubious palatability. Additionally, they are mainly Real Ales which might turn out to be flat, warm and vinegary.

These two examples of denigration of various beers are still all too rife. Some commentators are prophesying that this is damaging the world of beer in general. We should all just get on with making good beer and let the beer do the talking, apparently.

Now, I like the sound of that, I really do. I'd love it if I could just get on and make beer, make sure my phone number is in the telephone directory¹ and wait for the phone to ring red hot with enquiries. This just doesn't work.

I saw recently, somewhere, someone stating that the only beer which is not marketed is made in your garage. In other words beer, or any product for that matter, cannot sell without it being marketed. Sometimes that marketing can be low key. Sometimes it can just be a micro-brewer going around a few pubs and convincing them to buy his beer. That can work, but I can tell you from experience that this does not produce sales of any significant amount compared to the effort that is put in.

I'd like to consider something, something that concerns me a great deal but doesn't come to light very often; The majority of beer that is sold in this country is lager made in relatively large quantities and marketed at the masses. The majority of it is targeted at the football supporting males of the population. I know the vast majority of football supporters are sensible, law abiding and non-violent. The mainstream press do not view football supporters in this way. The stereotype football supporter is often portrayed as a mindless thug whose choice of alcoholic beverage is dirty lout drunk until he² vomits in the street. Consider, do the large brewers do the beer industry any favours by aligning themselves with this market?

Craft beer, and in this context I include the majority of cask beer, bottle conditioned beers, various imported foreign beers and some notable non-bottle conditioned and keg beers alike, are not mentioned in main stream media to any great extent. Wine gets talked about a great deal in the mainstream media. In fact, beer is barely mentioned much at all on TV, radio or in the papers, except to point out that it gets people drunk, makes them violent and causes disorder in city centres, especially if there is a football match occurring at the same time.

Do we really think that the current spats occurring between bloggers and CAMRA, CAMRA and BrewDog, or BrewDog and beer geeks who didn't get their beer, is really making much of an impact on the overall creditability of beer? No, I don't think it's making much impact at all.

Most of the general public know about big beer brands, mainly because of sport related advertising. Most of the general public are aware of the value of cask beer and to some extent that is down to CAMRA and the quiet work done by micro-brewers and regional brewers alike along with organisations like SIBA.

How then does a brewer who wishes to make in-roads to what he/she sees as a gap in the market? With existing polarised views that beer consists either of fizzy cold keg for football supporters or cask beer for middle aged gentlemen, how does a brewer make the point that his beer is different? How does a brewer who wants to target his beers at people who don't want to drink mainstream lager or cask session beer if the brewer doesn't actually point out that their product is neither of these things?

Well, we know the answer to that one.

Meanwhile, I have been getting a little bit bemused by various notary people in the beer world being concerned about the bad image being given to beer by various marketing campaigns. Referring to the football link, I can't help feeling that nearly any marketing activity associated with beer is going to be seen by someone, somewhere, as a bad thing for beer.

Moreover, why do we think beer is different? Why do we think that it is the only market that suffers from promotion via highlighting the differences between products? I'm convinced it's not.

I asked a friend on twitter, who runs a software technology company, if the same sort of teacup based storms occur in the software industry:

"@HardKnottDave the world of Beer is a polite tea party compared to the ongoing brawl that is the software industry." - @JunkLight

Come on everyone, get a bit of perspective.

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¹Do telephone directories still exist? Do people still use them?

²Yes, he is always male.

Is it REAL?

There is a continuing debate surrounding CAMRA and keg beer. Some say that CAMRA should embrace craft keg beer and others say that they most certainly should not. I'm not, in this instance, expressing a view on this debate, or perhaps I am by proxy, but either way it does seem that the vast majority of people calling for CAMRA to embrace craft keg are not members of CAMRA and those who have no truck with such a concept are members.

Whatever, the debate has highlighted an interesting question for me, one that I have oft mulled; do we really think that "real ale" is as definable as we believe?

One of the arguments against "craft keg" is the problem of defining "craft". This is indeed a problem. Mudgie, in the comments on this post, has stated not for the first time that;

"....you end up with the problem of defining exactly what "craft" beer is. "Real ale" has a clear, black-and-white definition, whereas "craft beer" can mean anything you want it to mean, and can all too easily boil down to "breweries we like".

