StringersBeer

Craft. Oh for goodness sake. #2

2012-01-27T17:03:00.000Z

And now it's kinda kewl to put yourself on the outside of that old "craft" debate. You know the one: Does "craft" mean anything? Does it mean anything in the UK brewing "scene"? Can it mean anything specific to our industry / tradition? It has been going on for a while now.

But the alternative (that isn't an alternative), Huh , who cares, I know what I mean when I say "good". I know what I like. That's an asocial, narcissistic way of looking at things, isn't it? And to imply that anyone still engaged is dumb, well that's like: "Is that thing still happening? It's like so yesterday, I am so over that." Amusing in a teenager, but pitiable in a grown-up.

Craft. Oh for goodness sake.

2012-01-15T12:14:00.005Z

Ok then - a craft brewery is a small, independent producer of beer.
Why small? Because craft is NOT about mass-production.
Why independent? Because it's about the beer, and the brewers, not about the financial targets of the parent company.

What do I mean by small? Well, we're fortunate enough in the UK to have a definition for a small brewery: i.e. one that makes "Small Brewery Beer", i.e. less than 60,000 hectolitres of beer per year.

What do I mean by independent? That the brewery should be owned (mainly) by its management / workforce.

Update: This would have been a good place to suggest (as Boak & Bailey did), that "The brewers are the management".

But what does Craft mean? How about asking the V&A? http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/what-is-craft/. Do they have a beer collection? Should they?

Update: Small-ness & Independence are necessary, but of course, not sufficient conditions for craft-ness.

Under Attack?

2011-12-16T10:35:00.006Z

Apparently I'm guilty of "repeatedly espousing destructive policies" and am to be "attacked" for it. (Not really, just on the Twitter). Even though this charge does have rather the ring of "corrupting the youth and impiety" (hah!) I'd like to make my position as clear as I can.

I don't espouse any particular energy policy, "Carbon Tax", trading arrangement or whatever. I don't know enough about all the particular policies to have serious opinions on them. I'm pretty much in agreement with the "polluter pays" principle, and I accept the reality of "liberal democratic" government. At the same time, while not being simplistically anti-capitalist, I'm aware that capitalism doesn't necessarily well serve the general good. I know that national governments aren't world governments, but they are governments in the world.

I'm not convinced that taxation (per se) is necessarily bad for an economy. Perhaps some taxes are bad (counter-productive / above revenue maximising rates / squandered / etc).

I have (on the twitter) posted links to interesting documents on Carbon Emissions, Climate Change and what might be done about it. Most recently:

"Bridging Emissions Gap for 2C Target Do-able bit.ly/uJKBXS , but we couldn't be bothered. Sorry kids. Daddy broke the world."

(The reference is to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme)

The point I was trying to make is that it appears that the 2°C target is technically achievable; however, politically (even given the success(?) in Durban http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16124670) it looks a bit unlikely - to say the least.

Obviously, here at Stringers, we're interested in the Climate Change and Emissions thang. We're somewhat interested in Fossil Fuel Dependence, and stuff like that. We're very interested in Autonomy, which is why we we feel we should internalise our true energy costs, as far as possible, ourselves - hence our 100% renewably powered position (for which we pay a small premium). We don't wait for The Man to force us to do the Right Thing.

Anyhoo, the main point leveled against me (by @GreatHeckBrew), as far as I can figure it, is that

"carbon reduction policies of European governments are well intentioned but counterproductive. They increase global emissions"

ie. it's suggested that EU policies transfer emissions to the developing world, resulting in a net increase in Carbon emissions. The mechanism proposed seems to be that the burden of EU policies on EU based business impairs competitiveness, so dirty (less regulated) developing world industries gain an advantage and expand.

Now, to "prove" that EU policies leads to an overall transfer of emissions to the developing world (or as we might say, "Exports Emissions"), you'd need to, as a minimum, show two things:

Emissions are exported (overall).
This is due to EU policies.

I'm not aware that this has been done.

30 Dec 2011:
Right, nothing from my "attacker" (golly) so that's a "shut up" having failed to "put up" thing.

The Physics

2011-08-12T19:28:00.000+01:00

Professor Branestawm called us into his workroom earlier today.
"See here!", he cried, indicating what appeared to be an old television set balanced precariously on top of what we first took to be an old refrigerator, but closer inspection revealed as a VAX 11/750. "The Internet!" he gesticulated at the screen, "The world wide web!".

And sure enough, the good professor was pointing at a shaky image of Hardknott Dave's blog.

"Very good Professor..." and with placatory smiles, we edged back towards the door.

"No, no," he laughed, "I'm quite familiar with your Internet nonsense, thank you very much. I merely wished to draw your attention to this debate about cooling!"

"See here", he continued, "one of these Internet characters holds that beer lines should be cooled along their length, while another proposes that the cellar temperature should be lowered during the warmer part of the year."

"Internet characters?", I burst out, "Professor, those are real people you're talking about!"

"Indeed?" He looked over one of his many pairs of spectacles, "So you say. I should like to see you prove it. However, that's for another day. Shall I continue?"

"Please, professor, do." We made ourselves as comfortable as possible on piles of old DEC manuals. Mine had a scrap of paper on top which bore only the words "BELL END". I held it up. "Professor? Is this important?"

"Ah, thank you." he took it from me and forced it into an already packed drawer, which he closed with a few smart mallet blows. "That's the last part of my halting problem proof. Marvelous things, these computers".
"Now see here," he went on, and once again pointed at the screen, "If we cool the beer line directly, we can remove the heat picked up along it's length."
He laughed, "Or to put it another way, we can add coolth to cancel out the warmth".

"Coolth, Professor?", once again, he'd lost us.

"Certainly!" And he made his way to the door where he flicked a switch. Instantly, the room was plunged into darkness. His voice came out of the gloom. "Behold! The electric dark bulb!"

"Professor!" I exclaimed. The workroom was dangerous enough in the light, stumbling around in the dark might be lethal. "For goodness sake turn it on!"

"Off, you mean", he laughed. "Although, oddly, it consumes far more power off than on!". But he relented, and continued. "I'm pretty sure that it requires less coolth to keep a beer line at the right temperature than to super-cool a pub cellar. Indeed, if we do cool the cellar below the beer serving temperature, we're using the beer itself as a coolth transfer fluid, in an uninsulated tube, to lower the temperature of the dispense equipment."

He smiled, "By coolth, of course, I refer to the power required (running the chillers, or air-con, or cellar coolers) in order to remove the excess heat and push it out of the building."

He opened the front of the old VAX 11/750 and revealed a mess of wires, some brazed copper tubing, a bare motherboard and some bottles. He got a beer for each of us.
"I've converted it into a fridge, that's an Intel Core i7, and I'm overclocking it big style".

"Bottoms up Professor!"

Craft, Real Ale. Whatever. I just want to buy some beer.

2011-08-09T15:25:00.001+01:00

Marketers, and all you students of the market, are aware of what's been called the "Pretty Good problem". Time was, choice was a real issue for the consumer. We were, once, confronted by a heap of shoddy, sub-standard, adulterated and unsafe products, with a few quality items offering honest value for money. The problem then was to identify those valuable items and avoid being tricked into spending our money on crap.

Nowadays, in the beer market, as elsewhere, the problem is different - most stuff is "pretty good". I'm not saying that none of it is rubbish, or that some of it isn't excellent, but most of it offers a reasonable return for my spend. These are great times for the beer drinker. But there is such a lot of it. All those competing products - how do I choose? If I can't choose, how will I buy? This potential choice paralysis is a real problem for me, and disaster for the vendor.

Anyway, here I am, lost in the supermarket (or wherever), so much choice, so little difference. Most products are invisible, they're so soon boring, unremarkable. I walk right past them without seeing them.

Now I can only see the purple cows. Everything else is a familiar blur.

So, how do vendors make me see their stuff? How to make it stand out? If the product isn't essentially remarkable, how do they lend it a quality that makes it different, more... more?

It's worth remembering that we seem to be much more sensitive to distinction based on a unique value for a single property rather than on a unique combination of properties. So we'll typically be told a simple story rather than given a nuanced analysis of the product's advantages.

In order to increase product salience vendors often use forms of what you might call "oppositional marketing". I guess this works (at least partly) because we're all highly responsive to signifiers of conflict - I'm sure that there are good evolutionary reasons for that. At its simplest, this can be as crass as "knocking copy": "Product B is crap (here's how) - buy Product A!".

Or we might see the creation of simple, clear, but essentially false dichotomies. The vendor hopes to streamline our choice-making. Traditional v. progressive, Craft v. Real Ale, Catsup v. Ketchup

We see this when the vendor tries to place the product on one side or other of some widely recognised disjuncture. This is the basis for products being associated with generational Bullshit. Sometimes this disjuncture is (if not created) actively promoted by the vendor. Hence: Real Ale = old/bearded/mature/sensible drinker (Y-Fronts). Craft = young and hip and has a daft haircut/hat/beard/shoes (Boxers).

Genuine, but not of themselves particularly significant, distinctions amongst products are subsumed in a construction and reinforcing of ideology.

What do we get from this? Well apart from an easing of the pain of choice (which I'll come back to), we get some real positive value from the branding effort. Not in the sense that these positioned products are better, but the branding itself can be valuable. We can use the product we've chosen to send signals about ourselves - sometimes to ourselves.

We buy a product that's young, urban, sophisticated, because we are young, urban, sophisticated. We wish. We buy products that are "difficult" (says the vendor) to demonstrate our discernment. We join the community of the brand. The product is the badge of our membership. It may be that this sense of community is worth far more to us than any simply product derived utility .

Here we've entered the realm of brand as placebo. Products that come with promises that they've no obvious ability to deliver on - yet we buy in gladly. We love it.

This is not a post about BrewDog. But as I was writing this I couldn't help thinking of this sensible and well-intentioned blog piece: Buy their Beer not their Hype. That's exactly not the point. The beer is not separable from the hype. The hype is a key part of the package. Without it, we mostly wouldn't see, or drink, the beer.

Why do we love being lied to? Why do we put up with this shit? Are we stupid? Or is it perfectly sensible?

Making my choice with the vendors hand on my arm is simply easier than making a rational choice on the facts - which I will not have all of. Surrounded by drifts of near-identical stuff, on my own always, the cognitive load is overwhelming.

But why not pull the wool over your own eyes? It's hard work at first, but more fun. Once you've constructed your alternative reality it's as good a guide as their hype, their agendas & ideologies. Ask your friends to help. Bullshit each other. Cheerfully, and for free. You probably know people expert enough on various subjects such that you can even make good choices by pooling your expertise. Or not. But so what?

So there you go. You should buy our beer, because doing so marks you out as a discerning individual who won't buy into all their BS. I'm telling you.

Glass v. Plastic debate. Don't get me started.

2011-08-08T13:31:00.000+01:00

Vegans should look away now.

The only important thing is that the milk is good, right? Pasteurised, homogenised, filtered, who cares?

As it happens, we prefer South Lakes Organic.

It's about the cows.

Stringers announces Bezzy Mate Program.

2011-07-19T17:02:00.004+01:00

We're pleased to announce the Stringers "Bezzy Mate" initative. For a single one-off payment of 93 quid you can get with the program.

But what exactly do you get with the program?

The exclusive (shared with all other members of the program) right to call yourself our "Bezzy Mate"!

A photo of us (supplied in a digital format) with space for you to photoshop yourself in!

A receipt! (Or VAT invoice if required)

Discount at all our bars!

The undying Respect of your peers!

Etc...

Wine? Pah!

2011-07-15T15:51:00.004+01:00

I dunno but what Hardknott Dave seems to have got himself up a bit of a dead end on his Wine v. Beer thing. "What about wine's sense of place?", say the wine buffs. "Oooh, you've got us there", we're all supposed to say, before returning to our grimy sheds to slop out a few more buckets of scummy old beer.

Thing is, it's just not so. Commodity wine has managed to partake somewhat in the glory of the truly good stuff. This is nonsense. Affordable varieties of plonk (or even some quite pricey numbers) knocked up in some booze factory out of a few lorryloads of grapes from here and there, sugar, glycerine, tree bark, enzymes, fishguts, crab-shells, preservatives and colour, somehow get thought of (wrongly) in the same way as some remarkable, lovingly-crafted masterpiece of oenology.

Contrariwise for beer.

Tosh, I say. Also, Pah!

Fussy, elitist and overcomplicated?

2011-07-14T08:32:00.000+01:00

Many thanks to Velky Al For drawing our attention to this little gem by Keir Graff in Timeout/Chicago

“Beer doesn’t have to be fussy, elitist and overcomplicated.
That’s what wine is for.
Beer should be for the rest of us: affordable, easy to enjoy, thirst slaking and confidence restoring.”

Read the piece here.

Incidentally, why was all the glassware in Star Trek so obviously difficult to drink out of? I know that Jim is swigging from the bottle here, but even the glasses were mental. Why was that? Huh?

Retired? Comfortably Well Off? CAMRA cares what you think.

2011-07-13T19:01:00.005+01:00

Good News Everyone!

“CAMRA is looking for 60 members who are not CAMRA Volunteers, but do not reject the idea of becoming active within the campaign, to participate in some Focus Groups at the Great British Beer Festival.

These sessions will take place on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th August 2011 at Earls Court and will only take about 90 minutes. You will only be required to participate one of the sessions.”

So, if you're not doing anything else (like working or caring), and you can afford to get yourself to London (or are already in London) - CAMRA wants to hear from you. Sheesh. Who's idea was this?

Awesome Beard

2011-07-02T15:47:00.002+01:00

I've been transferring the latest batch of our completely boss big ol' stout "Mutiny" to cask. We'll hang on to it for a few months before it's ready to go out into the world. It's such an AWESOME beer, I spontaneously grew this AWESOME beard - just from the fumes! Imagine what it'll do to you! You'll all turn into super-bad werewolves or something.

Also, I have a crudely photoshopped, but OUTRAGEOUS, Snake Plissken eyepatch. That's how much PASSION we put in.

Concerned readers please note: it's not a real beard.

Economics of beer wastage in line cleaning.

2011-06-26T11:31:00.000+01:00

First, a few disclaimers: I'm not an accountant. I'm not a publican. I'm not a cellar technician. I'm not a lawyer. There's a whole heap of things that I'm not.

I illustrated the keg returner the other day, the "legitimate" use of such things is advanced as enabling the recovery of those few pints that would be otherwise lost during line cleaning.

The line that carries the beer from the "cellar" to the tap contains an appreciable amount of beer For 3/8in tube it's something like 30mL per metre, I think. (while we're mixing imperial and SI units, that's about 10mL each foot of 6.3mm ID line. More in the wider stuff traditionally used for cask) There's various devices along the way that also hold a bit (chillers, fob detectors, pumps, etc). Typically, this volume would be lost when line-cleaning is undertaken, i.e. as water or cleaning solutions displace it from the system.

A number of gizmos are on the market which offer to save this wasted beer. Some divert it into a little sealed vessel attached to the system, from which it can be reintroduced into the line after cleaning - of course, that little bottle will need cleaning at some time - but this doesn't seem like an entirely bad idea. Some cleverly disconnect the beer supply (keg) near the end of a session, while allowing you to sell what's already in the line. Some (for cask) allow the line contents to run (slowly) back into the container after the session - although this would leave the line dry, which may not be such a good idea. In other systems, the beer leaves the dispense equipment - into a bucket perhaps, and is manually reintroduced to the container - these are the ones that look distinctly dodgy to me. You'd definitely want to be sure that Customs & Excise / Trading Standards / Environmental Health aren't going to pounce on you.

