Its 2025 - whats happening?

 Afternoon readers

          its only March and am already penning my first post!

So I realise I could mention the take over of a number of popular breweries by Keystone, or indeed the continuing demise  in numbers of unspoilt national Inventory pubs in the UK, but instead I wanted to write about ranting, by customers, at pub staff.

I am well aware that I "perhaps" drink too much and also that when I become drunk I simultaneously become a nodder, but in other people drunkenness bears a ferocious aggressive and solipsistic child, whose reason leaves them and they cling instead to imagined powers that they do not posess, like earlier this week. Allow me to Elucidate...

It was late on a midweek night in a popular Sheffield pub and probably about 30 minutes prior to closing. Two men I didn't know came in and sat down and started chatting but quickly one expressed his extreme irritation at them playing rap music, a phrase he couldnt accurately pronounce. After a couple of minutes he shouted "why dont you play some proper music instead of this rap shit" His friend told him to stop shouting which riled him further so he decided to storm over to the counter and shout the same accusation directly at the barman - who said, politely and calmly, that what they were playing was all music, and may even have suggested that some people liked the music they had chosen. Cue embolism number 2.

The stroppy man returned to his seat to complain that he didnt see why they didn't play proper music, instead they played this fuffin rab schyit.

I reneged the opportunity to ask him why he thought that rap wasn't music, and neither did I choose to explore which particular facet of the musical style he was unable to pronounce that enraged him so, nor did I enquire if he didn't like every single one of the millions of rap tracks ever recorded because of its established cultural backgrounds and influences. Instead I simply ignored them as best as I was able and then I awaited their threatened departure. Then came the line that really caught my attention. The loud guy returned to the bar as they were on their way out and once again started ranting about "rap shit" and then said " n I know xx and xx and I'll tell them about you and get this pub removed from the Good beer guide and (probably) youll never win pub of the month". 

Erm What now?

And this is when I realised that they were CAMRA members.

And I knew both of the gents he mentioned, one for nearly 30 years. And I was amazed that both those men had carried out surreptitious undertakings in Sheffield and Dronfield CAMRA as a Siloh of Silent Assassins to destroy and therefore close down any public houses or bars, which didn't meet strict musical requirements, weapons loaded, court orders at the ready and bile spilling between their clenched teeth pre action.

And do you now how the angry persons finished their visit?

As the bar man said that he didn't appreciate being shouted and sworn at and harrassed, they both said "fuck off" in unison before one said "gerra fuckin grip" as they stormed out. Children.

Lets just list all the normal and CAMRA benefits of the pub which they did not consider:

6 to 8 cask handpulls (admittedly these are just numbers - it could be 9) selling cask beers and ciders;

10 keg lines selling further and often stronger beers and ciders;

3 fridges selling further canned and bottled ales and ciders;

High quality fresh food produced in the newly refurbished kitchen;

Available function room upstairs for hire;

And what did the CAMRA members hate?

The style of music being played at closing time.

Interestingly - am not especially a massive fan of Rap music as a genre - because I have my own tastes in music. But in the event that a venue I liked or even one that I had first visited, played a style of music that I didnt like, I wouldn't undertake a roaring embolism of chuntering and swearing at bar staff, I would instead remember that I didn't live there, and go somewhere that I believed to be more appropriate. What an absolute shit show by these two Cameroids!

With kindest regards

Wee beefy

 men I

Shakespeares Spring Beer Festival 2018

Hellall,

  in a very lucky turn of events I was given the opportunity to help someone with some BSc research - ironically, it was regarding poverty in full time work. As someone choosing to pay off all my debts in three years, although therefore self induced, that is an area I have some experience of. Two pints and £10.00 cash later, I was in a position to use the last of my funds and to attend the above event the next day.

Whats more, given that this was an exclusively "cask" beer festival, the prices were a little lower, so my meagre crumbs of finance stretched that little bit further. Mind you, I had to drink cask. Oooh, Evil cask, Evil cask. Get you with yer evil cask. Why doesn't that cost £5.00 a half then yer cheapskate? With yer filthy clear beer with hideous natural features such as yeast, hop debris and fish guts. Pfft. Spending a more reasonable sum of money on fun. What next?