I can't disagree with that observation with respect to "craft beer" - many of us are happy with our own idea of what is craft, but with a wide variety of different breweries on something of a continuum from very small and artisan to really quite large and everything in-between. Personally I like some very big breweries much more than some small mediocre ones and would assign the term craft accordingly. Exactly the point Mudgie makes.

That is all well and good, but lets turn to "real ale". It is defined by CAMRA thus;

"Real ale is a natural product brewed using traditional ingredients and left to mature in the cask (container) from which it is served in the pub through a process called secondary fermentation. It is this process which makes real ale unique amongst beers and develops the wonderful tastes and aromas which processed beers can never provide."¹

Now, there is quite a lot of cask beer that is produced that conforms to this, but there is also quite a lot that certainly does not. Much cask beer is in fact conditioned in tanks under extraneous CO2, racked with nearly no yeast in it but with a reasonable amount of carbonation, sealed in the cask, rolled out of the brewery door and delivered to a pub. Within hours this beer can be served without any conditioning and very little settling time.

True cask conditioned beer is racked direct from fermenting vessel into cask and will have a very healthy yeast count. The down side of this is that it will not drop bright so quickly and takes considerably more care from the cellarman. Also, the beer should really be kept at the brewery for a week or so to allow the secondary fermentation to occur. Many breweries much prefer to fill the cask the day before delivery or even on the very same day. Many breweries have neither got the spare casks or space to store them at the correct conditioning temperature.

I would postulate that a large proportion of cask beer really is not "real ale" as defined by CAMRA and I certainly think that the whole issue is far more muddy than some would like to assert.

As for CAMRA and keg I'm not at all sure it makes much difference. Cask beer will be around for some time as will CAMRA. "Craft keg" or whatever you want to call it seems to have a growing acceptance amongst a younger group of beer drinkers. If perhaps the "no" camp, as represented by Pete Alexander's piece in Beer², is happy to continue to "foster good relations" then why should CAMRA do anything more?

Having said that, I'm also a fan of keg as an option, this does mean I'm sensitive to the inevitable anti-keg factions that really do exist. I'm still considering the very good article in Beer and am likely to have more to say. Whatever side of this particular thought process you might be, it's a grand debate that is unlikely to go away either.

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¹Taken from the CAMARA web site on http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=100330">this page

²The picture in this post is stolen from CAMRA's very good Beer magazine. I suspect I'm breaking a copyright law somewhere, sorry guys.

Not Chemical Fizz

I've been playing around with keg. I'm a CAMRA member and a micro-brewer, what on earth would I want to do that for?

British style "traditional"¹ beer is often best represented in cask. It is as simple as that. I don't think I know a single beer enthusiast who would have an argument with that. Not even my very good friend Jeff Pickthall, who is a confirmed and uninhibited CAMRA basher. I share some of his concerns, but to use the phrase often used, it would be a shame to throw out the baby with the bath-water. CAMRA is not all bad and cask beer is good.

Much contemporary beer is great from cask. There are plenty of modern beers that are fantastic served through hand-pull and I hope that some of mine classify in this group. There are also in my view, a number of beers that are generally better in keg. They are generally the stronger "craft" beers that have, up until recently, been responsible for some beer enthusiasts to drink more at home than in pubs or bars. The progressive craft keg market might well be small, it might well never overtake cask in volume, but it is growing and I'm interested in that as a brewer and a drinker.

The irony is that beer served from cask often contains more processed material than beer that is mass produced. Chemicals, you see, cost money. The main addition that is used in cask beer is Isinglass, which is made from processed fish guts and also contains chemicals like sulphur dioxide and citric acid.

Most brand keg beer by contrast is chill filtered and although I cannot guarantee these substances are not used at all, I know for a fact they are used in significantly lower quantities. Filtering, or separation of solids by centrifuge uses less chemicals and therefore costs less money to make. They are, therefore, not chemical beers at all.

I have been interested in kegging for some time. I've tried some trial kegs and found mixed success. I like the idea of completely unfiltered beer and beer that does not use isinglass. This seems just about impossible to do unless you can afford to leave it in a conditioning tank chilled to -1°C for six weeks.

