Yet another NYC Offie - not really

You have probably guessed by now that my wife does not really like hanging out in pubs while I try every imaginable beer that is on offer. In these circumstances, off licences and supermarkets are a god (I have left god in lower case on purpose, to imply it was noun would mean that I am 'one' of them) send. In this case it was a supermarket and I made three purchases.

1. Smuttynose IPA (5.6% abv) - pretty boring text on the label, but a picture of old people on the front inspired me to purchase this product. This was one of the better beers I had the pleasure of experiencing while in NYC. It's good in the fact that you can taste that the beer is more complex than just pinecones and is actually balanced by a nice maltly beer. This beer actually has some British pedigree and was awarded a gold medal as the best American beer at the GBBF in 2004. Anyhow while drinking this I had some corn chips (Tortilla chips if you swing that way) and watched some more trashy US television. The Burger King guy is pretty scary. He has a constant shit eating grin and a massive head. I don't now why he likes square butts though?

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2. Stone IPA (6.9% abv) - yet another quality beer with some semblance of balance. Having not tried arrogant bastard or ruination before, but hearing all the rumours I prepared for an onslaught of the dreaded pinecone flavour of c-hops. To my surprise it was not as aggressive as I thought it would be and was actually really good. The beer is best described as Light-medium malt character with a heavy dose of hops! This beer has balanced but still abundant hop aroma and crisp hop flavor. I watched some reality TV with this one - who is Kim Kardashian and why is she famous? She has a nice rack though, pity its counter-balanced by her ass.

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3. Sierra Nevada Torpedo (7.2% abv) - Is the 'Extra IPA' offering from Sierra Nevada and tastes like a beefed up SNPA. In reality its probably not all that different and certainly retains that house astringency that I find all Sierra Nevada beers tend to have. It was good though and I am glad I tried it, but I probably wouldn't bother again. While I pay full respect to the contribution that Sierra Nevada has made to the US craft brewing scene, I tend to find there beers a little bit safe/conservative when comparing them to some of the beers coming out of the newer/smaller breweries. I say this having spent only a few days in the US, but seeing this on the shelves at my local Tesco would still rock.

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Anyhow I will leave you for today with a picture of a brewery draymen's truck from Yuengling brewing. Which is America's oldest Brewery. I didn't find any of their beers in my travels, but hopefully will track some down in the near future.
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Blue Moon

Yesterdays post was about Blue Smoke, today's will be about Blue Moon. And yes I will be finished telling you all about NYC by the end of the week. The story is that since we had been doing stuff that i had chosen, we should do something that she wanted to do. fair enough. So we headed down to a riverside cafe an the Hudson near 79th Street. I examined the menu and did not see anything promising, just the usual suspects - Bud, Bud Lite, Coors, Coors Lite, Miller, Miller Lite and Blue Moon. So in typical fashion I ordered the beer I had not had before. According to the Blue Moon Website (http://www.bluemoonbrewingcompany.com/) they are a craft brewery who produce a White beer, a pumpkin beer, a spring ale, a summer ale and a winter ale. I have no idea which one I was served up. I assume it was the white beer, but it was tasteless and gassy and could have been any beer style. At least it didn't taste like pinecones....

Blue Smoke

After a trip up to the top of the Empire State Building, I felt the need for some proper US style BBQ. Now US style BBQ is a poor cousin of to the Australian style, but being an open minded tourist, I felt obliged to at least have a go. I'm glad I did....

Scanning through the Time Out NYC book we picked up from Barne's & Noble, the Mrs identified a restaurant called Blue Smoke which looked like it could be a contender. We walked the twelve blocks down to the restaurant and were lucky enough to be squeezed in after someone had cancelled at the last minute. It seems we are always pretty lucky in this regard. Anyhow for me it's all about ribs, and for the Mrs it was all about Brisket. I ordered the rib selection which included some Memphis style baby back ribs, some Kansas style ribs and some dry rub NYC style ribs. Oh, I almost forgot that I had a side of coleslaw!

Anyhow these ribs went down a treat and I managed to sample some of the best craft beer the US has to offer. First up I had Dead Guy Ale from Rogue Brewing (6.5% abv) which is a deep amber pseudo-bock style beer which was a nice balance of malt and pinecones. In this case the beer is very smooth and the heavy malt flavour perfectly matches out the bitterness so the pinecone flavour tends to be more orange/marmalade flavour. It works nicely.

