Tag: Camra

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Is Cask Ale Viable?

Here is another BSP, read THIS first, then come back to what my humble opinion is….

….OK, now that you are armed with the latest on cask ales, I would like to add my two cents (depending upon inflation) on the matter.

First, I am a fan of cask ale and I think it is is important that it does not become a museum piece.  But in 2024, looking back, even when craft beer was roaring, it was an oddity, much in the way I think side pour faucets are.  At least, here in the states, brewers are not welded to moldy cellars and no aspirators and can present a product that is consistent at whatever quality level it is at.

The U.S. problem is simply that the styles most suited or traditional in that dispense are just not best sellers and most American breweries would probably make more money buying a slushie machine or Micehelada mix instead.

The British have the extra problem of staying in traditional boundaries of CAMRA whilst also absorbing the extra cost in people power and spoilt beer.  

Not an enviable position to be in.

We can wait for the next generation of drinkers to throw off more drinking shackles of their parents and grandparents and then rediscover cask as a minor rebellion or lean into gimmicky beers in cask or get more casks into taprooms and beer bars so that they are at the very least seen as part of the beer scene.  

This will need to be driven from the brewery side though because I do not see a cask ale groundswell coming.

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Draught Devil

The last few years have brought to light women in brewing (finally and belatedly), the latest being The Devil’s in the Draught Lines: 1000 Years of Women in Britain’s Beer History by Dr Christina Wade.

It is from the publishing arm of CAMRA and is described as a “new groundbreaking book that delves into the history of women in brewing, explaining the real reasons why women brewers became marginalised, while also debunking some tired old myths along the way.”

Since I am a beer history fan, you know I will be ordering this one.

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UK Day – Reading About Cask

This fall has a lot of beer books coming out and add this new book on British cask ale from Des de Moor.  I am most interested on the past and future of cask chapters.  

The book covers:

  • “Making cask: an outline of the brewing and fermentation process in simple terms.
  • Cask from tank to glass: how brewers and licensees work together to deliver the unique features of cask, including the secrets of the cellar.
  • Cask compared: how cask differs from other beer formats.
  • The flavour of cask: how flavour works, how cask emphasises flavour, beer styles, cask beer and food.
  • The past of cask: how cask emerged from the development of industrial brewing in the 18th and 19th centuries to flourish as what was essentially ‘Britain’s lager’, was buffeted by the challenges of 20th century wars, near-abolished by big brewing groups in subsequent decades, and ultimately saved by consumer campaigning.
  • The future of cask: no longer a mass-market product, how can the format cope with the challenges of the 21st century as a niche drink for connoisseurs?”
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Don’t Read the Comments

First, go HERE to read the furor caused by a questionnaire.

Do not TL:DR.

Now that you are back, I want to say that all the people who commented about CAMRA “caving in” to “wokeness” must be living in a whole ‘nother world.

Part of me wishes that these sexist, racist idiots would just return to the caves from which they crawled out of but then I would be insulting cave people who were more than likely way smarter.

I would like to say that my better angel wishes compassion but I think we are past that. No more carrot for this lot, they need a stick to the ass.

Pete Brown, as usual is more eloquent than I but even he seems fed up and I wish more people were.

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British Cider in Focus

CAMRA wants to educate us on British Cider through the years. Their books division is Kickstarter-ing a “book that will look at how cider has formed an integral part of the UK’s landscape, with a heritage dating back at least 2,000 years. Today, cider faces a new change in the drinking landscape of Britain — the rise of craft and modern, discerning drinkers with different needs, habits and spending opportunities.”  

Those choosing to crowdfund Cider “the book for £15 to demonstrate interest in the subject, which will also give them the opportunity to take part in a personal online tasting, and get limited edition T-shirts and signed editions of the new title.”

Lastly, CAMRA adds, “This is a unique opportunity for CAMRA books to gauge interest prior to a book’s publication, which can, in turn, allow us to offer a far wider selection of books in the future and potentially increase our publishing portfolio.”

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Book Review – Brew Brittania

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One of the first beer book purchases of Christmas was this British book from Boak & Bailey.  Two names that should geek out beer bloggers.  Brew Brittania is a revelation to someone like me, who knows next to nothing about the British version of the craft beer “re-birth”.  And I apologize in advance for the repetitive comparisons to us and them.

Many know about the American beer revolution and the stories of New Albion, Cartwright and Anchor but what about other countries? British beer had the same downward trajectory that American beer had.  A trending toward monopoly.  A trending toward lager.  And they pulled out of that nosedive like we did.