Even ignoring effects on beer quality - although I suspect that they might be significant - and while we're very much in favour of line-cleaning, there's something troubling about this whole thing: If you have a look at any of the marketing material for these devices, they'll always have a "cost saving" example worked out. They always base this on the selling price of the wasted beer. You waste two pints that you could have sold at £3 each, that's 6 quid income lost, per line, per week! Right? See what an earner this gizmo (and the time spent operating/cleaning it) could be!

As I said, I'm not an accountant, but surely you're not saving any more than the shortage cost (principally restocking cost) of the beer? You'll just buy 2 pints more beer from your supplier. I realise beer that's in the cellar (and hooked up) has to carry some share of the overheads - but not as much as beer that's made it into a glass. Surely?

I know that some tenants have an allowance for line-cleaning effectively built in to their business arrangements. In which case recovering that beer really does generate (not very much) extra income - but only by selling (potentially) damaged goods as new. Which really can't be a good idea. Can it?

Here's a funny thing.

2011-06-19T21:28:00.004+01:00

This a keg returner. See, if you've got an empty old keg, or even a part-full one, you could fill it up with slops and then re-pressurise it. After that, I suppose you could sell it. Perhaps you could even sell watered beer. But who'd do such a thing?

It's just a big funnel screwed onto a slightly modified coupler. I'm sure there are legitimate uses for such an item. I just can't figure out what they might be.

Of course, similar devices are available for filtering back into cask.

This is an assertive hairdo

2011-06-06T21:50:00.015+01:00

We don't care if you don't like it. We don't aspire to conformity through nice haircuts, or hats.

We're sure [We are sure about this aren't we? Yes, carry on Jon, it'll be great]...
Where was I? Oh yes, dead sure that you don't have any, er, taste, yes, taste or appreciation of what a cool hairdo this is.

Yeah! And you probably don't care that this rebellious barnet contains no artificial colour and hasn't been near a comb for days.

Just go on, now go, walk out the door, don't turn around now... etc.

Captain's log: Supplemental. Concerned wine drinking US-based in-laws (and other worried readers): It's alright - I'm not losing my mind. The above is an example of the lowest form of humour, the industry in-joke by parody. You're to be forgiven for not immediately spotting the reference to a UK "craft" brewery with a line in marketing with "attitude". Why would you care? You can walk drive down to BevMo and pick up some VASTLY BETTER BEER, like for instance, Ballast Point Sculpin, whenever you like, you lucky monkeys.

If you're interested, there's more (better) of this kind of "humour" to be found on the twitter [STRONG LANGUAGE ALERT]
here or here. Nothing to do with me.

What is keg?

2011-06-05T13:31:00.000+01:00

According to CAMRA "[keg] beer is chilled and filtered to remove all the yeast, and pasteurised to make a sterile product [...][then] put into a sealed metal container, the keg".

Or, if you're a brewer, "keg" is that proportion of your output that you put into keg, rather than cask or bottle. For us, this proportion is zero - we don't do keg.

Or, if you're running a beer outlet, "keg" is that stuff that comes in a keg to which you hook up a keg coupler, gas, etc.

Or, if you're a drinker, it's the cold fizzy stuff that comes out of a tap, rather than a handpump.

So what are we to call products that merely satisfy the expectations of the brewers, retailers and drinkers, but fail to meet the definition adopted by the Real Ale campaigners?

Sounds Awesome.

2011-05-30T10:32:00.001+01:00

"We then went on to a panel on Shaking Up the Brewing Scene with Martin Dickie from Brewdog. Martin had everyone absolutely quiet and on the edge of their seats as he started playing grunge rock on his laptop, methodically pulled out and poured a bottle of Brewdog ale, and took a sip before saying a word to the audience. His talk was mostly a history of Brewdog but did not disappoint with several irreverent lines and a bit of a “this is what we do, like it or $%#* yourself” attitude."

Oh, please.

More about what we missed here.

Gas, and Hot Air

2011-05-14T16:25:00.005+01:00

Our copy of "Beer" - the CAMRA magazine arrived today. It's so absorbent, it's always on our coffee table.

Anyhoo, onto the Cask v. Real Ale argument (It's quite clear-cut, surely, Real Ale is "matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed". And normally sucked rather than blown out like "keg" would be)

But, in an effort to clarify the situation, we asked our expert Professor Branestawm to explain the concept of "vols" of CO₂ for us.

"Consider if you will Stringers", He began, "A pint of liquid which contains 1 vol of a gas dissolved in it. If we magically removed the liquid, we'd be left with the pint full of the gas."

OK, Professor, we've got that, but how does this help us understand the carbonation and maturation "histories" of the typical Cask v. the lovely Real Ale.

"It's simple", he exclaimed, and continued "Please note - what I say here is illustrative and assumes a few things (open fermenters for one), i.e. I've made these numbers up, so you'll have to take my word for it that they are about right!"

We'll take your word Professor, please, continue.

The professor pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and flourished a curious and elaborate fountain pen. "My own design." he said, before rapidly drawing up the following table:

Vols CO₂ in:
                         Cask           Real Ale
Start Fermentation         0              0      
End of Fermentation      ~0.8           ~0.8
Post Chill               ~0.5           ~0.5
Post tank conditioning    1.4             -
Into Cask                 1.4           ~0.5   
Out the door              1.4            1.4
On stillage (in pub)      1.5            1.5
On service (post venting) 1.1            1.1

"Which is to say", he went on, "Real develops at least two thirds of its condition (spending at least a week) in the container from which it's dispensed. i.e. it's predominantly Cask Conditioned, whereas Cask might pick up ten times less in cask. i.e. it's predominantly Tank Conditioned. i.e. Pretty much all of the secondary fermentation occurs in tank - not in the cask!"

Before we could say anything, he added, "Of course there's room for brewers to work in-between these extremes, tank conditioning up to, perhaps, 1 vol and finishing conditioning in cask."

But Professor, what's the problem with good beer being conditioned in tank, provided it's getting an appropriate period of maturation on its own yeast? Surely this is the key thing? And if tank conditioning makes this easier, why not?

"Well you see" said the Prof, leaning in conspiratorially, "this illuminates an issue with CAMRA's definition of Real Ale: Much of what is held to be the kind of beer that CAMRA is in favour of can only be called cask conditioned in a very narrow sense - some small amount of conditioning (secondary fermentation) in the cask is unavoidable when we're dealing with live yeast, but it's not an significant part of the production process."

We see Professor, but surely, brewers wouldn't call their beer Real Ale if it wasn't?

"Precisely!", cried the professor, "Only CAMRA ever called these things Real, the producers always called them Cask Ales, which they indisputably are, being ale and in cask!"

He smiled and shook his head. "They're not bloody stupid you know, these brewers!"

Many apologies to (the estate of the late) Norman Hunter.

FIGJAM and the Wedge

2011-05-10T15:55:00.008+01:00

Years ago, when I used to hang out with musicians (no, I wasn't a drummer) - I briefly worked alongside an Australian band. That was when I first came across the "wedge". (If this is a drinking term you've always been familiar with, please ignore the rest of this piece.) By "wedge" I don't mean a bit of wood (or something) with a triangular section used to lift, jam, or separate. I suppose the meaning is a related one, because, you see, a wedge is the drink that you buy in-between drinks in a round.

Consider: Alice has finished her drink, but it's Bob's round. Now, clearly, she's not going to sit with an empty glass while Bob savours his, and carry on sitting with no drink while he replenishes their supplies. But Alice is far too well brought up to hurry Bob along, and besides, that's poor drinking practice - for all sorts of reasons. So Alice announces, "No worries Bob, I'll get a wedge in." And off she goes to get herself (and only herself) a drink. The round is still with Bob.

This is a concept that surely exists wherever drinks are bought in rounds, but I didn't have a word for it. To the best of my knowledge, British English hadn't developed this term, and needed the vibrant, productive, booze including Australian variant to produce a beautifully apt way of pinning this down. Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, the Wedge.

FIGJAM? Well, I've been thinking a lot about marketing, building brands, and the business of selling beer. How "Bigging Up" oneself and the product seems seen as a shortcut to success. Again, back in the day, I've heard this kind of thing dismissed as "talking a good band". As in:

Alice: Charlie talks a good band doesn't he?
Bob: I saw them at Planet X and they were f-ing shite.
Alice: Is right.

Just so, we hear many people talking a good beer. It's not quite the same as "talking up", but I suspect that it's sort of merged in with that expression nowadays.

Anyway, FIGJAM: Another great antipodean contribution to the language. It's an acronym:

Fuck I'm Good. Just Ask Me.

Cool!

2011-05-01T18:19:00.002+01:00

Photo shamelessly stolen from Jeff Pickthall.

Ahh, the pub beer festival. Don't you love them? Lots of beer - warm, flat and no sign of a sparkler. Seriously, if we don't take any special steps for proper cooling the beer is going to end up at least as warm as the mean air temperature. Sure, people put up a tent or awning to keep the sun off the casks, but the 24 hour average temperature in London (which is where this snap was taken) was probably at least 14°C. Worse than that, there's bound to be a certain amount of temperature cycling - a little warmer in the day, cooler at night. So your beer's probably going to be at the right temperature at about 10 in the morning on day 1, but it'll be flat after being vented too warm the day before. By the evening, and for sure on day 2, it'll be too warm and flat. Yum.

Of course, if you know what you're doing and time everything just right, and you're lucky with the weather, you're probably able to get at least one session where the beer is in good nick without spending money on special cooling.

While we're on the subject - I've never done the experiments, but I'm not convinced of the effectiveness of the old damp bar towel trick, particularly on plastic (or wooden) casks. It looks more like a magical operation to me.

What do you think - is cooling important at all in the BF setting? Or is it just the kind of minor detail that only a saddo like me would care about?

I should say: I'm not commenting on the arrangements at any particular boozer here - the photo is illustrative of what a lot of places do if they're putting on one of these events, and I'm certainly not trying to blame the outlets for any short-comings in the product.

I'm A Living Sickness (and other songs)

2011-04-03T12:28:00.000+01:00

As The Calico Wall had it (you can hear it).

Well, actually, I've just got a bit of a cold or something that's "gone to my chest" as they say. But I'm a man (that's another song) hence feeble, and have succumbed, so we're undermanned thus we missed a brewday and Becky is in washing casks on Mothers Day - poor her.

Apart from that tho', what's it got to do with beer? Well, I always notice how much my taste changes with any kind of "respiratory" upset. As you'd expect, I'm less sensitive to aroma (but not, subjectively, to all aromas). At the same time, I seem to become more sensitive to bitterness.

Let's remember that there's a range of tastes out there, and not only that, an individual's taste can change from day to day. Which is why brewers should have taste panels of course.

Me, I'm turning away from beer in favour of "Codine", for the time being. Or indeed, anything with "Max Strength" on the box.

A sausage?

2011-03-18T10:34:00.002Z

Hot news - well, yesterdays news actually. The Cumberland Sausage has been awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status (DEFRA announces the same).

This is great news for all lovers of a good length of prime sausage - there's nothing makes an evening go so well here at Stringers than a couple of portions of porky goodness.

What is it that makes the Cumberland Sausage so great?

High meat content. At least 80% - and that's pretty much real meat - not skin, and limits on the amount of "connective tissue".
Coarsely ground - the meat is chopped rather than mashed. So unlike many sausages, they're far more than a tube stuffed with textureless paste.
Great spicing - pepper, nutmeg, lots of lovely stuff like that.
Girth. At least 20 millimetres thick.
And of course, "The continual length of the Traditional Cumberland Sausage is one of its key features"

Yay! Sausage!

The reasoning of Professor D. Nutt.

2011-03-08T14:36:00.001Z

Professor D. Nutt (honestly, it is the best name). Do you think he got picked on at school? (Bristol Grammar) and determined to show them all by swotting really hard (Cambridge, Guys, etc). Anyway, the good prof opines that there is no safe dose of alcohol for these reasons:

Alcohol is a toxin that kills cells such as microorganisms, which is why we use it to preserve food and sterilise skin, needles etc. Alcohol kills humans too.

This is true, as far as it goes, but then this is true for Oxygen also. So, the problem here is one of over-generalisation. What is true for alcohol in a certain context needn't be true for alcohol per se. A similar claim could be made for bricks. They kill mice and humans if dropped from a height onto them, but are generally considered safe as building materials.

Although most people do not become addicted to alcohol on their first drink, a small proportion do.

Really?

As a clinical psychiatrist who has worked with alcoholics for more than 30 years, I have seen many people who have experienced a strong liking of alcohol from their very first exposure

Just a liking then?

and then gone on to become addicted to it.

Oh, and then "gone on", so not addicted at first exposure then?

We cannot at present predict who these people will be,

Because you've just made it up.

so any exposure to alcohol runs the risk of producing addiction in some users.

Jeez, that sounds like a job for a Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology, perhaps you should look into that, David. Instead of wasting time grandstanding in the press?

The supposed cardiovascular benefits of a low level of alcohol intake in some middle-aged men cannot be taken as proof that alcohol is beneficial. To do that one would need a randomised trial where part of this group drink no alcohol, others drink in small amounts and others more heavily. Until this experiment has been done we don't have proof that alcohol has health benefits. A recent example of where an epidemiological association was found not to be true when tested properly was hormone replacement therapy.

I suppose the value of an epidemiological association is OK when we're talking about smoking, David? You cherry-picking devil, you.

Anyway David, you miss the point utterly. We like the booze. Some of us also like the E and the weed and that. Some of us would probably like a new magic pill from your lab. Fantastic. Get on with that, why don't you.

But remember, booze isn't just a dilute aqueous solution of ethanol. Beer particularly, is loaded (so we're told) with healthful goodies, anti-oxidants, silicon, fibre, goodness knows what. So, on balance, overall, is there a safe, or indeed positively beneficial, level of boozing? Don't ask the prof, he doesn't seem to care.

By Jingo

2011-03-03T13:59:00.007Z

Recent SIBA convert Hardknott Dave invites us to critique the "Proud of British Beer" vid, with the condition that we should, in that case, explain why we haven't made our own far superior advert for British Beer. Now much as I'd love to have a go at the film, I won't do that - although I will come back to the choice of music later. No, what concerns me here is the "if you think you can do better..." argument.

When most of us criticise a beer or a top footie team ("it/they was/were shite"), We're not normally required to point to our premiership football sucesses, or to our award winning beverages. We can say such-and-such a popular music artist is rubbish, and come up with a list of objections to the material, performance and person, without having to "top" the "charts" ourselves. We're entitled to our opinions, we're entitled to hold forth on them, and you're entitled to ignore us utterly.

That geezer Voltaire once wrote "The best is the enemy of the good." - OK, he wrote "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien." , but it wasn't his fault that he was French, so we won't hold that against him. And of course if we're waiting for the perfect promotional short for British Beer to be made, we'll wait for ever. As to whether someone else could or should have made something better - that would depend to a large part on having the budget (which I guess was quite small), and the time, as well as having the inclination.

And here we are, the bit where I carp at the choice of music. Now, I know that cost and rights constraints have to be really important in a job like this. But, really, that selection out of Holst? I actually like this bit of music, but it's terminally besmirched by being the basis of the tune "Thaxted", to which "I Vow to Thee, My Country" was often sung. Let's all refresh our memories with the words of the first verse:

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

Of course, this was written in 1908, when nationalistic fervour, and for that matter, senseless sacrifice and unquestioning obedience, was suitable matter for popular song. Ten years later, Owen wrote:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Fifty years after that, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong wrote (and Edwin Starr made famous):

War (Huh) What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. (Good God, Y'all).