I've recently racked some Infra Red into 20l kegs and there is a second trial keg of Queboid which is loaded right now into the van for delivery to the Rake Bar. The Infra Red has light filtering and the Queboid just chill conditioning. Both are likely to have haze to some degree, but I hope to acceptable levels.

I am a supporter of the idea of kegging beer over 6%. There is no reason for keg beer to be overly fizzy and indeed, I expect some keg enthusiasts will proclaim my interpretation to be under-carbonated, as the carbonation is likely to be very similar to cask. Of course I have no control over the take up of carbon dioxide in the pub and as most keg set-ups will quickly introduce extra carbonation I expect this might be a problem. In any case, for beers at this strength the sale time makes cask impractical except for high turnover pubs and beer festivals.

With luck we will be rolling out our kegs over the next few weeks. We would love you to try them and let us know what you think, good or bad.

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¹OK Jeff, just shoot me now.

In defence of the Crafterati

I generally agree with the comments made recently by Pete Brown and a related subject by Zak Avery regarding divisions in the beer world. This is all followed up by Tandleman who very nicely points out that we should all be able to comment where we like whilst still calling for a united front for British beer. Within these pieces there are links to other very salient observations by other bloggers. I do get all of this; there is a danger of us being far too negative rather than maintaining general positiveness about beer. There is indeed much to celebrate about beer in the UK, it's very diverse with a fantastic mix of progressive and traditional.

However, this also leads me to wonder. In the cities there are some great places to get great beer. There are specialist beer bars springing up all over the place and they all seem to be doing very well indeed. For this "craft beer revolution" to work it does need a cosmopolitan environment. Here in Cumbria there might well be some things to celebrate, but for the growing number of beer Crafterati within the county, it can be frustratingly difficult to improve enthusiasm for craft beer, whatever your definition of craft might be.

I can see the folly of criticising what people choose to drink, but equally there are areas of the country where the beer world view is still very narrow. I cannot get to most of the pubs that serve the beers I enjoy without driving, or getting Ann to drive. Most of my beer sales are a significant distance from where I have chosen to set up my brewery.

Imagine you can't get any beer that you really enjoy. Imagine you live in a county where everything is terribly parochial. Imagine you very rarely get anything other than boring brown beer, or even perhaps pale beer, but barely with much hop character to write about. Imagine that you are the sort of person who realises that drinking 6 pints of session ale does nothing for you other than damaging liver cells and putting a little more unwanted fat around your waist.

Imagine you are a brewer who is operating from that county and finds that most of your market is, in fact, outside the county because people inside don't really like the beers you make, despite them being awarded beer of the festival at least three times.

We know that there are people who like my beer. We also know that there are people who don't. Sometimes, when we follow up a sale to a pub, in the hope of repeat custom, the reply is an honest "my customers didn't really like it". Of course, I worry that it might have been a fault with that particular cask, and sometimes that might be so, in which case we try our best to address that situation. However, it is clear that certain outlets find that our approach to beer does not match the very stale traditional outlook which prevails.

When I send my beer to more progressive beer outlets I worry that it isn't progressive enough. I worry that I need to pack more flavour into the beer and ensure I can impress the Crafterati.

I know fine well that a massive 8% hop bomb is never going to be mainstream, and nor should it be. I know that imperial wood aged stouts are specialist beers of which most drinkers will be rightly sceptical.

I must hereby state my absolute right to slag off attitudes and choices of beer that prevent me from enjoying my own beer world, either from a brewer's or a drinker's perspective. By proxy of course this has to extend to supporting the right of people to deride chemical fizzy beer, even though I have now come to realise the error of that course of action.

It is interesting that Pete Brown's muse was triggered by Cookie's point that the wine world never slags off poor wine. Excuse me, after only the briefest of looks I found quite a few wine blogs where there are similar topics to be found. OK, wine buffs might be a bit more subtle about how they deride lower quality, or the use of such things as sulphites, for instance. We could discuss the fact that wine writers appear to be more erudite if you like, that would be more appropriate, but of course that would sit very uncomfortably with most beer enthusiasts.

Wine critic, art critic, music critic? Just the same as the beer critic surely? We can't all just write about that last great beer we tried in that new beer bar can we? If all beer writing is just about awesome beer we like we'll get criticised for not talking about the issues.

I can't help feeling that we are going around in ever decreasing circles.

What is craft beer?