After I had very quickly devoured the Rogue offering, I opted for a pint of Captain Lawrence Smoked Porter (7.0% abv). This beer was nice, but the smoke flavour was subdued by even the subtlest of roast character - I was expecting a more aggressive, robust beer. The beer was pretty much suited to ribs to a tea. The slight smoke flavour complimented the smokey BBQ flavours of the ribs nicely, and the roast flavours enhanced the sweet charring of the ribs. An almost perfect combo. Anyhow, A picture says a thousand words!

http://www.bluesmoke.com/

Brooklyn Pilsner

Yep, yet another post from New York. Time is scarce at the moment so I am keeping this brief. One beer this time, Brooklyn Pilsner (4.9% abv) poured from a bottle and consumed with a trio of mini cheeseburgers. The beer is good, refreshing and has a nice 'chewy' mouthfeel. I should have had two, but I was feeling a little pissy after the high abv beers in the George Keeley. It was also nice not to drink pinecone juice for a change. I can't say enough about how good these Brooklyn Beers are. They must be one of the only US microbrewers who actually brew both ales and lagers?

George Keeley

Just around the corner from our room on the UWS of Manhattan was the George Keeley. This place is especially for the beer geeks among us where proper real keg and cask ale can live side by side. Besides the pseudo-Irish feel, this place is pretty cool with friendly regulars and bar staff. I managed to sneak in for an hour why SWMBO was getting her nails done across the street. First off the mark I ordered a beer that I had been looking forward to sampling for years. Dogfish head 90 Minute IPA (9% abv) is a syrup of hop juice and alcohol. It tastes like pinecones, but also has a strong malt flavour shining through and a balance is formed somewhere within the intensity of flavours. It's extreme and bizarre, but I liked it. BTW it's also cloudy due to too much hop oil throwing up a haze....nice.

The next beer I had was rather tasteless in comparison to the DFH90 but was still pretty good. Avery Redpoint IPA (5.5% abv) is another cascade/chinook/centennial hop bomb, but a lot more subtle. I have to admit though that after the stronger beer, I had too much mouth pucker present from the earlier beer to really appreciate it. I'm just being honest, but thems the breaks.

By this time my wife had come to round me up so we could grab a feed, so I bid my farewell to the fellow beer geeks that I had befriended for the hour and made my way back out to the real world.

http://www.georgekeeley.com/

Mama Mexico

It has been a busy week and I just realised that I have not posted since Monday. What impact does this have your lives? Well none really except that you have to wait a couple of extra days to hear about my adventures in the big apple.

After surviving our adventures in Brooklyn, we made it back to the UWS in one piece and headed to Mama Mexico for dinner. This place is in vogue at the moment and we were lucky to get in due to a cancellation. The beer menu on offer was not very exciting, just your regular Mexican faire of tasteless lagers with the exception of Dos Equis XX Ambre (which I opted for).

Most beer geeks will know that South America is a haven for amber coloured Vienna style lagers and I was well chuffed that Mama Mexico's were offering more that your regular Corona and friends options. Anyhow I strongly recommend Mama Mexico's (101st and Broadway) for a feed - best guacamole in town.

On the way back to our room we stopped at another off licence and picked up some Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream for the missus and some Pete's Wicked Ale for myself. This beer was OK, well at least it didn't taste like pinecones. Besides this it was kind of bland and I won't be bothering again. I also managed to finish off the Ben & Jerry's after my beer and watch some more mindless but utterly intriguing US reality TV. A good way to finish off a boozy day.

Brooklyn Brewery

On our second day we awoke to weather that would be better fitting to London than NYC. It was pissing down. For the missus, that means shopping! First though we had breakfast American style. This took the form of a 'Lumber Jack' which is pancakes with bacon and eggs at the uber hip venue "Good Enough to Eat". Stuffed to the gullet, I erected my umbrella and braved the weather managing to dodge the nutters while navigating from Gap to Banana Republic via Abercrombie and Finch and just about every other US high street brand you can think of! We arrived at the new Whole Foods at Columbus Circle and I decided to check the beer section out. Plenty of good beers on offer, actually an even better selection that Whole Foods in London which I have raved about before. Anyhow at this stage we decided to brave the subway and head over to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This trip was eventful with one colourful nutter working himself into a rage pacing the aisle, frothing at the mouth and then pulling a knife out. The train couldn't pull into the platform fast enough and the whole carriage surged towards the doors like a bunch of teenage girls outside Primark at the start of the Christmas sales.

