Real Ale Drinker?

Do you think this chap is a real ale drinker? I'm not convinced, although his beard did make me giggle. I can see how his colleagues may find his appearance funny. Is it stuck on? Full story here.

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In Defense of the Keg

Much debate has been raging lately over the provenance of carbon dioxide. It seems that some CAMRA brain washing tactics have worked and a significant number of members believe that only beer which comes from a natural secondary fermentation produces good beer. Those of you have read this far will probably realise that this is pure horse shit and good beer can be served from a cask with a blanketing aspirator/breather or from a pressurised keg.

The case in point I will be making is Meantime Pale Ale (4.7% abv). On Saturday evening after our mission to North Greenwich, the wife and I had planned to have a Belgian dinner at The Dovetail and then pop into a 30th birthday party being held in a nearby pub. Due to elephantitis like swelling in my wife's ankle we ended up staying closer to home and I piggy backed the missus round the corner to The Havelock. The Havelock is a nice little gastropub owned by Lawrence Dallaglio that also happens to serve good beer (it is a pub after all). The pub has 4 cask ales on, and has 8 keg beers including Meantime Pale Ale. From my seated position at the bar, I noticed an alarming trend. For each pint of real ale that was dispensed, 4 pints of the kegged Meantime product was sold. Actually the Meantime beer was far outselling anything else in the pub. I ordered a pint and found it to be similar in carbonation to cask ale, but tasted incredibly fresh with brilliant hop aroma. So is this beer shit just because it's not naturally carbonated? The customers voting with their wallets certainly didn't think so. After my pint of Pale Ale, I opted for a pint of Sam Brooke's Wandle which is a cask conditioned best bitter. This beer was incredibly bland after the Meantime beer and when I commented about this to the barman he agreed and replied that it was a freshly plumbed cask as well.

The point I am trying to make is that just because a beer is not cask conditioned does not make it rubbish. Sure a lot of the mass produced mega lager is not the most flavourful of products, but then a lot of cask conditioned beer is pretty ordinary too (btw, I'll name a few poor cask conditioned ales if asked). I think we as consumers should be open minded and not be so troubled by the provenance of carbon dioxide which CAMRA seems so fixated on. Great keg beers do exist and examples from Meantime and Lovibond's Brewery are clearly paving the way for a new generation of keg products. So taking a leap out of Wychwood's marketing - What are you so afraid of beardy wierdy man?

Quick Reference Guide to Terrorists and Real Ale Freaks

Look at the picture above. Confusing isn't it? That is why I have prepared this quick post to help you identify your real ale/CAMRA/Ticker stereotype from your average Taliban fighter or terrorist leader.

Appearance: Both beardy wierdy and fundamentalist insurgent will appear similar at first. Both will be bearded and emit an odor that will evacuate a room. This is why many beer festivals are held in tents, and why the Taliban live in the desert. In general fundamentalists will be wearing a tea towelesque head piece. Real Ale types may be observed in the optional flat cap.

Religious beliefs: Real ale types believe in CAMRA whilst terrorists generally believe in Islam. Both will spit out similar mantra that they have been brainwashed with.

Employment: Whilst most Taliban members have a moral objection to beer, they think it is OK to cultivate opiates and heroin for a living. I suspect that real ale die hards are unemployed and live at home with their parents and several hundred cats.

Accessories: Real ale types will often be observed wearing many badges of honour, a plastic bag and a pewter mug attached to their belt. Taliban insurgents can generally be observed carrying an RPG or AK47.

As you can see there are some subtle differences between these two unusual stereotypes and with a little practice you will be able to identify each variant. These people do exist, so please excersize caution and do not approach by any means.

Ross Kemp's tears cure cancer. It's a pity he does not cry.

Some of you may be aware that I like Ross Kemp. Not in a perverted sexual way, but his choice of work closely matches my interests in entertainment. For those of you who do not know much about Ross Kemp, you should start by visiting his Wiki-page. Putting aside the fact that he is a classically trained actor who is as well suited to playing roles penned by Shakespeare as he is at playing SAS hero's, Kemp is a seriously cool dude. In my little world, he ranks as tougher than Chuck Norris, Mr T and Vin Diesel all put together. From his early days advertising Fruit 'n Fibre for Kellogg's to his acting in Eastenders, and Ultimate Force: Kemp has never failed to impress. To reaffirm his tough stance he even goes and hangs out with Gang's and spends his holidays with squaddies in Afghanistan.
I am currently reading his bestseller 'Gangs' which accompanies his BAFTA winning documentary series "Ross Kemp on Gangs", hence my compulsion to scribe this post.
Why am I writing this in a beer blog you may ask? Well basically Kemp also likes to sip a few a few beers down. His local used to be the Tower Arms in South Weald, Essex, but as he now lives in Battersea I assume he no longer drinks there. I am also proud to announce that Kemp has volunteered to be the standover man and enforcer of CAMEL. Beardy Weirdies should be very afraid!
You can find Kemp's official website here. I am also willing to overlook the fact hat he was beaten up by his wife, Sun editor Rebekah Wade. She must be a hard lady.