I don't know. I know even less now I've read some of the posts surrounding this issue. I think it is very difficult to define what it is exactly.

A week gone Friday there was The Session hosted by Reluctant Scooper which asks about the various methods of beer dispense. I'm sorry that I've not had time to even read most of what has been written on the subject, let alone write something about it.

There has been further critiques of CAMRA recently. SWBrewery published a letter that stirred the blogosphere a little. Pete Brown also pointed out that one of the founder members of CAMRA regrets recruiting certain people to the organisation. Nicely balanced by Cooking Lager who points out in the comments that CAMRA are entitled to campaign for whatever they like¹.

I am very happy to put a little bit of money into an organisation that champions cask beer. What I am not happy to do is carry on thinking that cask beer is simply the best way to serve every beer in every situation. It may well be the best for many beers. It may well be best for many pubs. It is certainly the case that there are a significant minority of the population who drink it routinely. I'm very happy for CAMRA to continue to defend this. Although we should remember that it is a form of snobbery all of its own.

I'm getting somewhat frustrated by the conviction that beer cannot and should not be snobby or elitist. That very facet of the beer world is starting to make me feel that there really is a political agenda still simmering away under the surface.

Being snobby and elitist does not mean you wish to eradicate what you feel is beneath you. Indeed, in my case I'd argue it simply means I appreciate a broad spectrum of many good things. I'm snobby about food for instance. I have enjoyed, as special treats, many good restaurant meals. I have also plumped on occasions for the consistency, convenience and all-round calorific good value of McDonalds⁴.

Why is there a fear of a beer world which is striving for something more exciting than the array of indistinguishable session ales that now adorn many pub bars? Many of them which might as well, if we were honest, have been brewed on some big industrial plant anyway.

I like many types of beer. I like cask beer a lot. I drink and brew a lot of cask beer. The remainder of the beer I brew, for the time being, gets bottle conditioned. I have only ever had a small amount of my beer chill filtered and re-carbonated. I'm not convinced the results were as good as my own bottle conditioned beer. But watch this space, "never say never" is what I'd say, chill filtering can be done right.

I do drink a little bit of beer that is not "CAMRA calls this beer Real Ale". Because I try to choose wisely I enjoy pretty much all of it. I've even tried cask up against keg and for some beers there is no doubt that keg beats cask. The other day, when the local pub had been let down by their normal supplier² of cask beer I was forced to drink Guinness and enjoyed it quite a lot.

We all know cask beer. We understand it can be great. We also understand that it needs care and attention and not all circumstances are best for it. We also know that there are some pretty dull cask beers out there. Some are so dull that to be honest I'd rather have a Guinness, or perhaps a Carling.

So, this thing about Craft Beer? Well, whatever you want to say, there is a void, a vacuum, an esoteria that is trying to find some substance. To me it is irrelevant if it is burgeoning or not. This proudly snobbish, geeky and elitist void is currently fighting to form solid mass. This visionary cloud exists both here in the virtual world and in an increasing number of beer bars and progressive breweries.

Is Craft Beer the right term to help us fill the void? I think it could be. Although there are some very, very good arguments why we should approach the concept with some trepidation. Specifically, it would seem that in USA, craft beer is defined as made in a brewery that produces less than 6 million barrels of beer a year. Very few UK breweries produce more than this I'd hazard. Molson Coors? AB-InBev? Diagio? anymore? Besides, for what it's worth, I believe Molson Coors do brew some craft beer in the shape of White Shield and P2 as well as others.

I could go on and disassemble concepts such as "Traditional methods"³ "adjuncts to add rather than detract from flavour"⁵ etc.

The point is that there is an increasing cry for something, especially as we've just had the first SIBA Craft Keg festival. This cry sometimes blames CAMRA for standing in the way. I think there is some validity to that as I hear all to often that keg can't be as good or that we're being too elitist. So, let CAMRA get on with its good work at defending cask, why not? It's a good cause. Perhaps, in return, CAMRA activists could stop criticising, people using American hops or elitism that is trying to bring a refreshing new look to the beer world or even people asking a price that might make their brewery or pub a sustainable venture.

