Beer Talking Once Again

Roger Protz- nice tie

The big British beer & pub companies are moaning that people are going down the pub less and less. Perhaps if you didn't offer people such bloody rubbish half the time you wouldn't be in such a hole would you, chaps?

It seems micro-breweries and pubs that offer something a bit different with character are doing fine. It's a bit like politics really- if you treat people with contempt don't expect them to support you 24/7.

For those who think the British Left cannot organise a piss-up in a brewery, there is the counter-example of Roger Protz. Editor of Socialist Worker in the early '70s(before being kicked out for not following The Party Line), he is now editor of The Good Beer Guide, which sounds like an extremely good job to have! This is his take on the recent moans of the British Pub and Beer Association.

Bright news for good beer: Plummeting pint sales reflect a struggle for the big brewers, but quality local ales are flourishing
Roger Protz, The Guardian, Wednesday November 21, 2007

The new edition of the Good Beer Guide heralds a "golden age" for beer. How does this square with this week's report from the British Beer and Pub Association that suggests our national drink is heading for the knackers' yard?

It's not difficult. The BBPA, which reported that pubs are selling 14 million fewer pints a day than they were in 1979, doesn't speak for all Britain's brewers. Excluded from its ranks are the bulk of Britain's 500-plus microbreweries, most of whom are enjoying a boom in sales. They concentrate almost entirely on real ale: living, natural, cask-conditioned beer. It's the producers of global lager brands - Stella Artois, Carling, Carlsberg and so on - that are witnessing a catastrophic decline in demand.

The reasons for the decline are complex. Many consumers are bored with "drinking the advertising". They are looking for new tastes and drinking experiences. Others are wary of mass-marketed beers that have acquired such dubious nicknames as "wife beater" and are believed to be packed with dodgy chemicals. There is a growing concern with provenance - a desire to know the ingredients used to make beer and whether hops are grown locally.

The BBPA is right to bemoan the punitive levels of duty in Britain. We are the second most heavily taxed country in the EU where alcohol is concerned. The French, Germans and Italians have duty rates that are a fraction of ours. But duty alone cannot explain the fall in beer sales in pubs. The most prominent members of the BBPA - the national giants Scottish & Newcastle, InBev, Coors and Carlsberg - allow their beers to be sold to supermarkets at such enormous discounts that the brewers make only marginal profits. But for unfussy drinkers, lager at 22p a can in a supermarket beats forking out £2.50 or more for a pint in pubs. So goodbye Dog & Duck, hello Tesco.

But there is good news, too. Sales of cask-conditioned beers are growing after years in the doldrums. They have caught the fancy of drinkers who want something that smacks of malt and hops rather than carbon dioxide and Ovaltine.

Adnams of Southwold in Suffolk and Timothy Taylor of Keighley, West Yorkshire, are substantial regional brewers, not micros. Both have invested around £10m in new brewhouses and warehouses to keep pace with demand. Black Sheep in North Yorkshire and Wadworth in Devizes are two more regional brewers who can point to a growing clamour for their beers. Caledonian in Edinburgh has built sales of its Deuchars IPA so successfully that it is now a national brand. Marston's, Greene King and Wells & Young's are classified as "super regionals", producing large volumes of beer, most of it in cask-conditioned form.

At the micro end of the industry, Wye Valley started life in a pub outbuilding in Hereford and has moved into the former Symonds cider factory at Stoke Lacy. It brews 15,000 barrels a year, more than some long-established, family-owned brewers, and has invested £1m in new plant. The former BBC broadcaster Alex Brodie gave up the day job to launch his Hawkshead Brewery in Cumbria and within a few years has had to move to a bigger site. In London, the Meantime Brewery in Greenwich has a superb range of bottled beers, including an IPA and a London Porter based on 19th century recipes.

It is the craft brewers that are breathing life back into beer through imagination and innovation. Innis & Gunn in Scotland has notched up remarkable sales for its oak-aged beer, matured in whisky casks. Waitrose offers Fuller's bottle-conditioned Vintage Ale that, at 8.5%, will mature like fine wine.

The BBPA may speak for the big volume brewers but, in the world of beer, size isn't everything.

Roger Protz edits the Good Beer Guide www.beer-pages.com