Here, if you're interested.

Alternate (Reality) Brewing

2011-02-11T16:51:00.003Z

I used to read an awful lot of science fiction (or a lot of awful sci-fi - if you'd rather). A recurrent idea (a sub-genre, even) is that of the alternate history, and its close relative the parallel reality / universe. "What if?" the author asks. What if the Axis Powers had been victorious in WWII? ("The Man in the High Castle" - Philip K. Dick and if you don't read Mr Dick, you should). Outside SF, there's a famous collection of essays If it had happened otherwise. There's Robert Sobels "For want of a Nail" The tradition goes way back. Livy had a go, I'm told.

Many-worlds theory (or "interpretation") implies that this stuff needn't be fiction. Far-out or what?

Anyway.

My question, "what if the monks of Furness Abbey were brewing now?" What if it was us? Would we have a "abbey" beer round here? How would it be influenced by our modern lay brown British beer tradition? It's said that some of those yeasts we think of as being "Belgian" started out in Scotch ales. How weird is that? We'd be using English hops rather than continental ones, for sure. But which? Goldings, Fuggles? Or more modern varieties? Continental "Caramalts", or good old crystal malt?

Only one way to find out. Let's brew a sort of South-Cumbrian (or North Lancs) Dubbel.

It'll be fun. Fun. Not a research project. Fun. i.e. don't tell me Belgo Abbey and Trappist beers are firmly within the local brewing tradition etc...etc...

Pump Clip Design Brief

2011-02-04T17:14:00.000Z

Comrades:
In order to to support our key revolutionary aims of distinctiveness, economy and generally not being shite, the following design guidelines are hereby adopted:

No Gold
No Mountains
No Lakes
or Sheep
No Jolly Cartoon Fun
No Scrolls
No fancy die-cutting
Thou shalt not "go for a kind of Distressed Look"
No lasses exposing chestal areas.
No more than 2 typefaces

A bonfire of counter-revolutionary clips is to be organised on the pump clip parade.

'Twas ever thus.

2011-01-28T18:09:00.004Z

What we got here is a photo-graph I took of some genyu-ine Ee-jip-shun tomb figgers. No fancy trickery involved. It's just how it looks in the museum. Where of course, at night, they come to life.

See, the guys on the left are mashing in. With their hands. There's two actually working and one standing and pointing (head brewer I guess). On the right sitting, looking at the bottles (jars really) is a scribe and there's a guy standing with a wad of papyrus under his arm next to him. They're counting and doing the paper work. And there's another guy supervising (pointing).

In total: 2 managers, 2 clerks and two fellas doing any productive work. Plus ca change and that.

What I did on my holidays.

2011-01-19T10:18:00.005Z

Well, of course, We drank beer. And wine. And some whisky.

But it's the beer that you're interested in, right? Looking back over my notes (as far as I can make out - they're a bit scrawly), I seem to have been using a marking scheme which I can no longer understand. So I'll reduce it all to a simple score out of 10 (there may be some half marks), and any sense I can distil from the ramblings - and then we can try to figure out what it says about me:

In chronological order:

Heineken 6
In the air. KLM do ghastly little fairy cans, while Air France have a reasonable 33cl one. For that matter Air France offer wine (and beer) with breakfast, while KLM give you a slightly dirty look when you ask.

Lagunitas IPA 7
Yay, we arrived. Praise be. Beer in fridge.

Full Sail Amber 5
Do I like these Amber beers?

Anderson Valley Boont Amber 5
No, guess not.

Sierra Nevada Torpedo 6
Supposed to be good - but is it really?

Anderson Valley Brother Davids Triple 5
It's a bit nasty. Banana? No spice. Burny alcohol

Tsingtao 5
mmm wet. Eating Dim Sum

North Coast Old Rasputin 6
Actually, various scores - 7 is the best it got. I gave it a 5 as well. Kept trying it tho'.

Flying Dog Doggie Style 4.5
I used to like this. Either it's changed or I have. Or it's a typo.

Gordon Biersch Czech Style Pilsner 7
That surprised me.

St Bernardus Tripel 8
More. Oh, there's no more?

Dogfish Head 90 min Imperial IPA 7.5
Good enough.

Bison Brewing Organic Chocolate Stout 5
This is a GABF silver medallist - can't see it myself.

Erdinger Hefe-weizen (Dark) i.e. Dunkel (what's hard about that?) 7.5
Good enough

Speakeasy Prohibition 6
Another amber. "Boldly hopped" my arse.

Speakeasy Big Daddy 7
IPA. not bad at all

Lagunitas Sonoma Farmhouse Hop Stoopid 6.5
Disappointed

Ballast Point Sculpin IPA 8
This is very nice.

What shall we conclude? Well, I don't like these amber beers much. The American IPAs cover the range from the pits to the tits. It's easy to f-up a Belgo-triple (and it's not that I don't like the "real thing"). I don't come across many 9's or above.

Anyway, that's the homework done. Now back to work.

In case you're interested, you might interpret these scores thusly:

<5 I wouldn't have another (well, maybe one just to make sure)
5>score<7 I'd have another.
score>7 even knowing what I'm like, you should probably have one.
8 or above: Have one. Go on.

Update: Have tried some torpedo since we got back... Herself still rates it "wouldn't have another", I have it down as "a bit rough without being tough, and confused also" and "hint of toilet-duck" So I'm afraid the 6 has to stand. I would have another, but I'd probably try something else rather. I'm probably not a good judge of these yank IPAs so I don't know if you should take my hearty endorsement of the Ballast Point seriously. But I'm planning to buy some of their other stuff on the strength of it.

Also, I'll have to get a bunch of Anchor Steam (I haven't had any for years and years) I used to like it, but now, who knows? I don't seem to like these other, newer, "ambers".

Progressive Brewing "so last year" say punk duo

2011-01-18T14:12:00.000Z

In a shock announcement earlier this week, wee Jimmy and his Dad turned their back on their punk roots. "Yep, from now on, our beers are sweeter, weaker and less bitter", said a spokesdog.

Industry sources suggest that being told "what was good for them" and "your only chance of getting your bottles anywhere near the eyeline" has led to the pair betraying their fans and doing just what the man says.

"It's been great", said an insider penguin, "when the suits told us to jump, we had a jumping competition. I won!"

Brewdog join our gang!

2010-12-12T09:53:00.000Z

Fantastic news! The Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) has been honoured by Brewdog. "Welcome aboard" we say.

It's a pity that James Watt chose to mark the event by saying BD were

"not fans of SIBA…especially the Scottish branch. In fact we pretty much detest everything they stand for and their close-minded clique mentality"*

BD also go on to make clear that they've joined mainly to get access to the Direct Delivery Scheme - which allows SIBA members to sell to some pubco outlets while preserving the pubco mark-up (and subject to pubco control).

We're SIBA members, but we don't bother with DDS. Why not? Well, there aren't really enough outlets near us for it to generate a lot of business. Getting further afield would make it difficult to fulfill orders in the required time. But mainly, we believe deals like this are papering over the cracks in the pubco model: The pubco still gets to charge their mark-up, SIBA takes a (small) cut also. The pubco (rather than the tenant) still gets to choose which beers will be available (i.e. membership of the DDS doesn't guarantee that your beer will be listed). DDS creates an illusion of choice for the tenant (and pubgoer) and the illusion of market access for the brewer.

Oh, by the way boys, dissing the trade organisation that you've just joined (as a probationer) is a bit rude, and stupid - unless of course you're hoping that they'll (threaten to) throw you out, generating a bit of publicity.

What do you think?

*http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=7&storycode=68595&c=1

Ooh, I love Christmas, me.

2010-12-03T16:19:00.000Z

We've pretty much sorted out our Christmas plans.
1. Make and sell a spice beer.
I have a small but "pongy" pile of cardamom, mace, cinnamon and ginger in the office right now.
2. Go to California for a fortnight.
This will be my first holiday for 3 years. Becky says it shows.

Seriously, do they think we're stupid?

2010-12-01T09:13:00.000Z

...the government will get behind schemes to encourage children to walk to school. The white paper will flag one that rewards schoolchildren with points that can be exchanged for shopping tokens or cinema tickets. Each child will have a plastic card that they must swipe on each of a series of card-readers on their way to school, attached to lamp-posts or other fixed points.

From here.

I mean:
1. That's so unfair! We live literally across the road from school, so unless the boy does an idiotic detour he won't get his free cinema tickets.

2. When we were kids we were (a) smart and (b) nasty. Hence: "Oi, you, fat kid, give us your dinner money, and while you're at it, take my card and swipe it for me."

3. How long are we supposed to think these child monitoring stations will remain attached to lamp-posts?

4. Are they on crack, or what?

Be careful what you wish for...

2010-11-28T18:35:00.001Z

I didn't think I'd have a problem with minimum pricing, and we read that it's really on the cards this time. Actually, I don't read the Torygraph, but in fairness, I believe they broke this one (i.e. were fed this) so they get the link.

I reckon that I can live with this:

Under the plans, the minimum price for a litre bottle of spirits would be £10.50, while a 20-pack of beer would have to cost at least £8.50, and a bottle of normal-strength wine at least £2.

But hello, what's this?

Ministers are also to review the duty paid on beer, with a view to creating a new higher tax "bracket" for super-strength brews.

I'm not sure I like the look of that - at all.

Why keg is best.

2010-11-13T19:48:00.003Z

Ever since J.W. Green of Luton started kegging beer in 1946, the advantages of this modern, hep, 20th century paragon of packaging over the old-fashioned, unreliable and generally shite alternative has been obvious to producers and consumers alike.

So why are we still revisiting this old argument? Some blame CAMRA for interfering in the value-free workings of the market which was making "cask" extinct: For foolishly diverting the asteroid of shareholder value as it plumetted towards the oblivious dinosaur that was real ale; For sentimentally interposing the landrover of publicity between the oligopoly's pack of hyenas and the huge-eyed baby gazelle of freedom; For rashly squandering the antibiotic of choice on the mortally sick puppy of an industry distorted by excess vertical integration.

With keg of course, we can extend the product shelf-life and deal with longer and more complex supply chains. We need no longer restrict ourselves to those outlets that can look after the product - but now sell to anyone who can hook up a gas bottle - there's loads more of those than there are good pubs.

It's not just brewing, it's beverage technology! It's totally now!

With keg we can get more people drinking our lovely "craft beer"! Of course we can. We can secure the future of beer. Just like J.W. Green did.*

* Became Flower’s. Taken over by Whitbread who are no longer making beer - they're in the business of providing hospitality.

I have drank...

2010-11-04T16:13:00.000Z

No! No you haven't!

You have drunk.

And also, you were NOT sat down.
Not unless someone sat you down there. Like you were a dog.

Deep breath. I'm OK now

Misunderstanding of Science.

2010-11-02T14:12:00.004Z

Well, as we all must know by now, Prof David J Nutt et al have published a ~~study~~ piece assessing harm related to the consumption of various psycho-active substances (let's call them "drugs" - there, that was easy).

The headline point has to be "alcohol is so the worst".

And of course, beer bloggers, chains firmly yanked, cages rattled, leap up yelping "No! that's not science!" and "Him! he's a discredited neo-prohibitionist". *

So, what do you think we should do?
Should the alcohol industry speak with a unified voice?

Should we (brewers of lovely "craft" products) join up with the industrial producers of fermented corn syrup? Should the beer bloggers carry on saying (in effect) "since beer is good, dangerous drinking must be allowed", and "it's not the state's job to tell me what to drink, although I suppose it should be allowed to tell me what to smoke, snort or jack-up".

Do we really mean that limiting access to my psycho-active substance of choice is bad, whereas those other drugs (other's choices) need controlling. Is this something to do with the "Narcissism of small differences"?

* Answers: (a) no, it's about a way of using "knowledge" to make decisions.
(b) he's not really, is he?

Public Harm

2010-11-01T13:37:00.003Z

The past 50 years have seen the worst epidemic of public harm from a legal drug since the introduction of cheap gin in the 1700s. Although alcohol intake has doubled in this period , alcohol related harms have increased many times more on account of the culture of heavy and, particularly, binge drinking that has developed. There are a number of reasons for this epidemic. The major ones have been the last government’s policies of reducing the real price of alcohol and increasing drinking hours , plus the massive increase in the marketing of alcohol in supermarkets, often as a loss-leader . There has also been a marked growth in strong lagers and ciders of up to 8% alcohol content that appear designed to facilitate rapid intoxication rather than to satisfy palates.

David Nutt

more Nutt

Oh yeah

Consistency. Again. Sigh.

2010-10-25T13:11:00.004+01:00

A sceptic wrote recently that they might:

...go out tonight and drink the grog of my local regional brewer and drink 5 pints of what is branded the same bitter, and all will taste different.

I've been trying to imagine some possible scenarios where this might actually happen. i.e. not just one of those things that we all nod at, without thinking "hang on, that's b*ll*cks".

Objective
- 1.1 Five pints in five pubs of varying quality
- 1.2 "he's just changing the 'barrel'"
- 1.3 glassware issues
Subjective
- 2.1 Drift of taste - saturation / habituation effects
- 2.2 Other taste effects. Interference by peanuts / crisps / last drink /etc

I'm not going to expand all these points now. That would be really dull.
OK, so. Your Real Ale is known to be sensitive to issues in the first group. It can be kept or served badly, or well; at the wrong temperature; in dirty or inappropriate glasses. There may be some detectable taste change during the "shelf life", we're talking about live products, which will have some microbiological activity continuing (you'd hope mainly yeast). Equally, these types of beverage do have a serving life over which there will be some taste change. In the second group - since taste is an issue, then subjective taste changes will be noticable.

On the other hand, for other beverages served with high levels of dissolved gas, at low temperatures, in near-sterile conditions and protected from oxygen, flavour (as such), where detectable, will tend to be more stable. Since taste is less of an issue - it's been reduced to at or below threshold by fizzyness and temperature - the process managers / brewers can be more confident that issues of the second kind will be less troublesome.

That's the post-packaging variation pretty much deal with.

Looking at the big variables in the brewery - we can tolerate some variation, as long as it's less than most of our customers will detect.

For instance, bitterness (measured in units called European (or International) Bitterness Units i.e. EBU or IBU - pretty much the same) isn't well resolved by most tasters. You'd be very lucky to find an untrained taster who can spot the difference between 35 and 40 IBU (other things being equal). So in the brewery, if you're aiming at 40 IBU you'll need to be confident that you're between 35 and 45. i.e. +/- 10% is probably good enough. (I'm sure I've read that a lot of people top out around 70 IBU, so there'll be little perceived difference between 80 & 90 IBU. i.e. big beers are easy.)

Problem is, hops (a) change with age and (b) vary from batch to batch. So we (a) don't buy more than we need and we store them cold (we freeze open packs), and (b) recalculate how much we'll need based on the analysis of each batch. Not everyone does this - but since the inter-batch variation can be 20% - This might mean that your beer, meant to be 40 IBU, comes out almost 50 - quite a few people will detect this (the brewer should be one of them).

Gravity and strength depend (mostly) on how much stuff we put in. This will be mainly malt (and water - thanks Dave). Malt comes in handy 25kg sacks (for the small brewer that is - the big boys get it by the truck or railcar). That's easy - you need 125kg of malt in your recipe? Take 5 sacks and you're sorted. Well, not always. And this is a bigger problem the smaller your mash tun is (that's statistics for you). The maltsters seem to do a minimum fill - pretty much. Occasionally those 5 sacks could easily mass 135kg or (much more rarely) only 120kg. So before we start congratulating ourselves on the cracking Mash Efficiency we got this time, let's check-weigh those sacks-o-malt. Otherwise that beer's going to be almost 8% stronger than we meant it to be, unless we liquor it back (i.e. dilute it) in which case we've just knocked the bitterness (and colour and everything) back haven't we?