For me there has probably never been a better time to be involved in the British beer scene. We have a great array of fantastic beers out there. Some micro-brewed cask, some imported bottles, some craft keg, even stuff in cans that to be honest I'm dubious about, but we'll wait and see. Then there is the macro-brewed keg. We have to realise that this is what keeps many pubs trading. Yes, we'd all like every pub to have cask beer on the bar, that in itself is an elitist utopia. But it's not going to happen anymore than craft keg will usurp cask anytime soon.

Diversity is good and I'm happy to try and embrace it all.

Here in Cumbria a few merry folk are banding together to try and help fill the void in our part of the world. We've got no specialist beer bars in Cumbria you see. Craft Beer may not mean much to some folk, but to others it is a void that simply has to be filled.

Watch this space, there is more to come one this.

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¹"we" I should say. I'm a CAMRA member. Contrary to rumours, I have absolutely no intention of giving up my membership either.

²Their normal supplier is, of course, us. They can only take pins at the moment and we'd run out. Besides, they have a good flow of Guinness, best pint of the stuff I'd had for sometime as it happens.

³Where does a mash tun become a mash filter? Is it still craft if hop pellets are used? How far is it acceptable to process the hops?

⁴Yes, it's true. I've even been known to put ketchup on the chips although I'm more likely to if forced to the even lower depravity of Burger King, whose food is truly dreadful.

⁵I know of one very small microbrewery that uses sugar to increase fermentables. The only good reason I can see is that it is cheaper than malt. I'd probably be tempted to include them in the Craft Beer subset, although their beer isn't brilliant.

A Christmas Message

It's about Christ isn't it? Christmas that is. This is an uncomfortable aspect of the feast for the atheists. On the other hand, we are only just past the shortest day; We can look forward to summer being on its way. A festival at this time of year has been part of human society for much longer than even the age of Stonehenge.

I started watching Jesus Christ Superstar last night. It was being aired on ITV and is one of those performing arts pieces that define my youth. Being brought up as Catholic, it is actually interesting to me that my mother encouraged its presence in our house when one considers the controversy surrounding this rock opera. This is not so surprising when I think back to her support over such subjects as my own sexual development, and her open and outright opposition to the Catholic churches doctrines over contraception and sexual health. I suspect that without her deliberate and considered scepticism I'd have ended up a much more troubled person than I have actually turned out to be.

The film was being screened late in the evening, I'd been to the pub and on returning home opened a bottle of one of my all time favourite beers; Theakston's Old Peculier. The bottle doesn't say if it is bottle conditioned or not. There didn't seem to be any sediment and to be honest it's not as good as the cask version. I suspect it is chill filtered and re-carbonated and I'm disappointed that this traditional classic is not better in the bottle. However, I will still buy more of it in the future if for no other reason than it was the very first beer I really enjoyed nearly 30 years ago. I'd drunk many others, all poor keg version of what were probably once great beers. Theakston managed to hit the spot and that cask beer is what started me on my road of evangelistic beer geekdom.

It could have been the beer, or the late hour, but I failed to finish watching the film; it didn't matter, I've been involved in staged versions of the musical and know it quite well.

The story portrayed in the Rice-Webber composition are the simple facts as best we can distil from the propaganda of the late Christian Roman Empire. There are no claims of Christ's miracle powers or any confirmation that he might have been God-made-man. It could simply be seen as a story about a freedom fighter standing up against an occupying Roman administration. The fact that he uses, so the story goes, religious rhetoric to get his point across is no unusual occurrence in the ancient world.

Of course the Roman Empire almost certainly helped to spread good technology, fiscal systems, law and order and cultural refinement alike. Their apparent barbaric feudal-like society might well be abhorrent to us and the early Christians alike, but it almost certainly helped develop our modern society and culture. The alphabet contained in my writing is largely the same as the Romans used in their written Latin language. Perhaps Christ was a necessary development, a challenge to what was wrong with the then current human order. Whether the Christian religion can still play a useful part in helping our society is a debatable point, although Psalm 23 helped me at my mothers funeral; something life-long atheists may struggle to understand.

I like the fact that JC Superstar is a simple, almost believable story of what might actually have happened to Jesus. No religious interpretation, just a narrative of the struggle of a local man against the burgeoning administration of the Romans. The cinematography and soundtrack editing could have been smoother and that irritates me, but it's nearly 40 years old and bound to look like a 1970's film.

