Added value

Beer sales overall are dropping. They are dropping much more in pubs. This is a fact that can be backed up by hard evidence. I have here a copy of the 2011 BBPA Statistical Handbook. It is very good indeed. It shows for instance that beer sales in on "On trade" was around 67% of the total in 2000. In 2010 it was just under 51%. "Off sales" by comparison was less than 32% in 2000 but in 2010 only a shade under 50%. For the first time in history beer consumption in pubs, when you bear in mind "on trade" includes restaurants, hotels and other public drinking establishments, is no longer the dominant beer market.

There are many factors that are causing this. One, of course, is the fact that the traditional pub is no longer fashionable, or at least not as much as it used to be. Eating out has become much more popular and it is very evident that fewer and fewer pubs can survive with a pure wet trade.

An increasing awareness of the health harm that can result from excessive consumption of alcohol, and an increasing social stigma being associated with "binge drinking" and "alcohol related crime" led in part by the tabloid press, further damages the industry.

While some are worried that beer is becoming pompous and somehow above itself¹, I have consistently and repeatedly argued that this is a good thing. People are turning away from beer and pubs in favour of the grape, home drinking and restaurants. Overall alcohol consumption is dropping, although having only dropped back to around the same level as the year 2000. More importantly the number of cases of drunkenness has decreased from around 20 cases per 10,000 people in it's peak in the 1970s to less than 5 per 10,000 now. The thing that does bother me a little about this figure is that the police may be less inclined to prosecute purely for drunkenness these days. Good job really, otherwise I suspect I may have been prosecuted by now, and perhaps some of my readership too.

Whilst the supermarkets and their relatively low pricing of alcohol must surely be damaging the industry, there is very little we can realistically do about this. The vast majority of the general public see the supermarket as a good thing. The pricing is perceived as good, everything is under one roof and you can park your car right outside the door. However, the supermarket does not provide for a smaller proportion of the population who want something different. I rarely buy beer in the supermarket because they rarely have the beer I want to buy. I often go to the pub and buy beer, sometimes it's even the beer produced in my own brewery. I do so for a very good reason.

Hardknott beers at Craft Beer Co - one of an emerging number of contemporary beer bars

I could set up a cask, or even a keg, in my brewery, or in my garage or kitchen and enjoy my own beer at a much lower price. And I have done on occasions. I prefer to pay a little bit more and drink it in a pub. Why?

Because the pub is warmer than the brewery. Because I can sit and talk rubbish about nothing with the friends I have at the pub. Because someone gives me my beer in a clean glass and wipes the tables down, the decore is better and overall the experience is much better than at the brewery or at home.

It bothers me a lot that there are repeated noises from many people about how the supermarkets are damaging the pub and beer industry by their cut price alcohol. Whilst this may well be true what we inadvertently do is reinforce this commonly held belief. We are telling people that beer is cheaper in the supermarkets, so people now believe that more than ever.

Pubs are special because they add value to the drinkers experience. Special beer in a growing specialist beer market providing added value because the beer is more flavoursome, stronger, shipped from lands afar or perhaps just a little bit daft only goes to strengthen the beer market and helps to grow the businesses that I hope the reader would like to see flourish.

Beer snobbishness is good for beer, not bad.

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¹I was going to link here to several posts by other bloggers, but I realise that none of them quite say that. But there does seem to be an undertone of the old "beer is the drink of the common people" and "Beer should not be too expensive or snobby"

Here are some posts, although I suspect the reader has already seen them.

Boak and Bailey and again
Tandleman

There are of course good points made, but I can't help feeling that there is a lack of joined up thinking when it comes to how we worry about how beer is sold, marketed and priced. It was the Daily Mail piece this morning that caused me to write this piece.

Musing the Market

It has been a very busy and varied couple of weeks. Improvements to the brewery progress, we've been getting our beers out to people that we have promised them to and of course the Great British Beer Festival saw a massive and worthwhile distraction.

Yesterday I woke up thinking about the procreation of yeast, which is odd, as primeval physiological instinct of my own procreation used to be my normal morning distraction. I awoke unusually early which was handy as I had a lot to do. The yeast subject was catalysed by the discovery of my American friend's beer presence on Bières Sans Frontières at the festival. The two main thrusts, if you'll pardon further reproductive connection, of my considerations of this were; 1. Why does his beer taste the way it does? 2. How come Ted, who is 8 time zones away and has been brewing less time than me, has his beer at GBBF already? The second question I'll come to further down, but the first was what woke me up and will be the subject of another post, promise.