You see? This type of nonsense is just that, whichever angle you come from......

Back to matters festular and Adam had once again used his knowledge and influence to persuade brewers to brew previously keg and can only beers on cask. And they were absolutely fantastic. I started with a half of the Howling Hops All about the mosaic. In a moment of insensibility I had thought the beer featured 50kg of dry hopped mosaic! Since that is more than half my weight am guessing it would make a rather thick beer. Instead, the Howling Hops brew was very easy to drink and packed with a massive, although more reasonable 500g, of mosaic dry hops. Mosaic is a firm lupuloid favourite of mine and this beer started the night off perfectly.

I was sat with Steve and Sonya, who was on the Beer Ink Berry superstitious mixed berry sour, which was a vibrant pink red in colour and incredibly well balanced. Steve meanwhile was on the Rad Beets, a Lost Industry and Shakespeares staff colab featuring horseradish and beetroot in a 6.4% porter. It was very interesting, but I didn't try a half myself (so am hoping its still on Monday when I get paid...)

My next beer was the best of the night by a country mile. I had previously tried and enjoyed North Brew Co Transmission, a 6.9% pale ale in can and on keg. In cask it was frankly exceptional. Obviously with all that hop it looked like soup but it was super fresh and incredibly well balanced. At £4.50 a pint  I could have had three pints and gone home, but other beers required trying and enjoying. Although I did get a second half....

Next up the double dry hopped Almasty IPA at 6% came straight from the cellar. It was wonderfully juicy, and lovely and fresh straight from the cask. I joined S.O.J and his friends Pete and the man with a head and I managed to have a half of the Steel City and Hopjacker High IBU dry hopped New Zealand New England IPA at 6.5%. This did not disappoint, and the New England style fitted the peppery spice of the New Zealand hops perfectly.

My penultimate beer was a pint of the excellent Transmission, soaring away as perhaps the best cask beer of the year, and I also got to try some of Steve's Steel City The Blood, the wine, the roses, a sumptuously tasty red wine barrel aged stout. As the conversation in the school room became more involved I was able to secure a final pint, of the Transmission once again, which I finished off with S.O.J and his friends with my hair down, a sure sign I was a trifle refreshed.

Assuming there is still some beer left the festival runs until Sunday, and in total there are thirty festival beers plus others that have been available to try.

A big well done to Adam, Chris and the rest of the staff at Shakespeares for another wonderful selection of stellar local and national beers during which jamboree of choice I was not once tempted to choose a beer on keg. Although that will all change on Monday....one must drink Evil to be good, after all....

Cheers!

Wee Beefy

Can conditioned

        You might like this one Beefy - its can conditioned....

So were the words, or similar sounds, uttered by Sean Clarke at Beer Central. I had been into collect a can of Big Dipper and decided I wanted something else - to be honest, its apparent conditioning didn't attract me as much as the fact that it was Moor Brewing Entanglement Red IPA at 9.something percent. It was only when I got home that I thought - what the chuff is can-conditioning when its at home?

In an inescapably poor situation of no research whatsoever (stick with what you (don't) know after all) I don't actually know what can conditioning is. I can hazard a guess, having drunk cask conditioned, and bottle conditioned (and ruined) beers over the years with yeast sediment present. The beer in question was excellent, and poured cloudy, but that doesn't mean there was any yeast in it. What I can say is, for a strong over 9% beer, it drank very easily. It was smooth, but not widget artificially smooth, rather pleasant and refreshing.

Bottling with yeast is meant, in perfect conditions at least, to make the beer fresher, and more carbonated and to continue to "brew" in the bottle using live yeast. Bottle conditioning is not, in my experience, a guaranteed art. Its fraught with potential hazards, probably more so than cask, where at least a decent proportion of those handling it have some idea about what to do with it. So far, by way of absurd comparison I have tried two cans of can conditioned beer, both from Moor, and liked them both.

The other was their Illusion session Black IPA, and this was more casky, if that's a word, than the stronger one. I understand Marble also condition their or most of their cans, and another well known brewery that aren't well known enough for me to recall have also taken the practice on board. There is promise therefore that the practice may take off, at which point a more accurate comparison can be made.

