Pedigree Chump

I'm not sure I understand why Marstons are increasing the strength of bottled Pedigree.

They've kept the recipe the same yet have changed the process and this has resulted in a stronger beer which now tastes more like the cask version. In my opinion the best process they could have changed is the pasteurisation process. Make it bottle conditioned and maybe then it'll taste like its cask brother.

Better still brew it like they did in the 1980s; there is no doubt in my mind that the present Pedigree is a sad reflection of what it used to taste like.

Greene KIng And Spoons Kill Off Micros

The news that Ruddles Best has replaced Greene King IPA as the 99p per pint beer of choice in Wetherspoons pubs is a dreadful thing for lovers of microbreweries and an unreal coup for Greene King.

The brewers are said to have been worried that "given our obsessive attention to quality and the consistently high level of investment we have made in building IPA’s brand equity, we are understandably concerned about anything that might undermine this", yet they are apparently not worried that a beer which "is a well known cask brand full of flavour and character but with a relatively low abv. It is a great value, quality beer with a fine heritage and wide appeal.” might suffer the same negativity.

No, the truth is that Greene King IPA will be joined in the top two best selling cask ales in the country by its stablemate. Greene King are on an absolute winner here and will increase their share of the market even more.

This may initially be to the detriment of other larger breweries, but they will think of ways to fight back and the micros will lose out.

I'm beginning to wonder if a spoons is just for festival times and best avoided otherwise.

IPA And Black

The 99 pence Greene King IPA is, as expected, shifting like hotcakes in Wetherspoons establishments. No one knows how to shift cheap beer as well as JDW; their client base is well used to bargains and this is the bargain of all bargains.

It's no surprise it's selling so well. People are always looking to save money and if you're undiscriminating about what you drink then you'll part with a pound for an average pint and a penny piece back.

I'm amused though at stories of people adding blackcurrant to their pints. This is presumably evidence of not liking the stuff in the first place and buying it merely because it is cheap. Surely that's a step too far. Save money if you like on substandard products, but don't buy the stuff if you don't like it. That's just ridiculous.

Not All Freebies Are Good Value

I see Carlsberg and The Sun; two erstwhile World icons if ever there were any, have joined forces to offer a free pint of lager to anyone brandishing a voucher from the paper on August 24th.

I won't be taking them up on the offer, although I'm sure there'll be no tears over that decision. I am reminded though of a time many years ago when I was in a lovely country pub in deepest darkest Northants which had nine ever changing ales on handpump. I was sipping happily on some beer or other when in walked "The Caffreys Girls". This decidedly nasty nitrokeg bitter was just being launched, and the pub, surprisingly, was supporting its launch. The girls were giving away vouchers for free pints of the fizzy stuff. I think by the time I left that evening I had accumulated at least a gallons worth of vouchers. I didn't claim even one free half.

There are some decisions you later regret. I certainly don't regret saving myself a bob or two.

£3.75 A Pint

I did a sponsored walk on Sunday. It was organised by the local Hilton Hotel, and was in aid of a charity set up by my wife's cousin. It's not often I do anything that worthy, and the feeling of doing something good, and being out in the fresh air really was pleasurable.

A lovely buffet and as much tea/coffee/squash you could drink was laid on afterwards. Squash was the perfect drink for me, but my brother-in-law had a pint of Stella. It was the unbelievable price of £3.75 a pint.

It's a crap drink anyway, and to pay that price is beyond belief. However, to make it worse, he had a second. Some people!!

That Beer Doesn't Travel Well.

It's a common comment I hear from my occasional beer drinking friends. It's also one which carries no water with me. I've had cask ale from the Scottish islands down here in Northampton and they've been absolutely fine. And of course we get cask beers from Japan and USA at GBBF, and they are more than acceptable.

The truth is that the beers I'm hearing about not travelling are your pretty dodgy national or regional brewers' beers, which are mass produced with basic ingredients and sent to pubs whose landlords aren't really bothered about the quality of their ale.

The fact is that all ale needs a period of rest after their journey to the pub, whether it be from the pub's own backyard microbrewery; a trip of a few metres, or a long journey by wholesaler's lorry down the motorway. It then needs careful handling and conditioning, and should be tasted by the staff before serving, to check it's ready. The 'travel' part of a beer's life really should be irrelevant.

The next time someone tells me beer X doesn't travel well, I shall tell them firmly not to drink crap beer in crap pubs.

What Do They Drink In Bury St Edmunds?

I had to laugh on Monday night, whilst watching The One Show. The reporter went to Bury St Edmunds, primarily to visit England's smallest pub The Nutshell, which I have blogged about before.

First though they went to everybody's favourite brewery Greene King to show what modern Bury is famous for. Then we saw all the various pub signs in town with the Greene King name (note though, that these were not the new style GK signs with just the brewery logo), then we went to chat to The Nutshell's landlord and get out our tape measure to prove its diminuitiveness.

Finally we chat to two regulars who proclaim their love for the pub and the various characters who pass through its doors in the name of tourism. A closer look though reveals that these regulars are not drinking the local ale, but Guinness!