This book covers the post-war British scene and rolls forward to current time.  And it does so clearly and confidently.  You learn about who started what breweries and organizations and the major players and charts how the current scene came about. It is a history book that also has a clear line of opinion through it.  Which is a mixture that I truly like.  And it treads that line very well in respect to the one organization that British beer has that the U.S. certainly did not.  CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale.

If you think beer bloggers have become a bit divided here, CAMRA has us trumped in causing factions.  But without them, I do not know where British Craft brewing would be.  And that is the fair point that is delved into in the book.  You see the whole arc of the organization and how it has to come to a bit of crossroads now.  You will have more respect for CAMRA but will probably be more worried about what they will do next.

You also learn about how Martin Dickie went from Thornbidge to BrewDog.  There is also a solid appraisal of BrewDog in the pages that shows why they PR tweak people and some of their mis-steps in that regard.  All the stuff before they started touring America for TV.

British beer lingo is on display too. Cuckoos being my favorite. Brewers who use another breweries system in off hours. Or Loopy Juice, a term for what I gather is sub-par homebrew.

At the end, I have so many places that I want to visit now.  Magic Rock, The Euston Tap, Barley Mow and Wild Beer in particular.  But what the strong suit for me was the timeline in the book.  I will be referencing when Cascade hops hopped the pond, the rise of Michael Jackson and many other turning points from this book.

Brew Brittania is a tremendous read that really illuminates a slice of beer history. And it truly answers the question posited in its early page, ” How did beer get so hip?”

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The Firkin for June 2011

There seems to be a lingering resentment of beer bloggers by some of the “old guard” of beer writers and I do not know why.

Let me back-track, just as the 1st Beer Bloggers convention was getting underway in Boulder last year, Andy Crouch asked “to what end” in relation to beer blogging. Where he made some good arguments but as the title suggests did not know WHY people would blog about the world of beer. In my mind, I heard Woody Allen complaining about kids today and their “technology”

Then this month two separate items caught my eye that again seemed to again reinforce a negative vibe.

First, Tim Webb in his BeerAdvocate column in Issue # 52 proclaimed boldly in the first paragraph about an article on gypsy/roving brewers “do not blog”. Whether tongue in cheek, it sent the wrong message to me and colored for the worse, the rest of the column. Especially at the end when he basically said gypsy brewers would ALL eventually have their own breweries. So I chalked it up to either crass overgeneralizations on two separate counts or someone looking to pick a little verbal fight.

Then I read on the Pencil & Spoon that the chairman of CAMRA slyly dug into the “blogeratti” as well. Again, I tried to reason that maybe he was like a republican trying to say what the Tea Party wanted to hear. Please the rabble rousers type of language.

But I get the strange feeling that their are certain people in the craft beer world who are unwilling to jump into beer in the year 2011 with both feet. I should know. I eschewed Twitter for a long time and rather proudly. But denigrating keg beer for cask as CAMRA seems to do frequently or taking potshots at bloggers from your perch as a beer book author or magazine writer seems one of those desperate hold the Alamo ploys. I know that I cannot snark Twitter out of existence but I can come to a negotiated peace with 140 characters. But some people, I fear, think they can stop the computerized tide with verbal potshots.

I have come to realize that ANYONE involved in craft beer that tells you that blogging is useless or trivial or filled with bad writing is flat out wrong. Are some blogs useless, trivial and filled with bad writing? Yes. And there are days when this very blog harvest all three. But blogs as well as Twitter and Facebook are simply not magazines or books or organizations. They are transient bursts of information that convey instant moods and feelings but that also sometimes transcend the now and become fully formed snapshots. I firmly believe that art can be made from Polaroids as well as paintbrushes.

To the doubters, I say, I do not want to go back to one style of beer. And I don’t want to go back to one vehicle for conveying beer information.

All of us share a mission. To share our love of craft beer. Let’s all work to that end with our varied talents, shall we?

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Black Hole Brewery

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I don’t highlight enough foreign breweries, which isn’t right,. I need to educate myself and my faithful readers about where to go while on vacation. So here goes…

Burton-on-Trent is known for the water but it is also the home of a nice amount of small brewers. Black Hole Brewery started life in the old Ind Coope bottling plant close to Burton town centre in January 2007.

These two beers intrigued me the most from their list…
Supa Nova
ABV 4.8%
Supa Nova is a premium pale ale brewed using lager malts with a top fermenting ale yeast. A variety of hops from Europe and America combine to provide a floral taste.

No Escape
ABV 5.2%
A combination of chocolate, crystal and roasted barley produce the subtle series of smooth flavours in this award winning dark beer, whilst a balance of dry bitterness and spicy aroma is achieved by a late hop of Goldings.