We walked the three blocks to the Brooklyn Brewery in one piece but slightly shaken and I was carded once more upon arrival! Yes, apparently I look underage in the USA. We actually arrived just as a tour was starting and we joined the throng of punters into the main brewery room passing big sacks of malt, hops and empty kegs. The Brooklyn setup is quite small (about 500L or 0.5 5hL) as all of their 12 oz. bottles are brewed under licence somewhere in upstate New York. Only their seasonal kegs, one offs and cork bottled beers are brewed at the Brooklyn site. The tour was a bit token and I was a little bit disappointed that Garrett Oliver was not there, but the beer was still good. First up I had a pint of Intensified Coffee Stout (8.5% abv) which was rich and roasty with an almost over the top coffee taste. Being quite thirsty after being dragged around shopping all morning I drank it a little bit too quickly! I followed this up with a pint of the Brooklyn Winter Ale (6% abv) which was good, but nothing to really jump up and down about. This is apparently a Scottish style ale, but in reality it is a pretty robust porter. They actually had it on special and you could buy a case of it (24 bottles) for $15 - bargain. The missus had, had enough buy this stage so we left to find ourselves some massive NYC pizza.

I really like the setup they have going on at Brooklyn Brewery. Basically they have an informal 'tasting room' where you can bring board games and your own food and just sit around drinking and hanging out with your mates. A cool alternative to a pub, and I wish the licensing laws were flexible enough to allow such a venue in Australia.

Conclusion: Brooklyn Brewery make some damn fine examples of Proper Real Keg. Sausage would like it there. And no, I didn't complain about the size of the head on my Winter Ale. No need to 'Take it to the Top'...

Swill Golf

OK, I have covered Pub Golf before, but here is a new one from the lads at BrewDog - Swill Golf.

In the embedded video, watch James and Martin use their new product 77 Lager to hit mass produced generic lager for six, literally.

Off Licence - NY Style

We flew into JFK Terminal 8 and made our first schoolboy error almost immediately. One of my wife's colleagues had told her to get an airport shuttle into town from the transport information desk as it was cheaper. Bad move. It took us an hour an a half to get to our hotel on the Upper West Side. A taxi would have been more direct and cost approx. The same price as they have a fixed cost between JFK and Manhattan. Anyhow, putting this aside we arrived at our digs in the mid afternoon and promptly headed out exploring the Upper West Side (UWS) and Midtown areas before jet lag put my wife out of service. On the way back to the hotel I popped into the NY equivalent of an off licence to pick up some booze. This was a funny experience as I was carded by a kid who must not have been a day over 16. The fact that I have a large proportion of gray hair and I am on the wrong side of 30 should have been enough, but obviously they roll a little bit differently in the States. So the missus went to sleep and I watched a 'Rock of Love, with Bret Michaels omnibus whilst drinking my purchase.

First up was Magic Hat #9 which is a not quite pale ale. Basically it tastes like your typical west coast US pale ale (Columbus and Cascade) but has an apricot like twang. My guess is that they add apricots to the boil and this adds some flavour to the beer. It's odd and takes a bit of time to get used to, but it's not unpleasant either. I followed this up with a bottle of Blue Point Hoptical Illusion, which is a 6.8% IPA that tasted like bitter pine cones and not much else. It was OK, but not really all that balanced. Blue Point is a small micro based on Long Island New York. Apparently their beers are hard to come by even in NYC, so I guess I was lucky to stumble upon them. I also had a bottle of Blue Point Spring Fling (6.0% abv) which tasted like a balanced and toned down version of the Hoptical Illusion. It had very little aroma and a slightly astringent grass like taste but I guess this is par of the course with these US pale ales. To top off the evening (I was pretty tired at this stage, even though it was probably only 9pm) I had a bottle of Sierra Nevada ESB (5.9% abv). The ESB stands for early spring beer and it's a US interpretation of the English ESB style. It's OK and it tastes like pine cones. I think every beer I had in the US tasted like pine cones! Not necessarily a bad thing, but it gets a bit boring after a while. Anyhow by this stage the hop demon and the alcohol was amplifying my jet lag and I wandered off to bed, but I did manage to see Bret Michaels choose his final two 'love matches'. If only off licences were this good in the UK!

