Container Snobbery

We've recently invested in some proper stainless kegs. We've been putting beer into KeyKeg for some time and we have a few plastic kegs too. Most of our kegged beer has been exported to Italy where it has been well received. Today we are sending a further 48 KeyKegs.

As we've been gaining experience putting un-filtered craft beer into keg we've found there to be some issues. Un-filtered means the beer will contain some live yeast. This can sometimes, if there are some fermentables left, result in over-conditioning of the beer. This is especially true if the beer is allowed to warm up¹ during transportation.

Cask of course can, and should be vented prior to being served. Any over-condition is allowed to be released until the carbonation is at an equilibrium with cellar temperature and atmospheric pressure. This means that fresh cask beer should have a minimum carbonation of about 1.1vols upon serving. Effectively this is an advantage of cask beer for micro-brewers as the exact carbonation level is determined by how the cellarman treats the beer rather than precise process at the brewery. Every good cask cellarman knows there will be some variability in the carbonation dependant on many factors including the timeline activities between racking in the brewery and the point of being tapped and vented.

I've talked before about how to reduce the pressure² in KeyKegs - it works. I even managed to do it on-the-fly in Turin last year for various British brewers' beers to help get them served on the bar at Salone Del Gusto. My thumb acted as the release valve. It was a risky process. And yes, I did end up getting a beer shower.

We have improved significantly in our skills at getting carbonation right since we started putting beer into keg. From that respect the beer will be no better, or worse, in the stainless kegs than the beer we are now sending out in large quantities in KeyKeg. However, as is the case with most craft brewers who are exploring keg the early editions have been in KeyKeg and less well executed versions than the beer we now send out.

When we first started brewing all our beer went into plastic casks. It worked for us because way back then, in late 2005, we only sold it through the pub we then owned. Any problems we could manage and anyway, as the beer went straight from racking into the pub cellar there were rarely any issues. However, when we started selling a lot more to various outlets we found that the beer was less tolerant to variability especially in hot weather.

Again, we've improved. A lot. We rarely send out beer out in plastic cask, or plastic kegs. Mainly because in trade they just don't stand the knocks. Longterm, plastic just isn't a sensible investment. However, for startups it makes sense and as a result many new brewers use plastic. Low investment costs equals reduced risk. The result is that less experienced brewers, who have yet to perfect their processes, may have a greater degree of variability.

I've noticed a wide range of snobbery towards containers. There is of course the ongoing question of exactly what CAMRA should accept. I've noticed some distributors now refusing to accept KeyKeg because of a high rate of return of over-conditioned KeyKegs. The same distributors will accept stainless kegs. I've heard publicans snoot at plastic casks because the beer tends to be more variable. Either it is under-conditioned and flat or it has a much bigger tendency to blow keystones and shives.

I'd argue that none of this is the fault of the container, although I don't doubt that the correlation is real.

Our beer is getting better and better and better all the time. Over the next few months we will be putting out much more keg beer into the UK and it will mostly be in stainless kegs. It'll be very good indeed, trust me. It's not getting better because we are putting beer into stainless, we are putting it into stainless because we are better and way more confident in what we are doing.

Of course, I could now start to talk about bottles versus cans.........

If you are in Leeds next week you might find kegged Azimuth and/or Duality in North Bar. We're also sending keg Azimuth to BeerX in Sheffield. I believe there are also places in Newcastle that might have our keg either now or in the very near future. These include The Free Trade Inn, Bacchus and Lady Grey's.

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¹Beer will always keep better, irrespective of whether it is filtered, live or even pasteurised, if kept cool from the point it is packaged to the point it is served.

²Although I accept that beer ought to be as good as it can be for the establishment to handle, I do wonder why some don't at least make the effort to gas off kegs from those brewers who are experimenting. I'd love to still have my own bar so that I could iron out all the troubles within my own control. However, we do make mistakes and sometimes places get beer that fobs due to over condition. If it's not right then clearly a refund is in order, but it would be nice to still get the beer on the bar and showcased, especially if we've made the effort to ship it a long way.

Terroir

Our activities to raise the profile of food and beer matching have attracted some interesting responses. I am pleased with the way it has gone in general, but there are some underlying issues to resolve. In particular, the question of beer and its "sense of place", as Tim Atkin likes to call it, is a nagging point.

Fine wine is almost exclusively made from grapes grown in a single vineyard, crushed, fermented, matured and possibly even bottles by the same artisan organisation within a particular village. That, we are told, makes fine wine better for food matching than beer ever can.