So after a few minutes of wonderful advertizing for GK, we are left with the two customers who won't touch the stuff. What does that say I wonder?

What I Detest About Nitrokeg

Of course I prefer my beer to be dispensed by handpump (without sparkler) or straight from the barrel with the assistance of good old fashioned gravity. This is natural beer served naturally. Adding gas to a beer is unnatural and unnecessary. It does nothing for the taste and even less for the aroma if that matters to you. Carbon Dioxide is bad enough, nitrogen is much worse.

The biggest bugbear for me though is how long it takes to pour a bloody pint. I haven't done a scientific time trial but I will guarantee it takes less than a quarter of the time to pull my foaming pint of real ale than it does for Mr Old Duffer's pint of Extra Creamy Smooth to arrive. Waiting for my pint is bad enough at the best of times but when the delay is being caused by waiting for some crappy flavourless nonsense to be poured, I'm even more agitated.

Still, I'm off to Coventry Beer Festival tomorrow. No gas there (except plentiful flatulence).

Old Speckled Hen The Ale Of Choice?

Apparently Old Speckled Hen is the ale of choice for premium lager drinkers. So proud are they of this that Greene King are spending £1.5 million advertizing the beer is publications which appear to appeal to lager drinkers.

Confirms what I've thought all along. It doesn't really taste of much at all like the majority of premium lagers available in this country.

Note however that the image above is the days when the beer was brewed by Morland and was 5.2% as opposed to the mere shadow it is now.

The Truth About Guinness And Heineken?

There's a good article on the satirical website The Spoof today. There's not really a lot to add to what they've said.

Having said that though, the disclaimer at the bottom: " The story above is a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious" is maybe the biggest lie on the whole page!

Brand Loyalty Or Just Crazy Kids?

I bought a bottle of Coors Light yesterday. I know, I know, I'm a crazy fool, but it was knocked down to 50pence and the ticker in me made me do it as I've never drank it before.

Being curious, I then looked at the reviews at RateBeer to see how bad people whose opinion I trust think of the beer. I noticed that a fair few people have signed up for the site and rated Coors Light 5 out of 5 yet then gave Bud Light 0.5 out of 5; which is the lowest possible score.

Now I've not had Bud Light either, but I'm pretty sure these beers are not chalk and cheese, yet people clearly feel such a loyalty toward the one brand that they have a hatred of the other, and score them accordingly.

Having a ticker mentality I have never been bitten by the loyalty bug, but if I did, would I really hate a different beer which is to all intents and purposes the same thing (i.e. a bog standard flavourless lager)? I'm quite sure I wouldn't and I sure you, dear reader wouldn't either, so what makes these whippersnappers do so?

I would like to hear your thoughts. Saying that they should be sectioned is acceptable!

First Beer Of 2008

Actually it's not my first beer drank of 2008, but my first beer gift. We went family visiting today, as you do at this time of year. My wife's Pap (a quaint Northamptonshire name for Grandfather) whom we called on, likes his beer and knows I do also. He gave me a bottle of Wadworth Bishops Tipple. I accepeted it gracefully without having the heart to tell him that Wadworth is high on my list of "British brewers whose beers are really not very good", and that even though this is an above average Wadworth product I still think it's poor.

I've always said every beer is worth drinking once, but I'm not sure that some beers are worth drinking twice. I sense a beef and ale stew in the offing!

The Dumbing Down Of Deuchars

Nottingham CAMRA recently surveyed 102 pubs within their branch area. Pleasingly 98 of these sold real ale, and there were 178 different beers found.

The most commonly found beer though was not something local, or something from one of the biggest English brewers, but a beer all the way from Edinburgh in Scotland.

Yes Caledonian Deuchars IPA was found in 26 of those pubs visited. And herein probably lies the reason why this beer is not a patch on what it used to be. In 2002 Deuchars won Champion Beer Of Britain. At the time it was a lovely hoppy tasting beer with a nice fruity malty contrast and was wonderfully drinkable. Now the beer tastes like it has less hops and is sweeter than ever. It definitely wouldn't win any awards now and that's not simply because the competition has hottened up; it's because this beer has dumbed down.

I could blame it on the take over of Caledonian by Scottish & Newcastle, and I am sure I am not far from the truth, but it's such a shame when a beer becomes too big for its own boots.

Watch Out India - Greene King On The Way

I'm really not sure what they have done to deserve it. They have influenced the best post pub cuisine available in this country. They have given the World Sachin Tendulkar and Shilpa Shetty. Now what are we giving them back?

Bloody Greene King Beers. Many years ago of course we exported heavily hopped strong beers to India; now we are sending them Old Speckled Hen and GK IPA. It's such a shame, how the mighty have fallen. Still maybe it will mean there's less of them in this country. We can but hope I suppose.

Messing Up The Best Job In The World

28 year old Helen Moore claims to have the best job in the World. She is chief lager taster (sic) for Tescos Supermarkets. She has tasted over 1000 lagers as part of her job. I suspect they mean beers of all genres rather than just lagers, but that's British journalism for you.

Of course drinking 1000 different beers is not a particularly unusual feat, but the fact that she has done this in the name of Tescos whose beer range is fairly ordinary to say the least is strange.