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BTW - Bret Michaels is the former lead singer from '80s hair band Poison. He looks old and hagged and now wears makeup. He is also bald, but uses strategically placed bandanna's and hats to hide the fact that he is wearing a wig. A true hero for all you aging Generation X rockers.

Nice Glasses

I'm back from my Easter jaunt to NY, where many pints of proper real keg where consumed. I will post all about my exploits over the next few days (OK closer to a week). Anyhow, upon returning to my flat last night, I was fortunate enough to be blessed by yet another gift to help celebrate 250 years of the Guinness brand (a producer of proper real keg). This time I received a lovely branded pint glass with my name on it. So yes, this post is yet another shout out to say thanks to Emma, Laura and the gang out at Splendid who do PR for Diageo.
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And yes, I am shamelessly accepting freebies or cash for comment. Just drop me an email if you want me to give your brand/company/product a plug. I won't tell anyone or get caught like these radio clowns either!

Weird Beard the Movie

What happens when you force a man onto a diet consisting of pork scratchings and cask ale for several weeks?
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CAMRA Campaigns

Today I am going to describe some of CAMRA's national campaigns as detailed in my Members Handbook. Amongst the list of achievements, CAMRA's early campaigning revolved around it's core mandate, revitalising ale. Not 'Real Ale', but ale. The handbook states that without CAMRA's intervention, 'real' ale would have been "washed away in a flood of fizzy processed keg beers". Now, as I was not born until the late seventies and cask ales are now widely available, I take the availability of cask ale for granted. This section of the handbook could be better bolstered by listing key achievements or milestones which were achieved to prevent the extinction of the ale species. I take this salvation at face value, but I still question if breweries such as Young's, Fuller's and Marston's would have abandoned ale, and if CAMRA had any impact on the situation. There was obviously still a market for cask ale, even if it was just the activists. Anyhow it seems that revitalising cask ale is still a core remit of the campaign, however the definition of ale has been narrowed to the narrowly defined 'real ale'.
Community pub week, licensing hours reform and campaigning to fight pub closures have also been core successes in the fight for 'real' ale. I still maintain my position that JDW houses cause the closure of local pubs in the same way that Tesco causes the closure of small grocers and butchers, but apparently JDW is good for 'real' ale. I'll remain skeptical.
The tied house. Now here is a campaign that I disagree with. CAMRA support the principle of the tied house as it allows independent brewers to compete against the global brewers. I can see the argument, but in the real world it's the larger regional brewers (not the global ones) who are buying up all the pubs. Fuller's acquisition of several in London last week is a good example. I could suggest that this is good for 'real ale' as they will be the focal products of these pubs, but what about the small independent brewers who need to sell their products? The (relatively) big guns of the industry are not going to concede market share to the competition and stock beers from small independent brewers in their branded tied 'real ale' pubs. So the small brewers are then forced to search for free houses to do business with, but these pubs are coming harder and harder to come by and ultimately with no avenue for sales, these small brewers will go under. That's the way I see it. Maybe CAMRA need to re look at this particular campaign and re-address the threat to small independent brewers from larger regional ones?
Some of the campaigns such as Small Brewer's Relief and Supporting Independent Brewers are a breath of fresh air and are worthwhile causes. Again my concerns are that one particular campaign such as supporting tied houses works against the other campaigns such as supporting independent brewers. It's kind hypocritical but in an applied rather than suggested way.
The campaign for mild and 'Make May Mild Month' are OK in theory, but a little token. Brewers won't produce mild unless they can sell it - supply and demand. I appreciate the effort to create demand though.
I support the campaign for smoking ban in pubs, as basically smoking is pretty disgusting and I am indifferent to the campaign for cider. I also couldn't care less about campaigns for clubs and campaigns in Europe or the cyclops campaign either.
That leaves three campaigns I have not mentioned. Real Ale in a Bottle, Full Pints and Excise Duty. Of these I support the reduction of excise, but I think it's a bit like pissing in the wind. No government can be seen to support the reduction of alcohol related tax (potentially making booze cheaper) when the country has a recognised binge drinking problem.
I touched upon the issues of Real Ale in a Bottle in my post on Monday. I think the whole accreditation scheme is a bit of a branding exercises. I don't believe that beer that is bottle conditioned actually tastes better than filtered bright beer. Pasteurization on the other hand does affect flavour, but is not always necessary for bright beer to be stable.
The full pint campaign I have touched on before and is a massive load of rubbish. Ever since take it to the top was introduced I have been forced to take pints back for a top up at the request of mates who are just being difficult. Fair enough if the pint is a noticeable under measure, but not just a lively 2-3mm head that had subsided as in most cases. I don't know how CAMRA came up with the 25% of pints sold are under 95% full statistic, but it's hardly doing the publicans they are trying to save any favours. Anyhow enough has been said about these campaigns for now. Some are good, some are bad, and some have competing agendas making them hypocritical. And now thanks to Sausage and APRK, there is a campaign against the campaign. All very entertaining!