The best bottle of wine I ever consumed was on my 40th birthday, in a 3 rosette restaurant, in which, a few weeks later, the Queen dined. The wine was really was very good, but at around £45 for 750ml I'm unsure if I could claim it was better than some of the very best beer I have ever drunk. I can think of a few grand beers, of equal complexity and of better value for money than that wine example. Furthermore, I strongly suspect that the wine in question would be much more now; I've tried to buy it since and failed to do so for any less than around £60 a bottle, even at wholesale prices.

Despite knowing that some exceptional quality beers can equal fine wine, how do we counter the accusation that beer has no "sense of place", no terroir? Furthermore, I decided to enter into my "campaign" by citing the fact that British Beer is an indigenous product of our country and that aspect has been undermined a little by various people, not incorrectly of course, pointing out that some of the very best beers do in fact use imported hops. Chris King writes a constructive appraisal of where we are which brings up that question, and is one of a number of articles I need to address before moving forward.

So, what does this treasured terroir mean? Is it really that valuable? How does it make wine better than beer and able to command ridiculous prices? Can beer ever compete?

Let's look first at the meaning of the word:

terroir (tɛrwar)

— n
winemaking

the combination of factors, including soil, climate, and environment, that gives a wine its distinctive character.

-dictionary.com

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A " terroir " is a group of vineyards (or even vines) from the same region, belonging to a specific appellation, and sharing the same type of soil, weather conditions, grapes and wine making savoir-faire, which contribute to give its specific personality to the wine.

-terroir-france.com

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Of course, if we directly try to parallel wine terroir to beer we will fail. The bulk ingredient in beer is water. Many will try to argue that you can tell the difference when a brewery changes its water supply, and I've tried to do so myself in the past. Wine, of course, is entirely grape juice and so all the water in wine has come through the soil and into the vine before being squeezed out of the grape. In beer the science behind liquor treatment almost entirely blows away the idea that water necessarily has to influence the beer production.

The grain is the next bulk ingredient. For a product like a good barley wine the bulk weight input might very well equal the mass of the finished product. Barley, and most of the other grist ingredients, are grown in the UK. They are then normally by a handful of fine and experienced malsters, also in the UK.

Hops, which are an ingredient that arguably most effects the flavour and aroma of some of the very best beers may very well not be grown in this country. Indeed, although I accept this is a matter of opinion and a controversial point, the finest beers are made with heavy doses of New World hops. However, I do not believe this undermines my point that beer is an indigenous UK product.

To counter the accusation of hops being imported it is important to note that the hops represent less than 1% by weight of the finished product. Value wise it is a little more complicated, and seasonally variable, but generally less than 1% of the price you pay for your beer actually contributes to a none UK economy. Hops are a low mass product, shipped by sea and of relatively low value compared to the overall value of the beer.

It is true that the flavour of hops is significantly effected by the climate of area the hops are grown. This does truly inhibit our ability to focus on one single terroir for beer, but in reality many brewers are highlighting the New World influence on beer making the drink much less stuffy and aloof than the pretentious wine parallel. Beer is a product that crosses many boundaries including national frontiers - I think that makes it better than wine. For that reason it can also be argued that beer is a better match for world cuisine. Beer is a much better beverage for the modern, all-embracing, cosmopolitan and democratic people.

Human controlled elements

The definition of terroir can be expanded to include elements that are controlled or influenced by human decisions. This can include the decision of which grape variety to plant, though whether or not that grape variety will produce quality wine is an innate element of terroir that may be beyond human influence. Some grape varieties thrive better in certain areas than they do in others. The winemaking decision of using wild or ambient yeast in fermentation instead of cultured or laboratory produced yeast can be a reflection of terroir. The use of oak is a controversial element since some will advocate that its use is beneficial in bringing out the natural terroir characteristics while others will argue that its use can mask the influences of the terroir.

-wikipeadia.com

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Yeast, of course, has a significant effect on beer. I've recently been trying a few beers crafted by long-standing brewers that I have previously overlooked. There is a quite distinctive flavour that is created by some brewers as a result of careful selection of ingredients but more specifically the cultivation of yeast.

Where beer comes into its own is the human influence, selection of ingredients, cultivation of yeast and a panache for creating complexity, depth of flavour and aroma. Dexterous monitoring and control of the whole process from mash, boil, through fermentation and maturation is critical to a top class beer that has a house feel all of its own. It may very well not be important where the beer is made, and a "sense of place" more vague, but beer from a particular brewery has character and personality very special and often only surpassed by the personalities of the brewers.

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The summer recess for Saturday Kitchen provides a useful time of reflection for our campaign to raise the awareness of food and beer matching. A post to follow concerns the fact that food and beer matching, when done well, would necessarily have to include beers from various countries, further undermining my "beer is the indigenous British drink" angle - this point needs to be addressed for the continuation of the "movement"

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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.