Particular 'gems' from around the World available in Tescos at the moment include: Kamenitza Svetlo from Bulgaria, A. Le Coq Premium from Estonia and Bergenbier from Romania. None of your World classics there which a woman whose tasted more than 1000 should be able to pick out and a supermarket with the clout of Tescos could arrange to stock on your shelves.

I have a distinct hatred of Tescos and reading about this woman makes me even angrier. I mean just look at her favourite five beers. Is she really fit to have this job? Couldn't all of us do a much better job?

Does Stella Really Make You Violent?

Stella Artois (if that's what it is still called) has been referred to as Wife Beater for as long as I can remember because apparently drinking too much of it makes you super aggressive and likely to go home and give the little lady what for.

I'm not sure that Stella really is any different from any other 5% lagers, or if it's drank by a particularly volatile type of customer, but certainly a number of pubs in Sussex are no longer stocking it because of its reputation.

As much as I think it is a crap beer I refuse to believe there is any special chemical within which accelerates violence. I'm sure a gallon of Kronenbourg 1664 would have the same effect. So while I'm pleased to see beers such as this being removed from bars, I am sure the replacements will be other dodgy 'European' lagers brewed in the UK.

If anybody has any anecdotes about the Stella effect then please share them, but my abiding memory of being with someone who had downed a whole load of the stuff certainly didn't end in violence, and as that imbiber is female I won't go into detail.

Pissed On A Quid

I stumbled across this article today where a 'journalist' gets pretty drunk on £1 worth of nasty supermarkt lager.

I have a few questions:

1. Even though the lager is clearly rubbish, do you not get the impression that she feels superior to beer drinkers and that her four times a week wine fix is altogether much more worthy.

2. How can supermarkets get away with selling beer at 44pence per litre?

3. What sort of point is The Daily Mail trying to make?

4. Why is his woman such a lightweight? If she gets pissed on 3 and a bit pints of 3% lager then I dread to think what a good bottle of red would do for her. She probably drinks Lambrusco Light.

5. Should I care? Actually I know I shouldn't, but it's a slow news day.

Beck's Vier - There Is No Beer Here

Driving home from the hospital on Saturday night I saw an advertizing van for Beck's Vier. The van was resplendent in its livery, and, I dare say, does a good job as a promotion tool up and down the country.

Although brewed in Bremen, Germany, Beck's Vier is packaged in the UK and is only available in the UK at present.

Vier is, of course the German word for "four", and this pale lager comes in at 4%. It certainly tastes like a watered down version of its more common brother, which, I have to say, is one of my least favourite beers I've ever tried. The odd thing is I prefer Vier in spite of its lack of body. It's still pretty poor though.

The point of this blog entry is that at the back of the van there was written "There is no beer on this van". It got me thinking of a new slogan. Beck's Vier - There Is No Beer Here.

It made me laugh during a stressful weekend! Thanks for listening!!

Magners Light - I Can Hardly Wait

Those wonderful people from Bulmers in Ireland are really spoiling us now. They are about to release a lower calorie version of their over ice cider Magners in the UK. It will be the same 4.5% alcohol by volume, but will have approximately 91 les calories per 330ml bottle. Allegedly it is already selling well in Ireland.

Regular readers will recall that I didn't think much to the ordinary version and I am quite sure that this 'light' version will be equally poor if not considerably worse.

We are promised that it will be available in Asda from October 1st. I will probably be setting up a sleeping bag outside the night before in anticipation.

Actually, thinking about it, isn't there another way of making Magners lower in calories? Just use extra ice!

Tramp Juice

A charity which supports homeless people in the UK is urging the British Government to raise the price of extra strong lagers and ciders. It seems a common occurence to spot a homeless person chugging on beers like Tennents Super Strong Lager or Skol Super or drinking such delightful ciders as White Lightning or White Ace. Of course the reason they drink these beers is because they are cheap and get you pissed quick. However one can contains more units of alcohol than the daily recommended amount for a man. (Admittedly these recommendations are over the top, but it does prove a point). Naturally with a lifestyle of drinking this type of beverage, poor diets and lack of suitable housing there is a real problem with premature deaths amongst the homeless.

I do find it bizarre that such strong drinks are so inexpensive but then the ingredients are pretty cheap and nasty and they are obviously cheap to produce. So therefore rather than ripping off these poor unfortunates why can't these drinks have their ABV dropped? Even one or two percentage points would make a difference and should help in some way.

All this talk of super strength beers and homelessness reminded me of a website I discovered a few years ago. Trampjuice is a wonderfully named site dedicated to these products. It has reviews of a lot of nasty beers and ciders as well as news of interest to drinkers. Interestingly there is a piece on there about the Government banning thse products. This article is from April 2006 and clearly nothing has happened since then, so these beers are set to stay. The reviews make interesting reading. It almost seems a case of the stronger the better. Amsterdam Maximator scores a not deserving 10/10. The funniest thing about the site though is that Rocheforte(sic) 10 gets a review. My favourite beer makes it to Trampjuice!! It doesn't score very well though, although that's partly due to its high price and the fact that you never see a tramp drinking trappist beer - Or do you?