Beware of the Bearded Lady

There seems to be a bearded lady present amongst us in the blogosphere and she has a vendetta against me. I have been branded with committing the crime of censorship on this, my own blog, along with other undesirable accusations. These included infiltration and attempting to destroy a certain consumer group from within and throwing my rattle out of a pram!
Apparently I have a huge ego as well! Egocentric yes, but egotistical? - of course not, what rubbish.
This particular freak uses a pseudonym to hide behind as she is too scared to use her own name. If you encounter this mythical beast, please exercise caution, but not too much as I think it's safe to say that her bark is much louder than her bite.

I'm Trapped

For reasons I will not go into, I am trapped at home today - a prisoner in my small flat. I'm not going to let my situation get in the way of the greatness that is ticker Tuesday though!
To kick start the beer diary week the wife and I headed out to a local tapas bar in Brook Green. The food was pretty good and they had a few different Spanish lagers on the menu. I ordered a Mahou which is as good an example as any. I had this last year when I was Barcelona and in the video attached to the post is one of the best beer adverts I have ever seen. You can check it out here if that post predates your readership to the blog. Anyhow on Friday evening a few of the lads from the office headed to 'The Apple Tree' for a few after work pints. They had Bath Gem on and we proceeded to drink through the remains of the cask. They then put Fisherman's Tackle (4.1% abv) on which was a better beer than the Gem in my opinion. I can't find any information about the beer at all online and the pump clip was just some writing in chalk. Can anyone fill in the blanks here?
On Saturday evening I cracked open a bottle of UBU Amber Ale from purity Brewing Co. This US style amber ale was a little underwhelming after the Flying Goose I had from the same brewery last week, but still a nice drop. My beer drinking on Saturday was limited to just the one bottle of beer as I helped the missus finish off a few bottles of wine that have been loitering around for a while.
Sunday was the day of the hop monsters. My usual "Come Dine With Me" session was halted due to our television reception going down leaving me with only books and my wife's company for entertainment. Luckily I had a bottle of Mikkeller stateside IPA in the fridge. This 7% abv US style IPA from Denmark is extreme. It has to be over 100 IBU's of pure bitterness and makes your teeth feel like they are dissolving. Because of the lack of balance I didn't really enjoy this one - too hardcore my session drinking sensibilities. To make matters worse, I followed it with a bottle of Port Brewing 2nd Anniversary which is a 9.5% abv American Barleywine. This over the top hop monster was bordering on the point of undrinkable. It was thick, chewy and cloying and tasted like I had been chewing on a bunch of pine needles. I guess for some that would be ideal, but it's not really my cup of tea.
Anyhow that's pretty much the story of my drinking for the last week. Kind of lame really, but some interesting ticks there if you get excited by that sort of thing.
The next instalment of ticker Tuesday will be in a fortnights time (that's two weeks for you Yank's). It should be a good one as I am off to New York on Friday morning. I have a list of things I want to do while there (including Blind Tiger and Brooklyn Brewery) but can anyone fill me in on any other must do attractions that have to be on my list?