As has been pointed out before, the bigger brewers have the lab facilities and the big blending tanks that support working to real tight specifications. But there's no reason why with reasonable care a small brewer can't work to perfectly acceptable limits.

See, what I'm saying here is that the Real Ale is susceptible to post packaging mishandling. This is an simple one for the drinker - don't go to crap boozers. Or if you do - drink cold fizzy stuff that's harder to f-up. And small brewers need to weigh stuff properly, clean like crazy and do some simple arithmetic.

Always remembering that the important thing is that it should taste good. Consistently good.

Easy really. Touch wood. Fingers crossed.

Too long for a comment

2010-10-23T18:52:00.007+01:00

Mr Lager suggests (on the Hardknott blog) that the point of the branding effort (he chooses Becks Vier for his example) is "Letting punters know what’s in it and ensuring the grog tastes okay" .

Well, no. Becks can (of course) knock out a largely inoffensive beer in pretty much whatever colour, strength and quantity their owners want them to. And of course they'll do that day after day.

The Bosses then spend piles of money telling us that it's "Different By Choice" - the product is presented as a Mainstream Alternative. Add some human beatbox stuff (remember when that was edgey?) and some special glasses (German technology) And what you've got is a marketing effort that says nothing about the beer except that it's made in Germany (= pure = good) and it's a bit weak (= not wifebeater).

What it does say is that it's "difference" and "choice" packaged up for men who aspire to drive a f*cking Audi and don't want to be thought of as the lout-ish type, they're way more hip than that. Look! I've made a "choice"! I have a nice shirt and pants, also some hip-hop. (Yep, and I know about Motorhead, but I'm quite mature now.)

Now that we've established the product's position, which we hope will appeal to our target demographic, we'll be needing some visible reminders of our expensive adverts. The drinker is paying a bit more to demonstrate his alignment with the product ethos, so we need to afford him a display opportunity. Hence branded glassware, POS, etc. That's branding.

I'm not sure why smaller brewers would bother putting their name on a glass. They haven't spent the money to make it worthwhile. Nobody cares. That's why a lot of people in Dave's survey aren't really bothered. RA drinkers are making all the statement they need by being seen to drink the stuff at all. A plain glass will do nicely.

i.e. I'm pretty much agreeing with Mr. Lager, in the end. In that most "Real Ale" products (particularly micro-brews) aren't strong brands. But that's not because they're weak products, but rather that the marketing effort is weak, or missing. Of course.

If consistency is perceived to be a issue in the market, then perhaps it should be addressed. Let's talk about "craft" products. Where simple consistency isn't a selling point.

Hazy Beer

2010-10-17T13:49:00.005+01:00

“This focus on clarity [in British ale] is annoying,” he says. “You get punters in a pub who think that if a beer is clear, then it’s good. A fantastic beer with a haze, they send it back. But the best beers I’ve had have had a natural haze. In Germany, you get a beer with a haze, it means there’s something good in there. Or an IPA – there’s so much hop oil in there it will have a natural haze. The IPAs that have a hop haze are usually head and shoulders above those that don’t."

Jason Hawke of Moor Beer quoted here

Well, we try not to let it annoy us. But I know what he means. Now, I'm not a master brewer, but I have done a bit of (a) brewing and (b) reading, so I hope I'm not going to be too far wrong in what follows.

There are a few kinds of haze you might come across in beer. Sometimes these will be "faults". Now "fault" is a funny idea anyway. Consider a starch haze. In a British bitter (pale ale, whatever), a starch haze is pretty uncommon (except perhaps for a beginning homebrewer) and it's probably due to a rubbish mash. In some beers (e.g. historical white beers) potato starch was used, and in others, high proportions of unmalted grain - which would have promoted such a haze. i.e. haze would be expected in these beers.

Protein / polyphenol hazes, again quite rare in British pales, put down to bad brewing or malting, but key in many wheat beers. In other beers may be due to high levels of hop or malt polyphenols interacting with normal protein content. Indeed, to promote a stable haze in some beers, refined tannins are added.

Lipid hazes, fats (or oils) suspended in the beer - bad if you've got trub spoiling your pale ale - but what if it's down to hop oil from your shedloads of late/dry hops?

Yeast haze - you'd expect a pale ale to have low levels of suspended yeast (< 10K cells / ml ?), but we all know of beers that are intended to be visibly hazy (or indeed opaque) because of yeast. Some brewers add a yeast product (biocloud?) to give a stable haze. Others use fish-guts to produce the stable sediment, and high clarity, that their customers expect. It's a fact that some yeast, in some beers, will present a hint of harsh bitterness (or bite) and is probably best left sitting in the belly of the cask rather than in the glass.

Chill hazes - those protein / polyphenol hazes are more stable at low temperatures and tend to fade when the beer is warmer. So chill a fresh beer below the intended serving temperature and a (transient) haze will be produced. I gather these hazes can become more stable with time at any temperature - so beer may develop haze as it ages - eventually the haze may become dense enough to sediment out.

All that said - for many British style pale ales - two key measures that are commonly assessed in the cellar are clarity and condition. If it's clear and not too flat - put it on sale. This is a simple, and usually effective, tactic for presenting beer well...

...Except when the beer is known to be hazy, when the cask has a big sticker on it saying "NATURALLY HAZY", when the beer is delivered by the brewer who tells the publican "this is hazy, you know".

Anyway, one of my jobs next week is to uplift a 9 of "Hop Priest" (an extensively hopped IPA), which was judged to be unsaleable because it's "too hazy". Ho hum.

Mutiny

2010-10-16T13:19:00.000+01:00

It will be soon. Look out for it at the Swan (Ulverston) or the Dispensary (Liverpool).

Consistency. The bugbear of tiny minds.

2010-10-15T15:30:00.004+01:00

Now, obviously, I do like a beer to be recognisably the same beer from gyle to gyle. And I do want it to be nice every time. But I don't need it to be exactly the same. Why would I?

Consider (if you will) those areas of human endeavour where consistency and standardisation are important: Screw threads, Firearms manufacture & er, stuff like that.

In 1841 Joseph Whitworth (a Northerner, naturally) came up with his standard threads (the first). This was neat. Now I can put a nut from manufacturer 'A' on a bit of stud from his rival 'B'. I win, everyone wins. Interestingly enough, even though we now have more modern screw thread standards (loads of them, some even metric!), you'll find lots of Whitworth's breakthrough in UK breweries. Where? In your RJT connectors - the screw thread is the coarse Whitworth. How about that.

Or, imagine a rifle. "And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this Is to open the breech, as you see." It's pretty important that the bolt is going to fit snugly in the breech. Otherwise all kinds of bad stuff will happen.
But rifles can't be made by hand. Not if we're going to use them in a proper Industrial War with literally millions of units deployed all over the world. They have to be made so that any bolt 'A' will slide "sexily" into any breech 'B', made perhaps miles away and years later.

On a related note, a pal-o-mine needed some unusual bits for a old car he would insist on nursing. They'd stopped making them of course. But he was able to call in to a light engineering shop where a nice old geezer with ciggie hanging out of the corner of his mouth was able to knock something up while he waited. Brilliant.

But it's an unpleasant reminder of how mechanised our spirits have become (in our mechanised world), when we expect our food and drink to be like machine parts. This is wrong. We should enjoy our beer (or wine, or bread) when it's not the same as it was yesterday. Is it better? Worse? Or just different?

Where we need consistency and standardisation, let's have it. Where we don't, forget 'em. Why aren't we sure enough of ourselves, our tastes, our identities even? Why do we want the world to be so unreasonably static around us? Things change - there is movement, and difference, and variety. Get over it.

The big producers can flatten it out. Grind it, and us, all down. They have to. That's how they work. But how did we let them convince us that's the way it should be? Are we stupid, or what?

Our old mate Gerard Manley Hopkins tells us that he's a fan of:

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

Life should be full of strangeness Like a rich painting

2010-10-14T15:58:00.002+01:00

...as Mark E. Smith had it.
And I don't think he meant that it would be jolly to season our lives with a bit of bought-in strangeness. This is not the time for "pub jukebox" list game. In which I amaze and astound by shrewd choice of polycarb and vinyl. If it was, we endgame with "Fish Chart" - in which are reviewed works of Pike and Tuna Turbot first noted (but not preserved?) at Probe. Other claimants - You Lie Like Rugs.

"You don't have to be weird to be wired You don't have to be an American brand"
Mr M. E. Smith - totally wired

This is serious, in that we need to go the whole hog including postage. For maximum yuks.
A tip if you like, "LEAVE THE CAPITOL".
But what do I know? I'm more like

"commune crap, camp bop, middle-class, flip-flop Guess that's why they end up in bands"
Mr M. E. Smith - english scheme

Vast majority of people don't live in London. Perfectly happy about it.

2010-10-12T14:31:00.001+01:00

That London: 8 million
UK outside London: 56 million (7 times as many)
Whole world outside London: 6866 million (858 times)

Not theft - tribute.

2010-10-12T12:09:00.003+01:00

Dark country clip

Yippie flag

Yep, I know.

Letter to Evening Mail

2010-10-06T17:42:00.000+01:00

It's a shame that you chose to illustrate the piece on "...how drink can ruin the way you look" (EM 6 Oct) with a picture of a delicious looking pint of beer.
While no-one, least of all a brewer, should be complacent about problems caused by excessive drinking, study after study has pointed to health benefits associated with moderate consumption.

The piece goes on to consider the calorific content of various drinks, suggesting that the calories in alcohol have no nutritional value. While this may be true as far as it goes (and the same claim could be made for sugar), it ignores any positive contribution to our diet made by our chosen tipples; Beer, for instance,can be rich in anti-oxidants, trace elements such as silicon, as well as soluble fibre.

But above all, beer is a delicious drink of moderation, especially when consumed in the relaxed yet controlled surroundings of the pub - which is where you'll typically find the pint shown alongside the original piece. Your readers are lucky enough to be well served by a number of excellent local real ale breweries and many responsible publicans, who work hard to provide a healthful beverage in a safe setting.

Cheers,
Jon Kyme
Stringers Beer - Ulverston

it's about the beer

2010-10-03T18:18:00.001+01:00

"Of course, with you it's more about the beer, isn't it?" That's what a fellow brewer said to me a while ago. Meaning that they're happy to put the business of the business first. Not that their beer's bad, you understand, but I guess they see it as the means to an end.

Another brewery I know of, been going for more than 10 years now, seems to be doing pretty well. They get their beers out and about, have a couple of hundred fairly regular outlets, yet are pretty well known for their quality issues. Even at their best, some publicans won't touch it - "Like homebrew" - which is rather unfair on homebrewers, I've had some lovely homebrew, but I think I know what he means.

A pub I know of (not a local one), well-run and successful (so they must be pretty businesslike) has recently got themselves a little brew plant. Next time I get the chance I must nip in and try their beers in-house. I'd like to suggest that you look out for their stuff, but since a high proportion of what they've sent into trade is infected and undrinkable, I can't.

Now, take us; Our credit control is OK, the duty and VAT returns are done on time, we do watch the cash-flow, and we're generally pretty good on the old production planning and stock control, but I have to admit that we're not really very good at the marketing thing. We're not particularly "proactive" about developing new business, or bigging up our image. There's only two of us - I suppose we could hire someone to fill the skill gap, but since we went into this to be free, we're worried that being employers would be too stressful and diverting.

The Beer? We don't get it right all the time. We've come up with beers that not everyone likes. We've been let down by poor quality ingredients (we don't have the facilities or experience to always catch them). We've made mistakes - fewer nowadays.

We make some excellent beer. Simple as that. Beer that's at least as good as anything anyone else I know is making. "Almost beautiful" a (drunk) man in a pub said, and made to punch me for making him say something so soft. But we're failing you by not getting it into your glass, because we're not very good at selling. Sorry about that.

But you know, I'm almost proud of that, because for us it is "more about the beer".

Leave it.

2010-09-27T22:02:00.003+01:00

As our old mate Marcus Aurelius always used to say:

"Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me, not [only] of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in [the same] intelligence and [the same] portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away."

Hippy, or what?

The feet of freedom.

2010-09-24T20:43:00.005+01:00

"Postwar Britain saw little need for the temperance move-
ment. In 1951, the govemment refused to pay for a representa-
tive to a World Health Organization meeting on alcoholism on
the grounds that the problem did not exist in Britain. This
claim was in one sense a tribute to the work of the temperance
movement; however, it also revealed the temperance move-
ment’s decline. The spirit of the 1960s was freedom, summed
up by Sir Jocelyn Simon’s peroration at the final reading of the
Liquor Licensing Act of 1962: 'Now is the time to dance. Now
is the time to stamp the floor with the feet of freedom!' "

Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: An International Encyclopedia

Beer. Is. Not. Art.

2010-09-17T12:43:00.003+01:00

Alright then, why isn't beer art?

Well Phaedrus, that's basically because it's useful. And explicable.

OK, so if it's not art, it can't be conceptual art?

Right you are Phaedrus. You're as sharp as a tack today, aren't you?

Ah but, it can be "concept" beer can't it?

You mean a beer that stands in relation to conformance with traditional brewing styles or processes as conceptual art might stand in relation to formalism?

Er, yes?

Well, no, Phaedrus. That's cock isn't it. Your "concept" beer must still be brewed using traditional processes even if some of your parameters are extreme.

But what about "style busters" like Black IPA, surely you'll have to admit that...

Listen Phaedrus, I don't have to admit anything. And anyway, Black IPA is usually stout. Or possibly a very dark bitter. Or a strong ale.

Ah, so it's got you questioning your categories - that's conceptual.

No, Phaedrus. It depends on the particular product that you're talking about. Some are recognisably stouts, some bitters, and some will be judged strong ales. Because you sell me a product that is beer, is brewed, it's just beer.

So could there be a concept beer?

I suppose there could be, Phaedrus. Perhaps a beer that drank itself. Or a beer that only existed as a written description. The concept would have to be more significant than the execution (of the brewing process, or the marketing) or the act of consumption.

Let me get this right then. You say that a beer existing as a genuine brewed product, that I can buy in a shop, take home and drink, can't be (a) art or (b) concept?

Bingo, Phaedrus. Come on, let's go to the pub. They've got some of that BrewDog on.

So... Damsons. eh?

2010-09-16T18:02:00.009+01:00

We have these damsons.

I'm going take a pile of freshly-picked, unwashed damsons, smash them all to pieces, and let them sit around for the wild yeast (etc) on them to start work.

Then I'm going to dump them into some beer that I have.
(Dark, 5.5%, lightly hopped)

I'll leave it alone for a while and then bottle it for Chrimbo.

Why wouldn't that work?

The damson juice seems to be about 16 brix so I'm guessing that the fruit is between 5 & 10% sugar by weight. What kind of sugar? I don't know that it matters, but I remember reading that plums (and damsons I'd guess) have a higher proportion of their sugar as glucose than most fruit.

So, 10kg of fruit in 80 litres of beer is what I'm starting at. Some of the little guys are quite tart and there's a fair hint of bitterness. I bet there will be some bitterness from the stone also.

My prediction then: slightly tart, a little astringent and a tad stronger than the base beer - but probably not more than 6%. Colour? Predominantly brown I should think. Purple would be fantastic, but I'm afraid that's not going to happen.