Meanwhile I am still not sure about the likelihood of exploding can conditioned cans, probably down to discombobulation about brewing processes, and a general lack of relevant knowledge re yeast. I know there is no point putting live yeast in a keg (so said Stuart from Magic Rock, probably) because it makes it too fizzy, but that hasn't been my experience of the two Moor beers.

The best thing that I can see coming pit of this is the fact that the CAMRA may now start taking canned beer seriously, now its no longer Worthington Creamflow and Skol. Obviously one can never tell in such areas, but to me there are now four excellent ways of serving perfectly brewed beer and at least three should meet one or other definitions of real ale.

Which means more choice for the consumer. Which is, after all, what we all want.

Huzzaah!

We Beefy

WTFPub.com?

Hello,

        in order to leach credibility from what is written below I'm going to confess to my inspiration for this post being having seen a post earlier on the Facebook from someone I know runs a pub, who observed, with some horror, that lots of details regarding his pub on a website were a bit wrong. Considerably so. As a direct result of which, I decided to have a look myself, at the CAMRA pubs database. With interesting results.

Before I share my findings, lets give the somewhat beleaguered whatpub.com website from the CAMRA a bit of credit. Keeping a database of licensed premises in the UK with 7000 closing every time we draw breath and 7000 reopening as amusement arcades selling angostura bitters every 4 seconds, is undoubtedly a massive ball ache. Every time you look round another venue has sprouted with "edgy" names like the 17th November Bar and Glittergang Lounge, and frankly, recording and updating this must be a heinous task.

Also, the fact that the CAMRA have listed none real ale venues is interesting, and not without merit since it includes the above types of establishment. Ones which, whilst perhaps less susceptible to closure than your traditional boozer, are much more likely to morph.

So after reading about its woes, and being a bit cheeky searching for the Royal Cottage, a pub which I concede until Friday I also won't know for certain is still open, I decided to try the site out properly. I was focusing on real ale only establishments that I know, to see if the gripes of licencees were born of isolated glitches, or representative of a wider malaise (counter arguments of CAMRA stalwarts that data updates went awry not withstanding)

And in summary - I have no idea.

I say this because lots of pubs I know are recorded accurately - ones specially chosen included Henry's and Interval and the Anglers Rest in Richmond/Handsworth. I reasoned that their unusual names or location outside the CAMRAsphere might trip the CAMRA up but they seem pretty much spot on. So far so good then. Lets be a little more keen...

DAda. An interesting venue not least because it attracts a lot of barely concealed ire from trad CAMRA types. Not that its a heaven in a half glass beer utopia by any means. There are faults and reasons to dislike it, but it isn't on the website. Full stop. Yet it was a recent pub of the month nominee. Hmmm...

Next the Hadfield, Barber Road, AKA the Sainsbury's Folly. Currently, in fact since May, boarded up to be converted into something no-one wants. That is still open. Meanwhile The great Gatsby, seller of two real ales on Division Street (last time I went!) is also non existent, likewise the Cwmdu Inn in Cwmdu, a landmark community run multi use pub, of which there is no trace. The Closed Shop is managed by last year's team, the Hallamshire House, open two years, is still selling Sharps Doom bar and guests, but isn't run by Thornbridge, and the Freedom House isn't shut. And so on and so forth.

In the end though, its not actually a bad try. In fact I think the only question is, should it have gone live before they were 100% sure it was accurate?

I think more work and another data upload attempt could have improved it. However, it only claims to list 96% of real ale pubs in Britain. In effect, using my own narrow search criteria, having chosen many banana skin venues, only three don't exist (this excludes non real ale searches) and only five are inaccurate, but the majority, a good twenty five, are correct. Compare that with the accuracy of most pub websites, especially whole of UK pub databases, and I think it fairs pretty well.

Perhaps the only conclusion is that the industry is slow to update and those keen to share that info are bound by the same constraints?

Wee Beefy

Oh dear. It seems CAMRA doesn't say this is real ale....