Fact Sheets

My CAMRA new members pack contained two A4 double sided fact sheets with information about beer. One of these is educational to new members and explains the brewing process and defines what 'Real Ale' is. It also concedes that 'Real Ale' is a marketing term devised solely by CAMRA - fair enough this is solid information, good stuff.
The other fact sheet asks the question "Is standard British lager real ale?". Hmmm now I would assume that if someone had gone to the trouble to become a CAMRA member, then they would be able to tell the difference between ale and lager. Apparently "lager is weak in flavour and usually overpriced". This is a pretty big claim to make given that lager can be defined as any beer that has been allowed to mature by ageing. Even expanding the definition to include only beers that have been fermented with a bottom fermenting yeast does not support this statement, this blog describes many flavoursome lagers. Product pricing is a direct reflection of what consumers are prepared to pay for a product - I guess people are willing to pay more for lager. Either that or they don't consider a crate of Carling for £6 in Tesco expensive. Of course cask conditioned lagers such as Cain's Lager, Harviestoun Schiehallion and Atlas Latitude are exceptions to the rule as they are produced by independent brewers and are served from a cask rather than a keg. Lagers from Europe are acceptable as well as they have honourable tradition abroad, even though the brands are owned and produced by the same megacorps who own and brew weak flavoured, overpriced beverages in Britain. The example of Budvar Dark is given as a form of acceptable lager, even though it is owned distributed and marketed by InBev Anheuser-Busch who also produce leading UK lager brands Stella Artois, Becks and Staropramen. Yes honourable tradition indeed!
I also find the following quote hard to swallow;
"British lagers are not given the lengthy conditioning necessary to bring out the flavour of the lager style, because it costs more money".
I have a few issues here. Firstly lagering for a length of time does not bring out the flavour of the lager style, it mellows the flavour and makes it smoother. Lagering does costs more money, but UK generic lager comprises a grist which is cut with adjuncts and bittered with hop extract. The beer is ready for drinking sooner as it has less flavour to mellow.
The rest of the fact sheet complains about the rise in lager sales and market share over the last two decades and why it is more expensive, giving the reason that more money is spent on advertising. This is true, but most lager drinkers have strong brand loyalty. The products may be more expensive in the pub, but in the off licence trade they are usually less than half the price of bottled ale. The chap who buys a crate of Carling for £6 in Tesco is the same one who is willing to remain loyal to his brand and pay £3.50 a pint in the pub. I'm sure if he could buy mass produced real ale such as Green King IPA for £6 a crate he would drink it down the pub in draught form.
The flip side of the fact sheet asks the question "How can you be sure you are buying real ale?"
The text describes a few ways to differentiate cask dispense from keg dispense, even though the definition of 'Real Ale' does not have a problem with kegs for packaging as such with the issue being more with dispense by extraneous gas. I'm not going to get caught up in the push vs pull argument and if or how it makes beer better or worse as that is stupid. Beer is not better or worse because of the way it is dispensed. Anyhow the point I object to is that the terms 'real beer' and 'real ale' are used interchangeably. Somehow if a beer is not by definition 'real ale', then it is not 'real beer'. We all know that this is simply not true.
The rest of the fact sheet is devoted to bottled ales, and how pasteurized bottles and canned beer are not 'real'. I think most consumers would buy a beer based upon brand rather than how it was carbonated prior or post filling the bottle. Some ales that are pasteurised such as bottled and canned Fuller's ESB are generally regarded as better than the cask conditioned versions of the same beer. I feel that the whole "CAMRA says this is real ale" RAIB branding is more to do with raising money for the campaign than based upon any fact.

My Verdict: The CAMRA fact sheets are a practical education tool for new members who may not spend their days reading about beer on the Internet. For the fact sheets to be useful they need get the facts correct first rather than perpetuate rumours with misguided information. For the record, I think the facts sheets are a good idea, they just need to be prepared in a non prejudiced manner.

