A rewarding award

Once upon a time there was a young lad in a junior school. He didn't really like writing, his spelling was bad, punctuation dodgy and handwriting illegible. The subject matter set by the teachers didn't help and the bullying by them to get the technicalities correct further turned him away from doing nearly any writing at all. Teachers queried dyslexia and his parents blamed laziness.

Moving to secondary school helped as the subjects became more interesting, but the damage was done. Writing remained difficult and at the age of 25 this young man had little more than a few "O" levels and part of an ONC. Luckily, by the beginning of the 1990's computers started to become affordable. Spellcheckers fixed many things and writing became legible once some form of touch typing was mastered. A reasonable string of qualifications ensued and a career in engineering with the nuclear industry enhanced. However, writing method statements, risk assessments and maintenance manuals are marginally less interesting than writing a telephone directory. Time for a career change. This by now not-so-young man bought a pub. What else?

And so there becomes a reason to write, about the frustrations of trying to turn a dream into a reality, about how it is not as easy to run a pub as some seem to think and of course about something more special than anything that might have gone before in this persons life, about beer. This blog was thus born.

Now I will mix up the third to first person, surely I can be excused that, and perhaps the reader can understand the delight when I found that the person described above was awarded a prize for his writing. On Thursday night, when Zak Avery described my blog, before finally saying my name, I could not be more pleased. In the same competition that many great beer writers before have gained accolades I become one of them; I am runner up in the New Media category.

It seems difficult not to be self indulgent after what I see as a personal achievement greater than nearly anything I have done before. It will take a while to sink in properly no doubt, as before the British Guild of Beer Writers dinner I had tried my very hardest to convince myself not to be disappointed if I won nothing. I was kidding myself, of course I'd be disappointed. Afterwards, an incredible sense of anticlimax and tiredness enveloped me as the pent up emotions finally able to be released.

It remains for me to thank a few people; It's the done thing. A few bloggers that are key to inspiration must be listed; Jeff Bell AKA stonch must surely be the first, it was his blog that gave me the idea to write something meaningful and it was great last night to be in his very busy pub with other bloggers. Next thanks goes to Jeff Pickthall who's sceptical outlook can provide great tempering for my crazy ideas but more importantly his encouragement is invaluable. Tandleman deserves a big mention as his blog often sparks post subjects and the discussions that follow, which he often engages in, can be far more important than the original piece.

The twin to this blog, Pencil and Spoon, gained Mark Dredge the title of the best new media writer. Well done to Mark, I genuinely believe he deserves that and I look forward to many years of further writings. Equally, I don't think anybody, except perhaps the man himself, believed that Pete Brown would not get Beer Writer of the Year.

I have to end with a final bit of sentimentality towards the two most important women in my life. First of course is Ann for encouraging and proof reading this blog and moreover putting up with me being grumpy when the words just don't work, or because I have to leave my writing as something in the pub becomes more important. The second sadly has not survived to see this day, but I am certain that my mother would have had tremendous pride knowing her son finally did get around to writing something useful after all. I might have driven her insane by not doing my homework, sorry Mum, but I hope it was all worth it in the end. I'm glad at least you knew there was untapped potential there and all it needed was to find a passion and anything was possible.

International Beer Challenge

More beer, this time last Wednesday. I think I'm starting to catch up with myself at last. The International Beer Challenge 2009 had it's presentation of awards in the Royal Society of the Arts Vaults. An interesting location two floors underground. Rather prevents any twittering, which is a shame as my BlackBerry had been fully charged. OK, I'll take some pictures instead. Would you believe it my camera battery was flat. Luckily I managed to find a socket and get some life back into it.

I wasn't sure what the awards were about. I'd not even had a chance to swat up before I went, but I was keen to find out whilst I was there. Of course these gatherings are always useful for networking anyway, and learning as much as I can about how the beer world works. There is the completely incidental issue of getting to taste a few beers, not that that had any influence on my desire to attend.

It's about bottled beers, if you haven't already done what I should have done two weeks ago and checked the web site. "The world's largest packaged beer competition" it says. I wonder if that's true. Surely we can't do something bigger than the yanks? Well whatever, there was probably as many different bottles of beers as I've ever seen in one room, or dungeon. Although having been to Delirium Café in Brussels I guess that's a lie. However, I got to try a few more than I'd normally try in one session.

As for the awards themselves? Well here are the winners of each section

NABLAB - Bill Brewer, Harvey and Son

Ales - Highlander, Fyne Ales

Stouts and Porters - Prince of Denmark, Harvey and Son

Lagers - Samuel Adams Traditional Bock, The Boston Beer Company

Wheat Beers - Hefeweissbier, Weihenstephan

Fruit Beers - Redoak Framboise Froment, Redoak Boutique Beer

Speciality - Bracia, Thornbridge

The overall winner was - Hefeweissbier, Weihenstephan

Interesting, I didn't rate it very highly, I'm sure I've had better Weissbier. But there, just my opinion.

Now what I thought was interesting was the section on branding. The point being made was that most bottled beers need to sell themselves on the shelves of supermarkets. A good brand needs to stand out amongst other brands and be recognisable and look desirable. It's not good enough just to make quality beer. Pete Brown gave another interesting talk on the subject¹ of why it is important to look at how beer is sold. I'm going to start believing him before long and do something about my own image.

I was intrigued by one category in the Design and Packaging section which seemed to be awarded for not dicking around with an existing brand. Don't fix what ain't broke - Somebody should tell Microsoft that, eh Pete? Ahem...anyway, I was quite pleased that Robinson's lack of progressive thinking actually won this for them. Old Tom won because they had the good sense to maintain a branding that stood up as an icon of enduring quality whilst not looking out of place alongside contemporary designs. At least that was something like what was said.

I did try Old Tom and can say I did quite like it, so there you go.

There were two other awards in the branding bit;

Repackaged - Clouded Yellow, St Austell Brewery

New - Ola Dubh 40, Harviestoun Brewery

I had a nice chat with the Green King head brewer, my notes say he's called Ed Kentishbarnes, I do hope I've got that right. It surprised me just how similar their brewing process was to Fullers. Blending probably at different stages of the process but still using two different streams to control the parameters of the finished product. Moreover I am reminded of one thing - brewers have no secrets, we all like to chat about brewing. From that we can again be reminded that beer is a social drink.

The full list of results are here, if you're really interested. Actually, if you're not interested they are still in exactly the same place, sorry but your disinterest will not make them go away.

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¹None of us believed it was that big, but a good story teller... well.... tells a good story.