Also for those of you who may be interested, the Bangers and Mash I had for lunch was excellent and maybe on par with my steak and ale pie. The Thwaites Nutty Black was alright as well.

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An 'Outsiders' view to CAMRA and the Good Beer Guide

I have been on the verge of joining CAMRA for some time, but I have finally decided that I'm not going to bother. While CAMRA has brought real ale back from the depth of despair, it seems that their mission is complete and now they campaign for marginal issues which basically alienate the industry that supports the products that they are so passionate about; The Pubs. For instance, the 'Take it to the top' petition is a trivial campaign that insinuates that one in four pub landlords are deliberately ripping off drinkers. The linked article states that the statistics were generated by a CAMRA survey, hardly what I would call an independent study. Campaigns such as this clearly end up alienating pub landlords who in turn may think twice before deciding to stock real ale. The reality of the situation is that real ale costs more to keep, prepare and serve than lager or nitrokegged bitter and also has a smaller profit margin. Obviously most landlords are passionate about real ale, otherwise from a purely economic and business viewpoint combined with an active campaign branding them cheats, why would they bother?

Secondly the reserved use of the term 'beer' by CAMRA. This is something that has been a minor annoyance to me over the last few days. The blogosphere is currently awash with reports about how the CAMRA publication 'The Good Beer Guide' is produced. I find this process fascinating and appreciate that fellow bloggers such as Tandleman and Maeib have documented the process and how it works with their local CAMRA branches. My issues here is in regards to a discussion raised by Boak and Bailey. The post itself is civil and informative and reflects my own fascination with the process, but when I questioned the inclusion of real ale only in the 'Good Beer Guide' it opened up the true closed minded, elitist nature of the CAMRA commenter's on that particular post.

The official website of The Good Beer Guide states "The best place to find good pubs and good beer" where I interpret beer to mean both ale and lager. I understand that CAMRA stands for campaign for real ale, and that is the interest of the consumer group but surely the word 'beer' implies both ale and lager. This is pure ignorance on the part of CAMRA and in reality the guide should be called the 'Good Ale Guide'. Another issue is the indecision of what the guide actually is. Is it a guide to real ale, or a guide to pubs? Different commenter's on the post in question seem confused. I had a skim through at my local WHS at lunch and basically it features pubs and mentions the real ales served. I see that The Jerusalem Tavern who stock the amazing Moravka lager is listed, but there is no mention of the British produced lager in the guide.

Back over at Boak and Bailey, one commenter Tyson makes the following point;

"CAMRA is an organisation dedicated to promoting real ale. The GBG is a by product of that-it was started and its purpose still is to help find real ale pubs. It is not close minded for an organisation to fulfill its remit-it is normal. The Catholic Church does not print a directory of Anglican churches, nor does the AA print the Good Train Guide"

Interesting enough, but neither The Catholic Church or AA publish a guide which is published under a blanket title such as 'Guide to Christianity' or 'Definitive transport in the UK', which is akin to the the CAMRA title 'Good Beer Guide'.

Finally Tandleman pipes up with;

"As Tyson says it is interesting to hear an outside view, albeit one that seems to miss the point".

Sadly it seems that the CAMRA folk commentating have missed the point. I understand the issue fully, but as an 'outsider' the issue is obviously too complicated for me. Really sometimes I feel like I am shouting at people with hands over their ears!.

I could keep on ranting, but I really couldn't be bothered. I'll speak with my wallet and not join CAMRA. Besides the benefit of not being stereotyped as a plastic bag carrying, bearded freak, I'd rather not let my money go towards pointless campaigns like 'Take it to the top', which inadvertently accuses the industry I like blogging about. I think I'll stick with CAMEL.

Photo atrribution to 46137 @ Flickr

Join CAMEL today!

Just a quick post today as I am pressed for time. I have set up the official CAMEL support page. Click the link and become a fan. Membership is free, but then CAMEL does not actually campaign anything anyway!

Click here to join CAMEL today!

CAMEL

In these troubling economic times people are looking to save on costs. Due to the success of consumer groups like CAMRA, pubs which have been serving cheap cooking lager for decades are being forced to replace their best sellers with quality real ale.

My observations have been that cheap lager still out sells real ale by about 10 pints to 1, and the low cost and high sales of these products in supermarkets is another testament to their popularity. This raises the question is CAMRA too powerful?

I will not raise the issue of beer and social class again, but generally it's accepted that whilst CAMRA insists that it represents the working class, it's members are on the whole middle class readers of the Daily Mail. CAMRA also has no interest in lager whatsoever, even if it is high quality lager such as Moravka. So who is going to protect the interests of the low income earners, and lager fans alike? My solution is a rival consumer group called;

CAMEL - Campaign for (Cheap) Economic Lager

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This group will lobby on behalf of Carling, Fosters and Carlsburg. It will aim to get Victoria Bitter and Tooheys New on tap in every pub in England. It will be bounded by no social class, or newspaper! Readers of The Sun and News of the World will be most welcomed, and Jeremy Clarkson has agreed to be our president.

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I think the motto will be "A man's not a CAMEL".
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This post is not intended to be serious and is purely fiction, but I guess most people could tell that.