Looking forward to it.

Something about beer.

2010-09-13T16:37:00.000+01:00

It's that time of year when we make our strange "strong ale". The one where we do everything wrong.
We go very easy on the hops.
We ferment it hot.
And we chuck in a random handful of spice^*.

Why? Oh, why the hell not.

It goes off like a rocket. I'm racking it today - it smells of alcohol and burns your tummy, don'tcha know.

"Genuine Stunning" 6.5% Usually on sale from November.

*This year it's mainly Grains of Paradise and a tiny bit of Coriander (the small seeded variety, but only a tiny bit).

Want it? Can't have it.

2010-08-29T09:20:00.003+01:00

Some interesting discussion of beer adverts here and here. Of course, sexism in beer advertising is hardly something new. It's not to be wondered at - the creators must despise their audience to do the work.

I can't remember who first pointed this out to me, but nearly all adverts tell the same simple story. First we're presented with an image of something desirable but unobtainable, then the product is offered as a sort of consolation prize. So the conversation goes like this:

Advertiser: Want this? [Offers images of bustling high-energy metrosexual lifestyle (San Miguel) or beautiful people having great fun in your fantastic new apartment (Heineken)]

Me: Yeah!

Advertiser: You can't have it. [You're too poor, stupid, ugly - and you know you are] Have this to cheer you up. [proffers product]

Drinking in Britain. Wine v. Beer

2010-08-13T21:22:00.002+01:00

Data Source: http://www.ias.org.uk/resources/factsheets/drinkinggb.pdf

I think we can all see where this is going...

Trying is the first step towards failure.

2010-08-13T20:31:00.001+01:00

I hope the copyright owner (I guess that would be the enormously talented and generous Matt Groening) won't be upset.

Anyhoo, after telling you all how easy big beers are, I suppose it's time to admit that the mighty pale ale supposed to be at least 7% is actually a measly 6.5%.

Why? If I tell you it should have been boiled longer to concentrate the wort? Any guesses? Something to do with a heater?

You, boy at the back. That's right. Heater on the copper gave up on us. So there you go. I now always meant it to be 6.5%

I think its going to be good though. Obviously not as strong, or as intense as planned, and paler of course. Probably not a bad thing as it turns out, since it's quite progressive as it is. First outing at the Ulverston Beer Festival: Thursday 2nd September to Saturday 4th September.

Brewing the Bigger Beer

2010-08-10T20:52:00.001+01:00

Or as The Dictators put it in their top ditty "Faster and Louder":

...Speaking as a young artiste who has so much to say
So now you know my situation
understand my aggravation
building up so strong inside
cause I wanna make some noise
[...]
I can live
Faster and louder
I'm a man
Faster and louder

(You might be able to check out the track here...)

So, how do we do the Big Bottomed, or Fuller Figured beer (if you'd rather)?
Well (and perhaps I shouldn't be giving away secrets like this - but imagine me as a sort of Penn Jillette of the magic circle of beer - only with less talent), we put more stuff in. That's it. That's all there is to it.
In fact, it's even easier than that. Because we put so much stuff in - we end up with a stronger beer. Two things are well known about strong beers:

Beer geeks like them.
People can't drink much of them.

So the Bigger Beer gets lots of attention, and we don't have to make a lot of it.

Even better than that, it's not absolutely essential to pay the usual attention to balance, or for that matter - anything. Since we can market the Bigger Beer as extreme or transgressive or category-busting, we'll find it hard to miss the mark. We make it. That's what it's supposed to be like.

But what if it's too hoppy, too malty? Too bitter or syrupy? It can't be. See?
There's people out there who will love it. Bless them, they probably talk about the saltiest meal they ever had.

Lots of people will hate it. But those unfortunates (with all their taste receptors) can stick to session beers. The future belongs to the hard of tasting with the armoured palates.

So what do you fancy? An Imperial Black IPA? A trippel hopmonster Stout? Let me go and throw some stuff in a bucket and I'll tell you which it is - when it's done.

Actually, the next one we're doing is a 7% pale ale with a bunch of Centennial and Amarillo in it. Not too much I hope. Notes of pine, orange and rose, with lawns a-mowing in the distance. A bittersweet base, like the last hot Sunday afternoon of a childhood holiday - you'll never see the other kids again. Should be ready at the start of Sept.

The End of Home Draught

2010-08-06T14:14:00.000+01:00

Particularly Suitable For Cumbrian Beers

If you can't measure it...

2010-07-22T17:16:00.000+01:00

Count what is countable, measure what is measurable. What is not measurable, make measurable.

Apparently, some geezer, name of Galileo Galilei, may have said this. Good on him.

Here are some things we measure (and count). You might call them process variables.

Mash temp (right after start). pH at 15 mins (if we remember)

First runnings from the mash tun - gravity (actually brix) and pH (cooled to around 40C) and subsequently as run-off proceeds.

Copper volume, gravity, pH.

FV volume and gravity

Progress of fermentation - temp and gravity

(yeast) Cell counts and gravity at racking

Post-conditioning gravity and pH

Plus we have to smell and taste stuff. Yep, there's a lot of beer that has to be tasted. Oh well.

Fingers crossed.

2010-07-09T17:24:00.009+01:00

Oooh, that big heater on our copper. Bad heater. It went again of course. So I decided to have a proper look at it. Insulation cooked off the wiring. Corroded conductors. Nasty. OK, so, undo everything and wire it up again. I decided to remove the wiring enclosure and spin it round a bit to give a better angle for getting the wires to the crappy little terminals. This gave me a better look at the ends of the actual elements.

I tend to call this heater the 12K element, but it's actually 6 elements, joined together 2 per phase. And what's this, the little link connecting two of the elements is all gnarly and burned. Barely touching one of the posts, and only shakily connected to the other one.

On the left, the old one, on the right, a new one I hastily "machined". Little beggar.

I reckon that old one would have been arcing and getting all naughty and hot. It may have been the cause of the trouble all along. Perhaps.

And you know, it all seems to be working. This is good, as we absolutely have to brew tomorrow. It's probably going to be Sunbird, some of which is likely for the big festival in that London. Touch wood.

Dear Cellarpersons,

2010-07-05T11:22:00.002+01:00

Most of the time our casks come back in good condition, even closed nicely (sometimes) and we're very appreciative of the time spent, and care taken, by cellar people and publicans in presenting our beer in the best possible condition, as well as their responsible handling of these returnable assets. To you, thanks.

But (and of course there's a "but") ...
I picked up a bunch of empties the other day (from a wholesaler) and was surprised to find a wooden keystone in one of them. We don't use wooden keystones. We use a nice tight-fitting rubbery one. (The keystone is the small bung through which the tap is hammered.) Clearly then, someone has removed our keystone for some reason (did they get their tap stuck?) and bunged in another one.

Now, there's a bit of a knack to getting a keystone out at the best of times. What we don't do is belt a gnarly old screwdriver down the side with a big old hammer and pry the sucker out. If the tap's stuck (I had occasion to deal with this in the cellar of a good customer just the other day) the trick is to carefully but firmly lever the tap back and forth a little, twisting it a quarter turn or so from time to time, until it gets loose enough to pull out in the normal way.

The plastic casks that we use have a number of advantages: They're light, easy to handle, quiet (no terrible clanging as you clear out the cellar) and cheap. They're not so cheap that they're disposable, and they belong to us - we lend them to you - and we're happy to do so. In the olden days you might have been bringing your casks to the brewery to be filled. We don't make you do that now.

Plastic casks do have some drawbacks. They're somewhat susceptible to damage from the indiscriminate use of metal tools. And sure enough, in removing the keystone a number (why?) of small, rough, screwdriver holes have been punched through the keystone seat. This cask is now impossible to clean properly and has been retired. That's about 30 quid gone, just like that.

We have had a few casks returned damaged in similar ways. I can't imagine any reason why you'd need to remove either the keystone or the shive (we've had a few of those also). If you do need to get them out - please try to figure out a way of doing it without knackering our assets. Our phone number is on every cask - give us a call and we'd be happy to talk to you about it.

And while you're at it, I'm always pleased to see that people are marking the casks with received dates, vented dates, whatever. But why do it in permanent marker? People, the clue's in the name. What you want is either a sticker (on which you can write with anything - this is what Weatherspoons do for goodness sake) or use a grease pencil (wax pencil / china marker/ chinagraph pencil).

Seriously folk, if I promise not to come into your pub and f*ck up your glasses, will you please look after my casks?

In Liverpool...

2010-06-26T14:55:00.012+01:00

... well I'm not now, but I was on thursday. Delivering beer, of course. Not very much beer, but to one of my favouritest pubs, the Dispensary on Renshaw St. (or, as it has been called, "Rapid Hardware St."). When we lived in Liverpool I used to drink in the Dizzy (or Dissy, or even Dispo) a fair bit, and it's nice to hear that it's just recently been declared Liverpool CAMRA pub of the year - well deserved. It's one of the establishments that Cains revamped a few years ago, having previously been the Grapes - a boozer I'd never been in (and I wasn't alone in that).

Look down and you're lost.

It's more-or-less a city centre pub, and it's practically on the main route for the students as they run giggling into town, but it's got a proper feel to it. It's not full of suits guffawing about who they f*cked over in the office today, and it's not full of unstable all-day drinkers. You can go in with the spouse and have a quiet drink, perhaps before (or after) something cultural. You can go in with a few mates on a bit of a crawl. You can watch the footy. You could, if you wished, stay there from noon to midnight. There's a range of proper beer including some unusually good Cains. It's a proper pub. Go there.

And then I called in at the shop for a cup of tea and a chat. Now, when I say the shop, I can only mean Probe Records of Liverpool. And I do. If you don't know where that is - get to know. If you know it already - they're moving soon, to the Bluecoat. When they do, perhaps they'll update the website. You'd hope.

Update: They have! Updated the website, that is. With news of the upcoming move. Blimey.

You might have gathered that I really like Liverpool and that I miss living there a bit. You'd be right. Why did we leave? It's a long story, and there's a man with a gun in it. But we like it here a lot too. So that's alright.

You put what in it?

2010-06-13T14:09:00.002+01:00

We were pleased to see that some of our beer was on at a Vegan Beer Festival recently, along with beers from Belvoir, Buxton, Magpie, Marble, Spectrum & Springhead.

Most of our beers are brewed using nothing except malt, hops, yeast, water, and (sometimes) sugar. There's some unmalted barley in the stout, and we've been known to ~~throw~~ carefully infuse some lovely black treacle or fine malt extracts into some of our irregular beers. Our yeast is non-GM, and as far as we know, our suppliers haven't figured out a way of getting animal products into the hops and malt. Even the sugar we use is free from animal products, non-GM, and would be suitable for vegan, vegetarian, Kosher and Halaal diets. Although, obviously, since our beers are alcoholic beverages, you might want to check with your local zealots before ruining your chances of paradise by drinking some of our delicious frothy ale.

We do have some flaked maize in the malt store, but we haven't used it in anything yet. If we do, we'll tell you.

Since all our cask output is "real ale" it will contain live yeast, which can cause a visible haze in beer and may contribute interesting tastes and aromas in the finished product.

Animal products in beer.

Many pale beers will have been processed using fish derived "isinglass" finings, to produce a "clear" product by promoting a rapid and stable settlement of yeast. Brewers typically add isinglass as the beer is transferred to cask, and while pretty much all of this will remain in the cask as sediment, it does mean that beers fined this way cannot be enjoyed by vegetarians / vegans. Some brewers even use isinglass in their dark beers.

It's not just beer - wine producers might use any, or all, of: isinglass, gelatin, egg albumen, modified casein (from milk), chitin (derived from the shells of crabs or lobsters) or animal blood.

Some brewers manage to avoid the use of isinglass by relying on a highly flocculent yeast or by sending beer out with rather low levels of residual yeast. We've found that neither of these approaches will give us beer that reliably conditions in cask and suits normal cellar operations. Personally, I don't mind hazy beer as long as it's clean, and I find that small amounts of suspended yeast help, rather than spoil, the taste of beer. However, we've found it pretty near impossible to sell unfined pale beers, so we do normally use isinglass in them.

Not needed in dark beer.

On the other hand, our dark beers work perfectly well without finings, so we don't put any in, making them suitable for everyone, including vegetarians and vegans. Yay!

Any utensils or containers that may have been in contact with isinglass will, as a matter of course, be cleaned thoroughly after such use, and before being used for anything else.

Bottled and kegged beer.

Given that beer destined for bottles and kegs will usually be filtered (or centrifuged) to remove yeast and other hazes, you might think that these products won't have been processed with isinglass or animal gelatin. This is often not the case. Depending on the kind of filtration used, the filter run or use of consumables can be improved by fining beforehand.

We're just looking at bottling now. We hope that we'll be able to avoid finings, but this is liable to have a slight cost impact on the finished item.

Even bottle-conditioned beers may have been fined, but you should check with the brewer.

How hot is that?

2010-05-31T16:37:00.003+01:00

We've got a thermometer and we're not afraid to use it. In fact we've got a number of thermometers. Not one of them ever shows the correct temperature - I'm pretty sure - or if one does - it's an amazing coincidence.

The met office tells me that the temperature on Walney Island, which is where I did much of my growing up, is currently 14.3°C. Which seems quite parky. Which is why I've chosen to live a few miles inland (oh, and not in the middle of a windswept airfield). How accurate is that measurement? How precise? And what's the difference?

It's easy to use the terms "accurate" and "precise" as if they were interchangeable. They're not. Accuracy considers how near your measurement is to the true value, whereas precision tells us how close we can expect repeated measures made with the same instrument will be. I think. Unless I've got that the wrong way 'round.

So, if the met office is right (and here we mean right in a very godlike, absolute sense), and I went to Walney and measured 14.8, it would be fair to say that my accuracy was something like 0.5°C. If I made 4 more measurements really quickly (so as to be reasonably sure that the true temperature didn't change) and got 14.7, 14.8, 14.7 and 14.9, then I might say that my precision is something like ± 0.1

This all assumes that I've got a thermometer that reads tenths of a degree, i.e has a resolution of 0.1. If I take one of my crappy old glass thermometers with me ( I can judge the 1/2 degrees, just) I might end up reading 14.0, 14.5, 14.5, 14.0, 14.5. Which would be less precise, but more accurate .

Is any of this important to a brewer? There's one stage in the process where we're quite keen on getting the temperature "right" and that's in the mash tun. You'll be told that 65.5°C is the magic mash temperature (for a simple infusion mash). Of course, if you want drier beer you may aim lower (say 64°C) - for sweeter beers, perhaps higher (67°C ?). Whatever, we need to decide how accurate and how precise our temperature measurements need to be.

One thing we need to remember is that the mash tun is pretty big and has got a lot of stuff in it. For that matter, the mash tun is made out of a lot of stuff itself (which is why we generally preheat it in some way). We cannot make an accurate measurement of the mash temperature by simply sticking a thermometer in the middle and reading it. At the very least we'd need to make multiple measurements and take some kind of average - this is what we do - when shooting for 65.5, we generally get a range from something like 64 to 67, and the average usually works out OK. So we're reasonably confident that we're in the general area. At least at the top of the mash. Right after mashing in.

That said, what we're really after is nice beer. It's not really important that we mash at 66 rather than 65.5, so long as people like the beer and we get paid for it. But controlling the variability removes some of the potential for surprises down the line. This is why we use a thermometer with a resolution of 0.1°C (although 0.5 would probably be good enough, i.e. a good bit smaller than the range we measure), which we calibrate (to ~0°C) every now and then. We may not be very accurate, but at least we're fairly consistent in what we do. We hope that this helps the beer to be consistent also. And nice.