However, before I could get around to writing this post we had beer to deliver beer and an install to do at a pub. Along with our cask ale beer we are starting to supply various interesting beers to pubs that would like to do something interesting. The Queens at Biggar on Walney Island has been closed for over a year. Two delightfully enthusiastic ladies have bought the place and have set about renovating it with supremely directed madness. Their attempts might or might not be foolhardy but recognising kindred determination we have committed to helping them to achieve their vision. They wanted Timmermans Kriek on draught. We can do that for them. They also wanted Mitchell Krause on draught, so we've been involved with that too. Of course there will be our cask beers available from time to time.

The owners have gone, quite sensibly in my opinion, for multiple suppliers. We will have to sit alongside Bank Top, Veltins, Stoweford Press and Grolsh as well as Hawkshead. To be honest it is the last in that list that I worry about most from a competitive point of view; Hawkshead make damn good beer. Having had my run-ins with Alex Brodie, the owner, I hope we have put this behind us after several pints together resulting in frank discussion and a realisation that perhaps we have quite a lot in common, even if neither of us want to admit it.

It is not the first time Hardknott and Hawkshead beers have sat on the same bar and I hope not the last. Progressive and interesting beers are likely to succeed by learning to get along, and even perhaps helping each other out; I connected the cooling jackets on the Hawkshead pumps on this occasion, there you go Alex, I do hope you approve.

At GBBF most of us beer geeks, bloggers and twitteratti assembled near BSF. Frankly, it's where most of the beer is that we want to seek out. We may well not represent the majority of the beer market and it is important for us to remember that. However, I don't travel 300 miles to try some clone of a "traditional" recipe, frankly, I can get that at home. I go to find like minded people and search for great, progressive beer.

Sid Boggle considers this on his blog. I seem to have been mistakenly included in some of the best brewing talent around, but apart from this point, the piece is interesting and provoking. I'm still trying to understand the beer market and exploring what is said I must consider further. A key issue for me is exactly why people buy beer and what type of beers interest the various types of beer enthusiasts.

Cumbria did achieve one award at GBBF; Beckstones got bronze in the Strong Bitters category. David Taylor is a very diligent brewer and the consistency and cleanliness of his product shows through. In 2008 he also got overall silver in Champion Beer of Britain with Black Gun Dog Freddie. David's brewery is the closest geographically to mine, begging the question of the sense in me thinking I can survive in a declining market with such competition around.

However, despite there being a significant number of breweries in Cumbria, many of whom I think brew technically competent beer, is it only Beckstones¹ that seems to win.

My conclusion, currently, is that the beer market in Cumbria is not particularly progressive. The beers chosen at local level to represent Cumbria don't show off all the best beers, in my humble opinion. The personal preferences of local CAMRA branches have to be an influence.

There must also be an influence as a result of the style of market in The Lakes. Most breweries are pushing the fact that they produce local traditional ale, made with traditional ingredients, you know, British Marris Otter and English hops and made with Lake District water. Beer miles and quaffability being the main selling points; after all, if you are on a walking holiday in The Lakes you want a piece of the locale that will slake your thirst. Interesting flavours cost more and have minimum impact on sales.

The rest of the County, the industrial belt around the outside, is also steeped in tradition. Insular and lacking progressive thinking; the majority of the drinking population secure in it's contentment. Quite unlike the forward thinking alternative beer community I have come to love in Sheffield, London, Leeds and other big cities.

The fact that Cumbria rarely wins much at GBBF, despite having a high number of breweries and beers to choose from, might be partly due to the fact that we need to do better at brewing, but the choices put forward at local level do appear to be mired in local branch politics and the Cumbrian palate having a fondness for all that is bland. I'm not convinced that the best beers are put forward.

After all, despite my aforementioned rivalry with Hawkshead, I feel their absence tells a story; they are probably one of the best breweries in Cumbria right now, but not one of their beers was represented.

Furthermore, the fact that BSF provides such a fantastic array of esoteric beers, very few progressive UK breweries can showcase beer at this, the key beer event of the year in the UK. I can imagine that in years to come there is likely to be an increase of fringe beer events in the capital that will cater more for the beer geek community. I suspect I will see you there and you never know, I might even be prepared to bury hatchets for anyone else who will join this journey.

¹I am pleased Beckstones did well, and the fact the this brewery has already gained two awards in GBBF is good reason to carry on putting David's beers forward. Yes, I also know Coniston has been successful a few years ago and Great Gable did very well with Yewbarrow in the bottle section - I like this beer too.