Hello,

     the subject of the CAMRA campaign to, in essence, endorse a bottle conditioned beer as being just that is widely recognised to be a well meant disaster that is unhelpful and counterproductive. A slightly negative outlook perhaps, but as someone who has drunk and sold Bottle Conditioned Beers (BCA's) for years, I've had first hand experience of the toxic stock of affirming that something you can't hope to know the taste of is how you define real ale.

Not being a member of the CAMRA (you've seen the CAMRA) I decided to look at their website regarding the above subject here. To be fair, assuming you can get over the sloppiness that leads to them writing "bottle beers" instead of bottled beers, there is a lot more information and useful clarification than I was expecting.

It all sounds very positive and there are good reasons listed for supping a BCA. Disappointingly though, there is  no mention of how a brewer gets their product stamped with the logo, and therefore no suggestion of a quality processes. And more damning is reason number 10 for drinking real ale in a bottle - that it tastes better.

To avoid going over old ground lets just remember that a lot of BCA, or, if you must, RAIB, tastes like drek. Sour, soupy, frothing, blobbing, earthy, tart murkiness that usually ends up making its final journey down your sink.

Against that backdrop its notable just how many breweries stick the logo on their bottle labels. What I hadn't thought about was, quite a lot don't. Why?

As you know, on Sunday I held a beer tasting at Beefy Towers (not sure about this moniker...) and we drank some stupendously good beer. What struck me today putting the empty bottles in the recycle bin (ooh get me!) was that only 2 of them carried the CAMRA logo. That, despite the fact that 9 of the 16 beers we drunk were bottle conditioned. Worse, but almost predictably so, the 2 that carried the logo were the least enjoyable of the night.

Admittedly I don't know when the logo started to be used so perhaps the 2006,2007 and 2008 Thornbridge and Fullers beers did not have it to use but Kernel's beers were all BCA as was Ilkley's. Fullers continue to produce their Vintage ale and I don't think I've spotted the CAMRA logo on it.

All sorts of contributory factors can lead to a BCA being a disappointment but in this line up the BCA's sporting the logo were the poor cousins of some impeccable bottled royalty.

Given the huge number of dire producers and products proudly informing the consumer that this is what CAMRA thinks beer should taste like (because its not immediately obvious that its an indicator of secondary fermentation) is it possible perhaps that Ilkley, Kernel and Thornbridge don't think the logo is necessary?

Or do they just not want to be associated with a white elephant concept synonymous with hobby bottlers and undrinkable beer?

Wee Beefy

Grumbling from the same hymnsheet?

Morning,

     I read a post recently on the Beer Compugation blog here about the writer's experiences of drinking with his Uncle in Huddersfield, and how said relative's increasing grumpiness was, from his point of view, representative of him being a CAMRA member.

This provocative look at the CAMRA stereotype attracted a range of unimpressed responses, which is understandable, but rereading it made me smile as it reminded me of my trips out with Wee Fatha, and how he craves disappointment, sometimes actively seeking it out!

A good example of his slightly fatalistic outlook and predilection for dissatisfaction came in Kirby Lonsdale in the Orange Tree, a not particularly good visit that I described in my post here. We were pushed for time and nothing on the menu took his fancy. He moped endlessly about how his beer wouldn't settle and how he'd waited ages for it and it still wasn't a legal measure and how he couldn't afford to spend " a fortune" (£10.00) on a meal, and he didn't like the table we were sat at.

Sensing we'd already boarded the bus to diddums, I suggested we gave up and went elsewhere since we faced a long wait to get our food, and he clearly wasn't happy with the place. You'd have thought he'd have appreciated this chance to seek out a better venue, and to extricate himself from a pall of mardyness, yet, after all he'd mumped about, he said "well, I suppose I could find something on the menu" then sighed wearily and set about glaring at the text and his woefully underfilled 263ml of beer.

Luckily I got my way and we went, but not before he admonished a random bloke in the queue about the lack of a price list which was illegal, and told him how incredibly short his measure had been...

Who would decide to stay somewhere whilst already dissatisfied and then when given the opportunity to move on would still not be happy until they had become apoplectic about issues which would no doubt have seemed even worse had we stayed?!