CAMRA and Image

Today I have some nice things to say about CAMRA. While some people do not agree with my opinions in regards to CAMRA's relationship with J. D. Wetherspoons, they are entitled to their opinion. I encourage them to either blog responses to mine, or email Tony Jerome and tell him why they like JDW pubs and the relationship. My post was a direct response to CAMRA as solicited in my new member information kit. It saddens me that some people have contacted CAMRA asking me to be banned from the campaign and said unsavoury things about me on other blogs when I was responding to solicited feedback.
Anyhow Tony was nice enough to provide me with a lengthy email detailing why CAMRA has formed a strategic alliance with JDW. While I don't necessarily agree with all the arguments, some of them were sensible. I also managed to get my message and concerns across, so I consider this progress.
In Tony's response he also mentioned how image has been a problem for CAMRA over the years and the media's portrayal of the typical real ale drinker stereotype has damaged the real ale industry. Tony stated that the number of members who have long beards and perhaps enjoy wearing sandles are now a minority. I will put my hand up and say that I have been guilty of making fun of beardy weirdies in relation to CAMRA in the past. I will point out that this same stereotype can be applied to Morris Dancers, Dungeons and Dragons fans, Trainspotters, a well as Real Ale drinkers in general (not necessarily CAMRA members) and while I may still continue to occasionally fire off a dart at weird beards, I won't be implicating CAMRA in the process anymore.
A quick flip through the CAMRA members handbook (pictured above), and it is obvious that CAMRA are conscious of projecting a positive image. The handbook contains pictures of people from all social demographics, with the exception of the established real ale stereotype which is noticeably absent. I view this as a positive step in the right direction.

I still disagree with some of the national campaigns and other information in the new members kit and will elaborate further on these in forthcoming posts. Stay tuned.

CAMRA and JDW

It seems that people think that I have joined CAMRA to cause trouble. I assure you that this is not the case. Have a quick look through the contents of this blog. Over 80% of the posts I make are about Ale. I like Ale and I appreciate the effort CAMRA have done in the past so I can enjoy it today. As I have commented previously there are some aspects of the Campaign that I disagree with and I plan to address these during the week and state why I disagree. As for slinging shit on the real ale stereotype, I think I will continue to do so. It's funny and my posts always get a lot more hits when I have a crack at a bearded freak, but I will address the issue of the stereotype and how it relates to CAMRA in a more serious nature later in the week. For now, I want to discuss the nature of the relationship with CAMRA and Tim Martin's pubco J.D. Wetherspoons. The picture to the left is a discount coupon which I received in my membership pack. It entitles me to 50p off the price of a pint of real ale in a JDW drinking barn.
I don't want to reinvent the wheel about why I don't drink in 'spoons (Jeff has a good post here) but I will summarise briefly. I dislike;

• The drinking barn/warehouse like atmosphere
• The fact the toilets smell better than the pub interior
• The impersonal nature of the venues
• The business model which relies on low cost/high turnover of sales
• Hypocrisy in promoting responsible drinking, but selling cheap booze in high qualities (see above)
• Antisocial behaviour of some customers
• Low quality food
• Freezing temperature of cask ales (some venues)
• Being alcoholic friendly (well they are in London anyway)

My CAMRA membership card has "Campaigning for real ale, pubs & drinkers' rights since 1971" printed on it. Other paraphernalia included in my Membership pack says that CAMRA supports small independent breweries. Now in my reckoning, JDW and it's low cost business model is responsible for a significant number of pub closures across the UK. I know this is progressive capitalism and I get the point of consumer choice but when the rate of pubs closing is so high, then why is CAMRA supporting one of the key causes of pub closure?
CAMRA also supports breweries which produce 'real' ale, but JDW pubs use their massive buying power to negotiate sales prices which result in very little margin for the brewery. Of course the brewery has the right to sell his beer to other pubs at a higher rate, but the tied pub structure that exists in the UK (which CAMRA also happens to support) severely restricts the number of outlets a brewery can sell to. Overall the result is that these small breweries are really squeezed to the point of not being viable as a results of JDW's buying policies.
I also believe that when these coupons (pictured above) are used, then the sale of that pint is below cost. Selling alcohol below cost or even cheaply will result in people drinking higher quantities which is hardly promoting the responsible service of alcohol. I could continue, but the relationship between CAMRA and JDW serves only to advertise JDW which I feel will lead to more pub closures, and the closure or downscaling of smaller independent breweries. Surely this goes against the core values of the campaign and is highly hypocritical.

If you feel the same way as I do about this issue, then drop CAMRA's Senior Marketing Manager, Tony Jerome and email (tony.jerome@camra.org.uk). He is soliciting feedback both positive and negative on this issue.