Why won't they brew strong?

2010-05-28T11:00:00.003+01:00

"Why is it "traditional" English breweries won't brew anything stronger than 4.8%", it has been tweeted.

Taking a random selection of "trad" brewers -

Adnams: there's a couple of strong seasonals, currently "May Day" 5.0% ABV.

Cains: "FA" 5.0% ABV

Fullers: "ESB" 5.5% ABV

Hook Norton: "Haymaker" 5.0% ABV

Jennings: "Snecklifter" 5.1% ABV

Marstons: "Old Empire" 5.7% ABV

Shepherd Neame: "Bishops Finger" 5.4% ABV (bottle)

Thwaite's: "Double Century" 5.2% ABV (bottle)

Right, that's that canard shot and stuffed.

FWIW, we always have at least one stronger beer on. And, in fact, most proper brewers have (at least in bottle) a strong beer in their line-up, as well as their session beers.

I was talking with a local publican the other day - it's part of the job. He tells me that he has customers who come in straight from work at 4 or 5 pm, and drink 'til closing time (at least, I should think). Now I know this is a terribly déclassé drinking style, and must seem very strange to all you jaded urban sophisticates out there, but that's what happens in some pubs.

Anyway, he goes on to explain that this means that he takes 30 quid off them in a night, they have a lovely evening talking shite with their mates, and everyone is happy.

Furthermore, he points out, if he could get them to start on lovely 6.5% super-hoppy lovingly hand-crafted and challenging - whatever, they'd tilt after 3 or 4 pints. He'd take, at most, a tenner off them ('cos he's not going to charge a tenner a pint, is he?), and he'll turn his beer over at rate that would lead to wastage.

How do you like them apples?

The thermodynamic rollercoaster of beer.

2010-05-25T16:25:00.009+01:00

Nothing's ever at the right temperature (or in the right place).

A brewery is a machine for making beer. Even a little Heath Robinson one like ours. One of the things that we have to manage is temperature. This has been preying on my mind of late since we've just had a spell of warm weather (at least that's what we call warm 'round here). Just for fun here's a not-to-scale graphical representation of this key process variable

See? It's a bugger, when you're not heating it, you're bloody cooling it. Inbetween, you're pumping it (or carrying it) from one place to another. God I love this job. Love it.

Ass U Me

2010-05-09T13:13:00.007+01:00

I notice that the good folk at the Reading BF list one of our beers as:
West Coast Blonde 4.4%
Pale beer brewed with West Coast USA hops?

Now, I know that they're very busy people, what with trying to ensure that their enormous range of 500 beers is in good condition (good luck with that), but why make up that bit about USA hops? Will it help sell the beer? Surely US hopping has become a real cliché in English micro-brews of late? I'm sure there's now a generation of drinkers who think that beer is supposed to smell like grapefruit.

For the record - there's only one beer in which we're currently using a US hop - and it's not this one. The contents of our hop store (it's a big chest freezer actually) include:

Northern Brewer - great quality - resinous and slightly citric, nice clean bitterness

Challenger - crisp bitterness, I find that some straw and grass comes through. Nice.

Hallertauer Mittelfrüh - also great quality - lightly floral, fresh.

Goldings - Used pretty much exclusively in our "milds". I've never really got on with Goldings (which must make me a weirdo)- there always seems to be a sort of cold stewed tea tannic quality if we use a lot of them in the boil. In a lightly hopped beer though, this works for me, while the bitterness may be quite low, the quality of the bitterness keeps it interesting.

Odds and ends of various "Styrians"

Bobek! Boss! Unlike the other "styrians", this isn't (I gather) a fuggle variant - has it got Northern Brewer in it's ancestry? Or something. Citric yes, but not grapefruit - it's orangey / lemony - tangerine perhaps.

Amarillo- Stinks of cat p*ss & mango. Revolting? But leave it to air for a few hours and the cat creeps out, then some distinct minty notes come through. Fascinating. The catty stuff doesn't seem to make it into beer either - but I'm inclined to let it breathe before using it for dry-hopping. The bitterness is good and all kinds of nice orangey tastes come through. Definite tropical fruit used late. Great example of how the smell of the hop in the hand is not what comes out in the beer.

And where did the "e" come from? It's blond, not blonde. It's the name of the beer, not the lady on the clip.

Down the drain...

2010-04-30T11:33:00.003+01:00

... not beer. Trade effluent.

I had to work out our discharge volumes the other day, so that the nice folks at United Utilities could figure out how much to charge us. It's not a complicated sum, but it's quite instructive. Your mileage may vary.

Of the water that comes in, about 15.5% goes in product (beer) or is lost in evaporation, around 2.3% goes out in by-products (spent grain, waste yeast) and 82% goes down the drain.

I know that doesn't add up to 100, but that's rounding error for you.

Or to put it another way - each pint of beer we produce means we need 6.5 pints of water, and gives rise to about 5.3 pints of effluent.

This is actually pretty good for a tiny brewery. And of course, we're not short of water 'round here.

Eeuw, nasty.

2010-04-22T16:04:00.006+01:00

I was in a pub recently, drinking some beer that we'd made. It's a particularly flavour-packed fairly high ABV little number with some quite forward esters bordering on the solventy (N.B. this wasn't a mistake - was intended). It had about 10 weeks on oak chips in stainless, then re-racked into our plastic casks where it passed another few months. It's been interesting.

But this one, eeuw, what's that nasty smell? Some people couldn't smell anything wrong. Becky didn't like it but couldn't name it. One person referred to laundry. I smelled damp cellar, musty, something.

I'm guessing that here we have a hint of
trichloroanisole (TCA). You'll observe that this looks a lot like those chlorophenols that come up when chlorine based sanitisers are allowed to come into contact with the beer (or with wood). It might be derived from an undetectable trace of chlorophenol, methylated by some kind of bug, giving us TCA, which is incredibly smelly - detectable at parts per trillion.

Our noses are all different, and thresholds for detection of TCA vary by orders of magnitude, which is to say that I might not be able to detect something that you find utterly horrendous. Also, many people get used to TCA quickly, so after a few sniffs, it might stop bothering you (or not).

It's quite possible that the bad smell had got into the beer via dispense equipment, or was even migrating through beer lines which might be perfectly clean on the inside, if they were in contact with some minging gunk.

To be on the safe side, we need to make sure that our casks aren't building up scale (or beerstone) which might be giving a home to bugs, or impeding the rinsing away of sanitisers.

Since we normally use a chlorinated caustic cleaner which doesn't have anything special to restrict scale in it, we're starting an acid wash on the casks - every few trips. This gave me an excuse to go shopping at one of our excellent local agricultural supply and engineers. I wanted a John Deere hat but all I got was this stupid milkstone remover.

Mais qu'est que c'est exactement...

2010-04-20T17:36:00.006+01:00

... a black IPA? Let's call it a BIPA. And let's not hear anything about "Cascadian Dark Ale". That's a really stupid name. Although to be fair, one Lisa Morrison gives good argument here The original may have been Rogue’s "Skullsplitter" (and that's not even an original name of course).

So what is it then? Is it original? Is it new? Is it a hoppy kind of stout? Or a very dark kind of hoppy bitter? How hoppy should it be? Like an American IPA? Or not? Should it be roasty?

And all this gets me thinking. What is an IPA? What colour should it be? And for that matter, what is a stout? Does a (dry) stout have to have roast barley? Or at least get a noticeable chunk of it's astringent bitterness from high-roast goods?

I can't answer any of these questions, so we've posed them in the form of "Paint it Black", our take on a BIPA. It's out there somewhere. If you see it, drink it, and report back.

Oh, and is a lightly hopped dark ale a mild? I say yes. Even if dry. We don't make sweet beer. So look out for our "Go! Mild" special, and our regular "Dark Country".

Oh, why didn't I listen to Woolpack Dave...

2010-04-09T17:21:00.004+01:00

See, a while ago the big element on our copper cut out during the boil. We managed to limp along on the little one (which will keep the boil going). I can't get at the head where the connections are without moving the copper (that's as much fun as it sounds) out of the corner where that nice Mr. Porter put it, so it wasn't until the next day that I managed to get in there with my trusty roll of insulating tape and bodge things up.

Job done?

Mr Woolpack pointed out that I should have used heatshrink as it's less prone to slip. But I hadn't got any - that's a bit silly. I didn't get any - that's really stupid of me.

And of course, it's just come back and bitten me. i.e. it's gone faulty again. We're not even boiling, there's 650 litres of wort in the thing (weighs a lot) so it's an immovable object.

Back of envelope calculations suggest that it's going to take something like 4 hours to come to the boil, and I'll probably have to boil for at least two hours rather than the 90mins that we usually do. I'm not exactly sure when I'm going to get home, but it'll be late.

Learning is fun!

Famous brewer (maybe) deploys whiny sock-puppet in response to opinion expressed by complete nobody.

2010-03-22T19:21:00.002Z

Here

Good grief.

Hey Presto... it's cask!

2010-03-17T17:59:00.007Z

Pete Brown had an interesting piece on Marston's redefining "cask ale".

Basically, it goes like this. "Cask" ale (they're steering clear of calling it "real" for the moment) can be differentiated from keg, not just by the shape of the container, but also by the presence of yeast. By using yeast trapped in beads, rather than freely suspended cells, it's possible to ensure that there's live yeast in the cask, in contact with the beer, but avoid the problems caused when excess suspended yeast causes turbidity (murkiness, haze, that badly kept aquarium effect, whatever).

If "cask" ale is looked after properly (i.e. left alone, somewhere cool) regular yeast will settle to the bottom - where it will stay. But this takes some time and care. Brewers often help things along by adding isinglass (a fish product).

So - a publican in a hurry, or careless, wouldn't have been able so offer their customers the delicious taste of "cask". Also, vegetarians / vegans aren't able to enjoy beer fined with isinglass. So many "cask" beers would have been verboten.¹

As we know, many producer's "cask" ales are effectively "bright beer" which has had the yeast content "adjusted" at (or shortly before) dispatch. This makes these products predictable and (relatively) "quick to clear" in the cellar. Immobilised yeast, trapped on beads, is a logical next step.

They call it "Fast Cask".

But is it "real ale"?

Perhaps it's irrational, but for many, it's the continuity of the process from the fermenter to the glass that sets "real ale" apart from just about anything else.

The drinker, the bar staff, the cellarperson
all engaged with the same living process that the brewer merely started.

What's wrong with it? For a start the name - "Fast Cask" - it's so very 1980's. Here we are, in a time (we're told) when "slow-food" & "real food" have become practically synonymous with "quality" and some marketing genius has decided that what the product needs is some of that "Fast" stuff.

Also, I bet it works. I bet you can tap the beer straight away and put it on service while rolling the cask around the cellar, kicking it and shouting "I'm a teapot".
Beers which don't take that sort of abuse are disadvantaged in the dumbed-down de-skilled cellar culture that Marston's are proposing be the new status quo.²

This is not a contribution to "real ale quality". It's precisely the opposite. It's a way of getting an acceptable product out of the end of a process which can include low quality steps. Now the lazy and clueless can turn out acceptable "Cask". Something that was previously a sign of skill and care is now no such thing.

The product is less sensitive to abuse in order that a defective process can include a higher level of product abuse than was previously tolerable.

Does it taste the same? Maybe. Who cares? We weren't just buying the product. We were buying in to the process, and the (craft) skill and care required in that process. Perhaps it was an illusion. But illusions are valuable.

1. Vegans can enjoy unfined beers. It's still quite difficult to find unfined pale "real ale" (not impossible of course), there are probably more dark beers that are suitable (ours for instance).

2. Here's a tiny "micro-pub" that has four high quality "real ales" (and two ciders) cellared in a cupboard (more or less). This is what you can do with reasonable care and some know-how.

Something in the water?

2010-03-11T12:02:00.012Z

All brewers are concerned about the quality of the water they use to make beer. OK, that's a sixpence fine - of course I should have said liquor, water is for washing. But then I don't have to pretend I'm a bewhiskered Victorian brewer surrounded by polished copper & brass - so I'll call it water if I want.

Some Water.

A brewer of our acquaintance, recently relocated, may have trouble continuing to call one of their beers "award-winning" since different water = different beer (according to some). Another brewer we know (also recently relocated) looks set to haul a trailer loaded with IBCs full of his favourite fellside water down some very wiggly roads. Given the winter we've just had, this looks like a way of limiting brewing to 10 months of the year.

So what is it about this water that makes it so important? What's wrong with the stuff that comes out of the tap?

We were science types at school, so it's no surprise that we have a particular way of looking at the world. It works like this: If there's something we don't want in the water - we'll take it out. If we're short of something - we'll put it in. There isn't anything else in our philosophy. It's not magic.

Incidentally, if you offered a homeopath shandy, would they say "Sorry, I'm driving. I better stick to this absolute alcohol, dilute solutions always get me rotten"?

But back to the water. Chlorine - that's a thing they have in tap water that you don't want in your brewing. Heating, stirring and standing will get rid of that. Or there's that trick with sod. met. if you'd rather. Apart from that - our tap water is really soft i.e. there's not much in it.

Some More Water.

( Reservoir pictures © Copyright Michael Graham and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)
This one is just up the road from our house. Nice isn't it. There's also a bunch of windmills up here.

So, lovely soft lakeland water - that's what comes out of the tap here. Clean but with a hint of chlorine (which we can remove). If we need to add anything for brewing (e.g. calcium / magnesium salts, or common salt, whatever) we can. This way we can be sure that the water we use is potable (it has to be) and suitable.

Of course one could get a whole bunch of the favourite water and boil it down really hard, ending up with a couple of pints of some brown salty gloop. Take that to the new brewery site. Add a teaspoon to the town supply. That'll do it.

It's the purpose (and ambition) of water to become beer. Anyone who works to help this humble liquid achieve its noble destiny is alright in my book.

This and that

2010-01-24T11:09:00.006Z

It appears that some bloggers out there seem to think that quoting from the Telegraph and adding words to the effect "me too" is worthwhile. Really, it's not. However, I do like to follow their links and seeing how many clicks it takes before you get to some half-arsed "libertarian" nonsense (answer - not many - and it's usually some guff about how "democracy is crap because after all the Germans elected Hitler didn't they?" - answer - no they didn't).

Fortunately, bits are incredibly cheap, so all this nonsense cluttering up the internets isn't really costing anybody anything. But you know, when someone can say
"When drinking was a male preserve that was kept out of sight in backstreet boozers, we never had all this anti-drink hysteria." and at the same time refer to a "wave of neo-Prohibitionist sentiment sweeping the land", I can't help wondering if they should put down the Telegraph and have a go at something a bit more fact-rich
like this:
Fascinating report about the history of temperance and it's relation to alcohol policy from the Rountree foundation

Enough about that.

We had a bit of a scare the other day. Sitting in the office having a cup of coffee while the boil was under way (we do sometimes do some actual brewing you know) a sudden loud bang made us jump up. Bangs pretty much have to be sudden and loud don't they?

Investigation (of the panicky sort) revealed that the circuit breaker on the 12kw copper heater had tripped and couldn't be reset.

We were able to complete the boil (just) on the 9kw, but I really wasn't looking forward to replacing the heater.

Next day, after I've found my little multi-meter under a pile of stuff, I unplugged the mighty heater plug and checked a few things. Everything nominal. B*ll*cks.

I dragged the copper around a bit so that I could get at the heater heads and checked the wiring. Bingo! Chafed sleeving on the earth and evidence of arcing. Smashing, put that right, threw a hundred litres of water into the copper and turned the heater on. Bang! Breaker tripped again. Double B*ll*cks.