Its a rhetorical question, but the answer is Wee Fatha of course. Holder of grudges (don't mention the Bhurtpore Inn in Cheshire), nitpicker, "groundhog dismay" resident, offence taker , and indignant exchange instigator par excellence.

I'm going to quickly defend Wee Fatha here though. He doesn't have to drive me to the corners of the UK to visit fantastic pubs and drink amazing beer. He is a mine of information and a natural teller of tales, so is an ideal companion on such escapades. His sheer dogged determination to ensure that he does not enjoy his visit to some pubs for sometimes undetectable reasons, is in fact admirable and fairly amusing in its absurdity.

Against that backdrop then, you'd think that we are ill-matched in the arena of pub exploration. Because there are plenty of differences, obvious and less so, that could and perhaps should mean our expectations of how enjoyable a trip is, or indeed what we expect makes a trip enjoyable, are perilously mismatched. Given time to mull it over I'm not so sure though...

You'd think that the age gap would automatically be the divisive issue when me and Wee Fatha are cooped up together for the day, and, borrowing a theme from the Beer Compugation post, perhaps the fact that he is a long standing CAMRA member and I have not been since last century would provide extra friction.

Add to that my love of (but not devotion to) very hoppy beers and interest in foreign muck and you have the Steptoe and Son of beer hunting. Or do you?

Wee Fatha, as he delights in telling everyone, comes from an era when "every pub sold real ale" and when no-one drank lager and every pub could sell you a scotch egg. He is entitled, at 70, to have a rose tinted view of ye olde innes and hostylries (I think I may have added a couple of centuries to his pub visiting lexicon) but these are the sorts of pubs I crave.

He may baulk at paying over three pound for a drink (excluding whisky, which he positively dares himself to overspend on) and he does make a noise like he's just put his hand in a pan of boiling water if a price seems steep, but I too share this internal fairness calculator; albeit that my reaction is more Anglo Saxon than W.F's.

He also loves to amass grievances once he dislikes a pub. Perhaps we all do, but W.F is a champion at it. He loves the idea that he can claim someone is breaking a rule or law especially in regard to price lists, or half pint surcharges. He revels in quoting and likely inventing "laws" which are actually unwritten rules or examples of good practice from stories, which are usually only ever rolled out when he is already annoyed. Its fair to say though, despite my best intentions, mentioning such failings is a hobby of mine too....

So far from being chalk and cheese or polar opposites, we are in fact the same consumer, divided only by decades, struggling to fit our natural desire to be disproportionately affected by minor things into a scene, place and time in the world of beer where in fact there is much to celebrate.

Which is a prescient observation, since tomorrow (today!) the whole of the male Beefy tribe is off out together to visit two contrasting pubs.

Lets hope a half pint surcharge doesn't ruin the entire evening for us all....

Wee Beefy

What's Brewed

Hello,
  
    earlier in the week WF gave me a copy of his latest What's Brewing to read. I had a flick through, and was surprised to find that, erm, I kind of knew all the news already.

Old News?

This was a bit of a shock. Granted I am spending more and more time reading about beer on the Internet, but it was surprising to what extent the online world had covered these stories already. When I read Beer Matters there are always snippets of pub info or brewery news that I haven't picked up on, or clarifications about rumours doing the rounds in the pubs.

Yet Beer Matters is really the local What's Brewing. All local CAMRA mags carry a few stories borrowed from CAMRA HQ or campaigns teams, but then fill the rest of their copy with relevant local details. That the editor is prevalent on Sheffield Forum may or may not be relevant here, (I could likely create a whole new blog called "Beer Rumour Mill" based on stuff read on there) but WB (that's What's Brewing, not mi sen) seems to be a slightly redundant read in the Internet age.

The Smoking Gun (and other stories)

So does this mean the Internet has killed What's Brewing? Or have the restrictions of publishing and the printed medium simply made the internet and its hosted content the only viable means of communicating up to date knowledge and information?

Well, I can see straight away this may form part of an endless debate on the merits of paper versus webpage but in order to clarify, I am interested purely in the web's role in writing about beer.