The challenge to the beer world back in the early 1970's was certainly needed. The founders of CAMRA certainly started something powerful. The organisation was originally called the Campaign for Revitalisation of Ale and has now grown to an organisation boasting over 115,000 members. There is no doubt it has helped to shape the beer world we now see in the UK.

Certainly there is a desire to buck against mass homogenisation of the beer world. That desire is still here nearly 40 years since CAMRA was founded.

Two thousand years after the birth of Jesus our modern world still hangs onto the story of Christ. We also hang onto the story of Mr Claus. We're afraid that the magic of the season will somehow vanish if we turn our backs on the stories. Many young people are told that if they don't believe in Santa he won't come. We know they are not true. We know really that it was the end of the Roman Empire that shaped what we now have as the Christian religion. Modern scientific research has constantly found major faults with The New Testament, but still, we base our holidays on the festivals chronicled in these stories that are almost certainly distortions of what actually happened.

The reader could be excused for thinking from the above that I am an atheist. The truth is that I am not. I dislike anyone telling me that I am not allowed to think about, or for that matter write about what I really think. What I believe is that humanity has an omnipresent power that can manifest itself in either good or evil, and many shades in between. I believe we can make ourselves live in the minds of others for many years after our death. Hitler has and Jesus have. How we are remembered will be shaped by what we do when we are alive. Unfortunately, to be able to call myself a Christian I must believe that Christ was God made man - I am no longer prepared to believe that. What I do believe is that we can learn from ancient fables such as those written by the Greek philosophers and those written by Jesus' Disciples later edited by the Romans. Perhaps the Qu'ran could also help us, were it not for that fact that it seems to have been elevated to the same status as the Christian Gospels. Good stories don't have to be true to help us. Making them doctrines in the modern free-thinking world is what spoils their value.

I love beer. I love cask beer. I love bottle conditioned beer. Cask Old Peculier is my Psalm 23 of the beer world. The bottle version doesn't seem to be "Real Ale" but remains one of my drinks of choice, perhaps in this form it might not be worthy, but I can wander down to the local shop and get a 4 pack for a reasonable price.

I consider myself a Christian, despite the fact that I don't believe that Jesus was God-made-man. I still have an affection for the fables contained in the Bible, despite the fact that the models of Heaven and Hell are, in my mind, just that; models. I do not see why I can't be a Christian without being a believer and retain my right to free thought. Besides, I don't feel comfortable believing in Christmas without it. If nothing else, Christmas is an excuse to drink more beer than one usually does, I'm not sure how I'm going to manage that, but it's worth a try. Is it useful to make young children believe in Father Christmas any more than it is to make them believe in Baby Jesus? Are these things essential to make Christmas work?

It could be said that Christianity, and Catholicism in particular, has grown too powerful, when scientific and technological developments make the dogmas of such ancient organisations outdated and out of touch. In a world where population and disease control need contraception and in my view any organisation that claims to be compassionate is irresponsible to condemn such things.

Chill-filtering of beer helps to make it more approachable, less variable and more economic to produce. The science of bottling shows me that bottle conditioning is fraught with difficulties. Despite that I still believe there is much to learn from the ideal that cask beer or bottle conditioned beer is simply the best. I really do believe that this is the case and the founding principles of CAMRA are based on that.

The science of beer making has been bolstered by the bigger brewers who we often feel the need to fight against. Without big industry research would not be funded, this is true of any industry and is no less true in our beer-world. Just like The Romans brought aqueducts, underfloor heating, our alphabet and crucifixion. Christianity has shaped much of our society, but is perhaps now looking very outdated. Santa is just as believable and we now worship him with as much vigour, even if he is a Coca-cola red.

CAMRA remains the guiding light for many who are passionate about good beer. I am, and expect to remain a member of CAMRA for a good while yet. Recent persuasion by many within SIBA have convinced me that I really ought to join and enjoy some of the benefits of being a member of such an organisation. I suspect that my membership of any organisation will inspire me to consider many aspects of that organisation, I suspect that I am unlikely to change in that respect. I don't doubt many hang onto their unswaying belief in their beer organisation of choice.

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"All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME... SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY."

— Terry Pratchett (Hogfather)

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Personally my all-time favourite Pratchett quote is:

"..... writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves"

I intend to have much more fun by myself next year. Meanwhile, here's wishing all the readers of this blog a Very Hoppy Christmas and Prosperous New Beers