More careful investigation of the wiring in the heater head revealed two more distinct faults (caused by vibration and heat I'd guess, along with slightly cramped wiring) and a bit of looseness as the cable passed through the gland. When I'd unplugged the thing I must have twisted the cable just enough to give me nice high resistance to earth - plugged back in we had a short. Anyway, touch of spanner and a bunch of insulating tape and we're laughing. Ah ha ha ha.

Breaking the law (of unintended consequences)

2010-01-17T12:45:00.008Z

I popped into the SIBA North meeting in Southport the other day. On my way from Manchester to Liverpool (no, the Sat-Nav is fine, thank you). All very interesting as usual.

The subject of SIBAs position on the tie came up. Again. The old topic of the beer orders and the "Law of Unintended Consequences" (LoUC from now on) was made much of. You know, how we ended up with the pubcos and that.

It's a pet peeve of mine. The LoUC isn't an actual law. It's not like the Law of Gravity. All it says is that things you weren't expecting (and didn't want) will happen. It's what you call a truism, and is often used to excuse inaction on the grounds that if you do anything - something bad will happen. This is demonstrably nutso, since we don't need to do anything for bad things to happen. They'll happen even if you just sit there. This is the "Shit Happens" theory (the SHT).

For instance, it's not even certain that the pub industry wouldn't have evolved into what we see nowadays (pubcos in trouble), or something worse, without the beer orders. Unfortunately there's no control reality where we don't have the beer orders, but all else is the same, where we can examine an alternative history.

In the absence of access to the alternative reality, everything held to be due to LoUC can be adequately explained by SHT, making LoUC useless as a guide to action.

I'm not after you. I'm after them.

2010-01-14T15:32:00.003Z

I think what Pete Brown¹ is doing, whacking on those ropey neo-prohibitionist "facts 'n' figures" with his mallet-o-truth is great. He's putting in loads of work and I find it really interesting. But I suspect that this is not about the facts, and a point-by-point rebuttal is not necessarily a good play. (Did you see "thank you for smoking" on the TV the other day? Top film.²)

I can't see there's any point trying to "win the argument" and expecting the people to rise up against the new puritans.

And anyway, we're aware of the negatives of alcohol misuse. Anyone who's had a hangover knows that alcohol can be bad for you. We all know alcoholics, have seen fist-fights, car crashes, etc. Precisely how much of this is down to the booze? Who knows? Do we care? Do we need to know more?

We've already decided it's worth it. We've been on the sauce for thousands of years. Far longer than we've been listening to medics or funding science.

The cost of cars on the roads is worth it (we've decided). The cost of free access to guns and heroin isn't worth it (we've decided). We're grown-ups, and we've made our minds up. We'll keep the booze thanks.

1. Here et seq.

2 Thank You for Smoking

Dihydrogen Monoxide phase change spoils my day

2010-01-08T12:33:00.008Z

One of the first jobs on a brewing day around here (after putting the heater on in the office) is to run some cold water so we can check the mains temperature. Imagine our horror when a few chilly drops was all we got. As it turns out, the mains isn't frozen (don't believe your water company when they tell you that it never happens - on this industrial estate mains water is now down to 2.8°C - a few more weeks of this weather and it will be frozen, probably on a monday morning).

It took the best part of an hour clambering about exploring to discover that a short length of pipe running against one of the big bits of steelwork has frozen.

So, we remove that section of pipe and soak it in a bucket drawn from the Hot Liquor Tank. And then, when thawed, put it back. Bingo, we have running water, and can make a late start on the brewing. It's cold. The malt is cold. The fridge is just a box with a light in. We've got two heaters in the (cool) store.

I shouldn't complain, but it's 3:30 and we're not even boiling yet, so I'll be home later than I wanted, and I've got a cold, and Becky's got the car so I'll have to try to get home in the van (or near home what with the ice). Grumble groan.

All work and no play.

2010-01-03T15:36:00.002Z

Makes me ... something ... something.

Pub closures?

2010-01-02T10:30:00.005Z

There's been some discussion on the effect of TV-watching on pub-going over here
I suspect that there might be more to it ...

Show your working.

2009-12-29T00:27:00.000Z

Personally, I think it pretty likely that some pubs have closed since 2006/7 due to factors related to the smoking ban. That said, it's also clear that there's a downward trend in pub numbers that's been going on for a lot longer than that. This trend has been fairly steady since before 1980.

In other news: Of late we've seen the gap between prices charged in the on and off trade widen. I suspect that a lot of this might be due to those dang supermarkets.
Anyway, here's two nice graphs on the same x-axis.

Sources: IFS analysis based on prices and earnings data from Office for National Statistics / British Beer and Pub Association / I've jammed them together

I was prompted to post this following a comment on the previous post.

I'm not claiming that correlation proves anything - and anyway, the longer-term trend looks well established before the marked on/off trade price divergence really opens up. I guess it just goes to show that it's all a bit complicated really. I suspect that reversing the smoking ban (if such a thing were possible) would make f*ck all difference going forward.
Now, minimum pricing ...

Pub Closures and Hitch-hikers

2009-12-28T15:14:00.000Z

You don't see so many of them around nowadays do you? Standing there, waiting, their cruddy signs cornering the eye, scruffy yet appealing. Pubs, that is. Some people blame the smoking ban, but we all know that's not all there is to it. How would that explain the missing hitch-hiker? Health & Safety? It's all connected. Everything is. Even if we pretend that we're not. Even though we were told there's no such thing as society. Individuals and families driving and (separately) drinking. We know that we miss it. Even if we won't face up to what it is.

And on the other hand, there's a fist.

2009-12-23T12:14:00.000Z

Woolpack Dave had this to say recently:

"What remains as the overall problem is a continuing belief by the majority of the population that alcohol is causing many major problems in our society. This belief permits the government to tax alcohol at increasing rates, and the increase is something we should worry about, but the only way to prevent further increases is to look at why there is such widespread belief about the problems of alcohol harm." ¹

He's right of course, if the majority believe this, their elected representatives will want to be seen to be doing something about it.

In an attempt to get this straight in my own head I'll try to break this down.

In the first place, "alcohol" doesn't cause any problems. It just sits there. It needs to get into a human before anything interesting happens. Alcohol (Ethanol, Ethyl alcohol) is toxic - it has well known toxic effects. ²

Take the brain for starters. The effects of alcohol on the brain are fairly well understood nowadays, but we need to be clear about the kind of alcohol exposure we're talking about. We can consider 3 main periods of alcohol exposure: Fetal, Juvenile and Adult.

Research suggests that the fetus should be protected from levels of alcohol that cause no particular problems for adults. Otherwise, we may see a range of physical, learning, and behavioral effects in the developing brain (none good). Some of these learning and behavioural disorders will be associated with significant costs for the individual and wider society.

Juveniles show some paradoxical responses to alcohol. They may be less obviously "intoxicated" in response to a particular alcohol dose that an adult, yet have at least as much loss of judgement and memory. Given that many young people are rather less risk-averse than we (adults) might wish - this is a wicked combination. Also, young people are developing behaviours that may stay with them throughout their lives. It's a concern that habitual alcohol use may develop, leading to chronic high exposure later.

How do adults drink? Some not at all, some sporadically, some steadily. Some in happy social groups, some in noisy gangs. Some savour alcoholic beverages in calm solitude. Some belt down a couple of bottles of cheap booze to escape dull lives, to shut out the hideous emptiness of existence, or the carping inner voice of guilt and failure. Some become prey to melancholy, some prone to violence.

At worst, drinking can cause terrible damage, to the liver, brain, heart and family. To deny this is to beg to be marginalised in the debate. It seems to me that alcohol consumption - the drinking of alcoholic beverages - does create problems, has costs. But many of us like our chosen drinks - we like the taste - we like the effects. We're relaxed, friendlier, funnier. We like the social benefits, the pubs, clubs, opportunities for meeting and interacting with our neighbours - and strangers. We even like the craft element of some of our drinks - some drinks even approach art. These are the benefits.

The new puritans, who choose only to see things in black and white, can only see "binge" and and abstinence. Self-denial or hoggish wallowing. For them, a world of cheerful moderation with episodes of saturnalian indulgence is unimaginable.

If alcohol consumption has some negative health and social impacts, can it be a good thing? The puritans say no. If we value the positives of drinking, should we deny the costs? We mustn't be backed into an over-simplified position in response to the simplistic arguments of the new-puritans. Drinking, like reality, is complex. A lot of people (if not all of us) find it hard to hold apparently contradictory ideas, but as Mayor Quimby said,

"It can be two things." ³

1. hardknott.blogspot.com/2009/12/contradicting-thought-processes

2. MSDS for ethyl alcohol

3. The Quimby File

Another day in paradise.

2009-12-22T21:53:00.000Z

Transits, as I believe I've said before, have got rubbish traction when unloaded. Round here the snow's been falling, thawing, freezing, falling again. We live up a bit of a hill. Put all these things together and getting the van out from, and back to, our house has been a bit irksome. The beer requires regular attention, so I have to go and nurture it, or clean something, every day.

The malt delivery came today, so I had to be there for that. I amused myself while waiting by washing a few casks. The Fawcetts truck turned up, a bit later than I expected (I'm not complaining - I was glad to see it), so we pulled all our malt off and stacked it. Then it had to carried it into the malt store (and stacked with the last few bags of the last lot on top).

So it's a bit late by the time I bung a couple of 9s into the back of the van and zoom off sashaying (chasséing?) through the slush to the Swan where I can unload a "West Coast Blond" (4.4%) and a "Black Flag" (8.8%). Yes it's out there... woo-hoo.

And then home, barely made it up the hill. Hells teeth. No beer in the house. Again

That'll learn me.

2009-12-08T21:33:00.000Z

So, we finally got a chance to move the "big stout" out of the 18s it's been sitting in for six weeks or so, cosy-ing up to the whiskey soaked toasted oak chips. We've been looking forward to trying it. We've got quite good at what we call stout. Some black malt, roasted barley, you name it, we shovel it in, but I thought we'd better go easy with this one. I lost my nerve - I admit it.

It's turned out to have a quite restrained "aroma". It smells like beer. Well, maybe there's a touch of dried fruit and even a little bit of incense hiding in there. Taste-wise, there's raisin and black treacle (definitely) and some bitter burnt pepper (is it?). It finishes up with a warm spicy alcohol thing. I can't spot anything I recognise as oak at all. (What is that incense thing? Sandalwood? Is it the oak doing that?)

Anyway, it's very, very dark red-brown, it's 8.8% abv and it's called "Black Flag". Oh, and it's liable to make you drunk. So enjoy responsibly...

D'oh!

2009-12-01T19:31:00.000Z

While changing around our fementer coolers, I managed (don't ask) to let some dirty water out of the cooling loop into FV2 , full of our West Coast Blond which I was going to rack tomorrow. Accordingly, I've had to dump the contents of FV2 to the drain. So if anyone wants WCB, and we haven't confirmed your order - you can have it, but not until the 16th Dec at the earliest (i.e. we'll be making some more tomorrow). Becky says this is coming off my wages.

Yay! Us!

2009-11-29T18:38:00.000Z

CAMRA members across Cumbria have voted our No. 2 Stout
Champion Stout of Cumbria, 2009.

Thank you! You're absolutely right!

We have no beer in the house, so we're celebrating with a bottle of Ridge Zinfandel Paso Robles 2006. Yum.

How green you are, how green you are...

2009-11-19T10:48:00.000Z

We got mentioned by name by Woolpack Dave, so I'm afraid I had to comment on the eco thing. It's interesting how defeatism and selfishness seem to be so acceptable nowadays. Crikey, using the word "nowadays" makes me sound ancient. My old mate Bobby P sees a lot of selfishness and stupidity among the younger folk, and was often heard to refer to them as "Thatchers brats". Of course, they don't know what he means, because that would be history, innit.

I realise that blogs, and blog comments particularly, aren't really the place for reasoned argument, references, footnotes and shit. But hells teeth, the unsupported opinions advanced as facts... (by people commenting on Dave's interesting and thoughtful piece)

"Fact" 1. ...the more ethically-sourced and artisan the beer is, the less eco-friendly it's likely to be...

Well, this seems to be confusing efficiency with "eco-friendly". Let's imagine GreenShedBev are producing a unit of some artisanal product with 10 units of renewable power and 300 litres of water from a secure hydrological unit. Whereas the more efficient GlobalHyperBevCo can turn out a unit for 5 non-renewable power units and 295 litres of water from a threatened aquifer. See?

"Fact" 2. ...what you, I, or everyone we know does, won't make a jot of difference...

This is simply wrong isn't it? If there's anything to the Six degrees of separation thang, then between us, we know everybody. Just about. Or is the point here that it's the people we don't know - the others who will continue to upstuff things? So there's no point in us good folk trying?

"Fact" 3. ...hemp wearing anti global yogurt weavers an easy sting in the marketing dept...

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?
Tosser.

Indulgence Or Innovation?

2009-11-12T15:29:00.000Z

Beer festivals aside (it's difficult making a living off "festival beers"), non mainstream styled beers are a difficult sell. Should we blame the publicans for this? No, they have to buy what their regulars will drink. I have customers worried about a "Best Bitter" being too bitter, or a 4.4% being too strong. What should I do?

We need to sell the beer. The beer has to sell. So that we can make some more.

Perhaps it's just too easy to throw a huge pile of hops and malt into the big bucket, give it a couple of weeks, then sell a few 9s of novelty beer via Boggart. Perhaps this is a recipe for a "minimum viable product". Or it's not, and it's just homebrew writ large. Or self-indulgent toss. Or the beer equivalent of Dōjinshi, fan-fiction, whatever. Heck, I don't know.

Vodka

2009-10-23T15:30:00.000+01:00

I do, from time to time, drink vodka. I also occasionally have a martini. I do not make a martini with vodka. That's not a martini. Now we've got that out of the way, back to the vodka.

In our house we usually drink vodka from the freezer in tiny little glasses that Becky brought back from the USSR in the olden days. For these puposes I favour Stolichnaya, a russian grain vodka (you knew that). Not perhaps the smoothest, but works well at sub-zero temperatures (I love the way vodka goes viscous). I know some people prefer others - I can see something like Absolut being nice at higher temperatures. If you're mixing, why not Smirnoff? It's whatever floats your boat.

The point of vodka is that (to a given number of decimal places) it's ethanol and water. That's all. Although, funny thing, when a chum made some vodka out of HPLC grade ethanol and water, I didn't particularly like it. We drank it, sure. I guess that there's something in the vodkas I like (impurities that is) which makes them taste / feel different from a straight ethanol solution.

There are some vodkas out there that pride themselves on their purity. It's not a concept that I've ever been happy with. Frankly, it's not natural. It's got a sort of "tidy desk = tidy mind" vibe to it which makes me feel queasy. But that's probably just me.

It's the purity of vodka which makes it perfect for the marketing droids. There's really nothing there except the marketing, after all.

Speaking of marketing, jesusjohn pointed out (over at impymalting) the kind of thing that's involved in turning neutral grain spirit into a "billion dollar brand". Lots of skyy adverts here.

That big stout thing...

2009-10-20T17:32:00.000+01:00

... is out of the fermenter and sitting in a bunch of 18's, along with some booze soaked toasted oak chips. I'm going to leave it for a few weeks, and see what happens.

It looks like our yeast did pretty well without special measures (apart from over-pitching a bit), in that we seem to have about 8.6% ABV at the moment. I suspect that if I'd roused it a bit, we could have hit 9%
Next time, perhaps...