Firstly, lets not forget, not everybody is on the Internet. Not everyone can get on the Internet. Not everyone would entertain the idea of getting on the Internet (ironically, one person I have in mind is Wee Fatha, who of course bequeathed the copy of WB that started this idea going). So before we even look for an answer to the above, I'm not suggesting CAMRA or any other organisation stop printing altogether. Lest we forget, the interneet is a mere bairn in comparison to the printed word, a suckling one at that. And its a long way from perfection.

Secondly, lets also remember, the printed word, or getting your own words printed, is arguably much more out of reach than the Internet. Setting up a blog takes 30 minutes. Getting published is a gruelling task.

I have tried to get printed a few times. Not very successfully. In fact, that's kind of dressing it up a bit. In my first foray I contributed some spoof articles to a comic (described rather incongruously as a fanzine) called The Pulp, in Sheffield, in the early 90's. For a start, I never got the stuff back (am over it now though, those 17 years have more or less slipped by) and only two issues were ever printed. It was a dispiritingly costly, complicated and difficult exercise, so bereft of guaranteed readership that it wasn't worth the effort.

A few years passed and I wrote up a couple of beer walks with poorly hand drawn maps that Del at the Hillsborough Hotel used to put out in his local info box for drinkers and hotel guests to use (thanks Del, by the way). Given that I never heard of any pub rambling deaths attributed to a poorly drawn route map I have to assume that even if not enjoyed, these didn't lead directly to a  loss of life.

Later on I succeeded in getting articles printed in Beer Matters. So I did get my words printed on paper and seen by real people (its weird and perhaps a little sad, but I once sat in the Fat Cat watching and listening to a couple reading one of my articles. It was simultaneously enjoyable, and interesting, and, erm, a bit unsettling - God knows what would have happened had they not liked the article!)

However, the story takes a crucial twist here. I fell out with Beer Matters because they printed parts 1 - 3 of a 5 part article I wrote about my trip to Kent,* but then the article simply stopped appearing, mid story. So annoyed was I by this snub (and the damage done to the story by what at first seemed like a 2 issue break), and then the fob offs I got about when it was to be re-published in full or even the remaining parts, I decided to set up this very blog. So this tome you read is a fruit borne of anger and disillusionment with the printed word, and the embodiment of a determination to show an editor that I could strike out on my own.

The funny thing is though, whilst the blog has afforded me great freedom and provided valuable focus of late,  frankly, I would give my right arm to see my work printed on good old fashioned fine smelling paper. A Wee Beefy book? Come on! That would be like a dream come true.

So arguably, it isn't the case that one of the Internet or the printed word kills the other, but actually that they are both equally essential, often to each other, but in their own different way. 

I am not going to get rid of any of my books even if E-books come to contain every copy ever printed - I will still have my old tattered copies of the GBG, and my copy of "The Death of the British Pub" by Christopher Hutt. Also, Beer Matters still gets almost all its articles by email, and PR info is sent by email, which then ends up forming the basis of printed material, so there is still a working relationship between the two mediums.

And if I was writing a book about beer or pubs, I would need the Internet, if nothing else to aid planning of trips to places I may wish to write about. For example, on my first list of Britain's National Inventory pubs, the Cider House entry simply said " Cider House (Monkey House) Defford. I tried directory enquiries, as you would, and they had no number. The wanted something as absurd as an address for a start. I even went through Defford in the car with Wee Keefy and still contrived to miss my destination even with a description provided by the pub 400 yards up the road. Now you can look on the inventory website and I'd be amazed if you didn't find it (always assuming you heeded the opening times!).

And finally, the Internet continues to be a forum for inspiration provided by books. Tandleman and Boak and Bailey and Curmudgeon all recently posted about or commented on a book called "The Traditional English Pub" by Ben Davis, from 1981. (see Tandleman and the book about pub design ). A fine example of the printed word being brought into the dizzying theatre of the worldwide web to everyone's benefit.

Now I'll just re-read that WB article about online updates......

Wee Beefy

* Wee Beefy's Kentish Casks was my first ever post. Awwww. It's on the list down the side.