Sugar in brewing.

2009-09-26T12:35:00.000+01:00

Recently there's been an interesting post by Ronald Pattison (xtreme beer-history buff) on use of "sugar" in brewing. In the comments following it's become apparent that some people hold very strong views on the subject. It's looking like one of those religious issues. It also seems that some people are quite confused about the whole thing.

Nowadays we use sucrose or invert sugar in brewing not so much for economy, but rather to allow us to control the fermentability of our worts. To understand how this works, it's important to be aware of the difference between what's commonly called sugar (sucrose) and sugars generally. It might be better to talk about carbohydrates really, but I'm comfortable with sugars v. sugar , so try to keep up. Wort carbohydrates include the monosaccharides fructose & glucose, the disaccharides sucrose & maltose, maltotriose (a trisaccharide), and more complex sugars (often called dextrins). Our yeast can only eat fairly simple sugars - the 'mono' and 'di' saccharides and some others.

A typical British Pale Ale wort with an original gravity (OG) of 1040 might contain a little more than 9 grams of sugar per 100 millilitres, of which less than 7g will be fermentable (including 0.5g sucrose - table sugar). This leaves something like 2g / 100ml of the higher sugars to contribute to taste and body in the finished beer and final gravity (FG) of around 1008.

Broadly, we can say that a beer with high levels of unfermented sugars will be sweeter, with more body than a beer with relatively low levels of these dextrins. But of course, we don't always want sweet beers with lots of body. Indeed, Belgian brewers speak of the digestibility of their beers, by which I guess they mean the relatively light body (considering the alcoholic strength) of many of their offerings. Digestible beers don't fill you up. A relatively light body, with dryness are also characteristics of some British beers, it's part of what makes our session beers so sessionable - so how do we go about achieving this?

To a certain extent we can control the fermentability of the wort by controlling mash temperature. The various enzymes in the malt have different optimum temperatures for their actions. So a little bit warmer (say 67C) might give us a less fermentable wort (lower proportion of fermentable sugars), while a bit cooler (64C) might give us a more fermentable wort leading to a drier (thinner) finished beer.

We can also make a difference by our choice of yeast. Yeast tends to consume sugars in sequence. It's like a child eating the chips first, then the sausage, followed by the beans. So the simpler sugars are utilised first, the more complex ones (which require the mobilisation of more yeast cell machinery) only when the easy stuff is used up. A yeast that's highly flocculent, i.e. falls out of suspension quickly, will tend to leave a higher proportion of the more complex sugars unfermented, even though it has the right machinery. A less flocculent yeast might produce a drier beer, by hanging around for long enough to have a good go at all the fermentables. Some yeasts are constitutionally unable to use maltotriose - they just don't have the tools for the job.

We can control the fermentable / unfermentable balance of the wort by directly adding fermentable sugars while keeping the OG the same (i.e. reducing the amount of malt somewhat). We can chose to add mainly simple sugars, a useful technique allowing us to use more flocculent yeasts (good for producing clear beers in a short time with simple equipment), without leaving too much unfermented at this stage.

This is the basis for brewers adding invert sugar to their wort. Invert sugar is sucrose (table sugar) which has been treated to break it down into glucose and fructose. This is often done by heating an acidified solution of sucrose. It's Quite Interesting to note that as the hydrolysis proceeds, the optical properties of the solution change, with more fully hydrolysed solutions rotating polarised light in the opposite direction to a sucrose solution - which is why we call it invert sugar...

The fermentability of commercially available invert sugars seems to be in the range 94% - 99%, although some of the really dark ones, which will have more unfermentable stuff in them, will be less fermentable (90% or so). Other, starch derived products can be got with more or less whatever fermentability you want, and are commonly used as brew-length extenders (which is a good way of saying profit enhancers).

Anyway, throwing good old sucrose into the boil works well (although you'd be advised to make a solution / syrup up first unless you particularly want to be chipping burnt toffee of your elements all the next day). In the acid conditions of the boiling wort a proportion of the sucrose is hydrolysed for you. I should think.

That time of year again.

2009-09-18T18:36:00.000+01:00

In Ulverston (where we are) there's a sort-of dress-up weekend during which the out-going types are encouraged to wear clothes harking back to the 1850's (approximately). Given that we aren't really dressing up kind of people, our contribution to the Dickensian Festival is a strong ale (6.5%) called (as a nod to Dickens) "Genuine Stunning", and that's what we're making today. Last year, we didn't sell any to anyone in time for the festival, but at least we knew.

There's a free pint for the first person to spot the secret ingredient. But you'll have to wait until November before we let it out.

A Modern Porter...

2009-09-15T15:55:00.000+01:00

... is what we're brewing today.

There's an awful lot of ~~guff~~ stuff written about porters. The point's been made (elsewhere, at length), that they're historically interesting - blah... blah... the first truly industrial British beer. Early porters were great, later ones - mass produced bastardisations of the lovely brown beers that pre-dated them. Blah. But we're not a historical reconstruction society (there are family members who were in Ye Sealed Knot so we've a real feel for the hideous awfulness of that phrase), hence we'll be making a modern porter called (confusingly perhaps) "Revival Porter".

There's a lot of really good beers out there called "porter", it's a very broad church nowadays. Good.

Ours should be: On the brown side of black, about 4.7%, slightly sweet with a fruity chocolate aroma, moderate bitterness and a dryish finish. Or something. Anyway, it's in the fermenter now, and I've chucked in some yeast.

Good news: The new pumps for the cooler arrived! We got two, so now there's a spare. Of course, something else will go next.

That beer's so last month.

2009-09-12T15:22:00.000+01:00

Brewers usually put a best before date on containers as they go out of the place. It's pretty usual to only consider requests for returns (ullage and that) for stuff before the best before date. It's also usual for retailers to require a sensible amount of time in which to get around to selling the beer - 22 days would be a typical request. Wholesalers might want a month.

In effect the brewers are warranting that the beer is going to be OK up to the date, but anything might happen after that (explode, go sour, taste of goats, etc) for which they won't be held responsible. Some beers will keep for ages: Strong beers, dark beers, and particularly strong dark beers. All live beer will change as it ages, and for some beers this will be a good thing, for others a bad thing. We condition our weaker beers for at least a week before they go out, so they'll be fit to drink as soon as they're vented and drop bright. We'd normally suggest that they're drunk within a couple of weeks after they get to the pub - these are beers meant to be enjoyed while they're fresh. As they become aged the lower alcohol pale beers can tend to dull a bit, still good - but not as good.

The bad news for the day is that the recirculating pump on the big chiller has packed up and that we don't have a spare. Let's see if we can get a new one by tuesday, otherwise we'll have trouble cooling down the fermenter full of Golden.

Normal service resumed.

2009-09-01T17:33:00.000+01:00

Well, pretty much. We did some Best Bitter tuesday, and today we're doing the West Coast Blond. "Oooh", you might say, "Push the envelope why don't you". It's beer we need - to sell - the stock is looking a bit depleted. We had our "production meeting" and have pencilled in something (well 3 things) more experimental for the rest of the month, about which more later.

Jeff Pickthall came to see us today, so Becky had to prove she can brew while I chatted. Very relaxing it was, and of course (in spite of her tiny hangover), everything went fine. While talking, I was reminded of visiting herself when she was working in Belgium. Now that's a place where it's just about impossible to get truly bad beer. Apart from all the super-lovely beers that everyone goes on about, even their cooking lager makes our cooking lager look stupid. The Stella is actually quite nice and ~~Jupiter~~ Jupiler (which seemed to me what most Belgians actually drank most of) takes Carling outside, beats it up and steals its girlfriend.

P.S. I'm adding this (7.9.09) to admit that I haven't been to mainland Europe (except to change planes) since 1995 - so I don't really know what I'm talking about anymore (if I ever did).

Brewing again.

2009-08-26T14:22:00.000+01:00

After much cleaning, we're ready to brew again - so let's!

I say we, but the rest of the gang don't get back until tomorrow, and I'm sure they'll be going straight to bed when they do, what with the jet-lag and the swine flu, which they'll probably catch on the plane and then give to me...

So I'm brewing. That is, I'm supervising the machinery as it mashes-in. Actually, that's making it sound terribly high-tech, and it really isn't. We have a simple hydrator cobbled on to the end of a electrically powered auger - so once the malt's in the hopper and the liquor flow is adjusted there's nothing much to do while it all falls into the mash tun. But I do like to keep a lookout for odd bits of metal, mice, etc. falling out of the works.

Anyway, there I am, ear-defenders on (the auger makes a terrible racket), I glance round and notice a local publican and good customer has crept up on me. I jump, he laughs. He (let's call him Mr. X.) wants some beer, and of course I'm happy to oblige.

Mr. X runs a small country pub, popular with the locals - it's a genuinely rural area and everyone's been working long hours cutting stuff, or feeding / milking stuff, or whatever these rural types do all day (and half the bloody night it seems like, in the fields behind us - but that's another story). He tells me he's had the worst two months he's ever had. His business always quiets down in the summer, and while it's a really nice spot - it's not a tourist destination. The games - the darts, pool, etc. are out of season. He's done a lot of work fixing up an outside area - nice tables, set up for barbecue - neat, but the weather has been really disapointing. It's a bugger really.

Funny thing is, Mr. X's pub is only about 30 mins walk from my house down quiet country lanes, but I never go. Truly, the biggest problem with the world is people just like me. That's the problem with the roads - it's not Polish truckers or bloody caravans - it's all the other cars (and vans). That's the problem with the environment - too many people consuming and discarding the way we do here - and more, doing it more like us, every day.

Yes, I love the NHS too.

2009-08-20T18:06:00.000+01:00

In the UK, we spend something like 8.4% of GDP on healthcare, much of it through the NHS. In the USA they spend 15.3%, mostly through private medical insurance.

So they must be more loads more healthy than us? Probably about twice as healthy? Right?

As it happens, incorrect.

In the US you've got 8 chances in 1000 of dying before you're 5, in the UK, 6:1000.
In the US you stand to get 67 healthy years life (men) and 71 (women). In the UK, 69 and 72.

So where's all that extra 6.9% of GDP going? It's clearly not going on keeping people healthier. I suggest that much of it is enriching the bloated capitalists who are trying to talk down state-supported non-profit healthcare.

Don't take my word for it, check it out yourself.

Also, check out these neat graphs. The second one is a great example of the law of diminishing returns.

And here's more stuff on similar lines.

Brewdog - good turn but on too long?

2009-08-18T11:10:00.000+01:00

I had some of their beer once, I thought it was quite nice. It reminded me of staying at the in-laws, when I often drink more than I should of Rogue and Flying Dog and that kind of stuff. Anyway, it looks like they (Brewdog) are winding up the Portman group. Again. And again.

It's a bit sad that we can still get all worked up when someone with media skills and that pushes a strong beer. Wind us up and watch us go eh?

All alone.

2009-08-17T09:52:00.000+01:00

Becky has taken the boy off to see his grandparents in California (here). That means that I'm stuck here keeping things ticking over. Now obviously, that means I should be really busy - this is one of the times when we should be on the phone selling beer, but with herself away that job falls to me, and I really am rubbish at it. I find it terrifically stressful.

My mother was a primary school teacher and not naturally given to putting herself forward. Which was a pity really - as she had a lot of things worth saying which she often left unsaid. Now, I would find a classful of eager (or not) faces quite intimidating, to say nothing of the parents and the rest of the staff. I asked her how she did it, and she explained that for her, it was a kind of acting. You have your lines and your props to help you with the public performance aspect, and once past that you can concentrate on the part of your work that does come more naturally (if not more easily). This is, of course what teachers do, I know that - but I needed to be told it, before I knew that I knew it. Dig?

I'm sure that this is a fairly obvious strategy for coping with life - I'm sure that most people do this, either consciously or not. I believe that some of us fail to develop these strategies in a natural way at what I suspect is an unconscious level. So we have to laboriously construct coping mechanisms at some significant cognitive effort.

Becky does occasionally suggest that I might be a bit "spectrum", and while I suspect that there's an element of pot / kettle there, she might be right - there's something called hyperlexia which looks a bit familiar (oh, google it yourself), and while I seem to be quite dim nowadays, this wasn't always true (while you're at it google grep "giftedness"). Did I tell you I used to work in IT? I wasn't very good at it...

Co-inky-dinkily, Professor Tony Monaco (great name or what - how does he find time for all this smoking B3 playing?) at what I might (if I push it a bit) call my alma mater has done something or other about the genetics of autism

Fortunately, the beer has started to sell itself - we now have customers who call us. Thank you very much, phew.

There wasn't very much about beer in that was there?

Off-road

2009-04-12T10:42:00.000+01:00

It was an experiment. Can I get our van (half full of beer) over Hardknott pass?

The Lake District is famous for having a large bunch of pointy hard things in the middle, with a number of large flat wet things scattered about between them. This makes for some very attractive views, but it can be a beggar to drive around. Getting past all these obstacles is troublesome - you'll use a lot of diesel and time if you stick to the good roads.

Getting from Eskdale to Langdale was the problem - and Hardknott pass could have been the answer. I've been over there in all sorts of beat-up old cars, vans and mini-buses in the past, and while it has been hairy at times, I've made it. Unfortunately, this time, quite a lot of water was running over the road surface, and one particularly smooth wet patch at one of the wicked hairpin bends proved too much for the limited traction of the (usually trusty) old rear-wheel drive van.

"Oh dear", I exclaimed (or something like that). Still, all I had to do was reverse a couple of bends and then I'd be able to do a 3-point turn and scarper. Sadly, on one of those bends, I lost it a bit and put one of the rear wheels off the road. At this point, I exclaimed something a lot more forceful, because now I was pretty much stuffed. With one of the driving wheels spinning uselessly in mid air there was no going up-hill. Equally, there was no going down - unless I wanted to career down the slope into the gill. At least I wasn't blocking the road.

A few hours later - when the tow-truck arrived - I was borderline hypothermic, really bored and running rather late. So I had to belt back down Eskdale, over Birker fell, up the Duddon and on to Wrynose. The beer did get through, and we had an answer to the question posed above: Our van won't go over Hardknott - at least not in the wet - Maybe I should try again in the dry?

On the road... and on the phone.

2009-03-22T18:24:00.000Z

The plan seems to be coming together. We're managing to time all our beers so that we can get them out of the fermenters in 6 days - this means that we can brew twice a week, do the cask washing, racking, selling and cleaning - and have time to actually deliver the stuff.
How much easier it would be if (as others might say) "three days to ferment, three days to condition and on the seventh day it's ready'. What we make here is genuinely cask-conditioned beer (real-ale if you will). We know that many of our customers don't want our beer hanging about in their cellars for a week or two before they can start selling it - this means that we have to hold the casks in our store for at least a week after racking (longer for our stronger beers). But that's fine by us - we're not pretending to make real ale. This is the real thing.

Anyway, time & yeast permiting, you'll be able to see the Stringers beat-up red transit belting about the lake district full of lovely beer.

Funny thing happened to our sales team (n=1). While enquiring of the bar manager of a lakeland hotel if they'd be interested in trying some of our beer, we were informed that there were now too many breweries and that, no, they would stick to the ones they knew already. I've been sniggering (at odd intervals) about this all day. I shouldn't laugh - it's serious really. But I'm tickled by the idea of someone saying that (a) his customers have all the choice they need, thank you very much, and that (b) he has enough suppliers competing for his employers custom.

Truly, as Eldridge Cleaver may have said: if you're not part of the solution - you're part of the problem.