Telling them straight?

Lunchtime greetings,

    I noticed a lot of "blog" has been uploaded about the thorny issue of naming and shaming brewers of crap beer. Boak and Bailey (for it is them) kindly recapped some of the responses from the blogosphere in this post and it seems everyone has their own approach. The impetus for this debate was some Bottle Conditioned Ales (BCA's) of vinegrous qualities.

I can assure you that waving goodbye to a foaming mass of BCA isn't unusual. I have been picking up BCA's in pubs or shops since about 1993 and I have yet to find a corner of the country that hasn't spawned a hideous swamp ale, with too many breweries to remember being involved. In terms of identifying them, I, almost always, name and shame. However that's not to say there isn't an alternative.

Lets just make it clear that I love good, well made BCA's. They bring a whole new angle to the taste of the beer as it matures and often refines its character in the bottle. Having been lucky enough to drink a few vintages of Eldridge Pope Thomas Hardy Ale I can assure you that the wonder of in-bottle fermentation is quite real, and can be truly awe inspiring.

When its crap though, I am unhappy. I feel let down. And now I have a blog, I find myself bitching about it on here. Which is fine, blogs are after all solely the embodiment of the authors comment and opinion, but before I had this mouthpiece I used to write to the brewer and express my dismay.


Actually, this is wheat beer, very good wheat beer...


I wonder if, as I have commented on the Boak and Bailey post, doing so might remove the thorny question of whether one names or shames? I know that blogging, and more so Twatter, is meant to be up to date and virtually instantaneous, but if you correspond with said producer (this applies more to BCA's than cask) and they reply you can decide then whether or not to mention it. If they are unapologetic or indeed don't reply at all, you can present a fuller picture. Better still, if they take on board your comments, then I would suggest that is a full story with a positive ending. Positivity on blogs! Whatever next...

Well, perhaps this idea of consumer/producer interaction may already be underway. The Pub Curmudgeon has set an interesting challenge on his blog here. The BCA challenge is a request to brewers to send him a bottle of their BCA which he promises to nurture and look after properly in the prime of conditions and then open, drink (hopefully) and review. I haven't seen any reviews yet, so I must drop him an email to find out how things are going, but if we assume no or very few brewers are interested, this poses an interesting question.

Why are so few brewers willing to put their BCA's up for close inspection or review?

As I commented on Boak and Bailey before, there seems a deafening silence from the smaller producers (although some welcome comments on this post ) about BCA, so one wonders if this is a tacit acceptance that their products aren't up to scratch?

Perhaps the best solution is if producers and consumers are equally vocal - with each other. Then everyone knows where they stand.

Wee Beefy

Home is where I'm harshest?

Hello,

    I was interested in a comment on the write up of my Cheshire pubs visit on Bank Holiday Sunday. I have been going to the Swan With Two Nicks at Little Bollington for about as long as Dunham Massey brewery have been going (since 2007 I understand) and had never really given any of its credentials, other than the beer range, a second thought.

This is weird for me, because usually I am keen on the whole picture - the interior layout, the fixtures, the historical integrity (rarely relevant alas) the type of pub, the mix of clientele. And yet someone local to the pub mentioned it was a bit expensive and foody.

It was interesting to read this from Curmudgeon, because myself and Mudgie are two of the only bloggers I know of interested in unspoilt pubs and specifically  the CAMRA/English Heritage National Inventory of Unspoilt Pub Interiors. By extension, we both therefore prefer more basic, traditional pubs.

I still like the Swan just as much of course, but when I thought about it, the pub is quite foody actually. And am not sure the beer is particularly inexpensive either. And, its been extended so many times as to be internally at least, no doubt radically different to 40 or 50 years ago when my Dad would have first started going in. So how come I didn't notice?

Because I only visit on holiday or on a day out. And the minute I leave Sheffield beer prices behind, I adjust my expectation of what I will be charged to allow myself to be paying what I would consider unreasonable at home. A £3.60 pint in Aberdeenshire? No problem. A £3.40 pint in Dundee? No surprise. An average round of a pint and two halves in Kent for £7.50? Unexceptional. And I reckon I also drop my expectation of other pub credentials, thus accepting my own arbitrarily set higher food prices, and even ignoring the fact that very occasionally, the pub I am visiting, if transplanted to the Peak District or Sheffield, would not be my pub of choice.

I was fairly surprised to reach this conclusion, not least because I thought I always applied strict criteria to whether or not I would or did enjoy a visit to a pub, irrespective of where it was. And also because, turning this theory on its head, am I therefore unnecessarily harsh on pubs that don't qualify for these concessions?

Maybe this is simply a demonstration that I'm getting older, becoming more willing (or maybe able) to spend money on pub meals, and being rendered blind by the grass is always greener wanderlust of the pub lover.

Either way, as highlighted over the last week, I'm clearly not enjoying pubs any less as a result...

Wee Beefy

Anonymous e-mentalist comment posters

Hello,

  I realise you are probably rightly questioning the title - how a poster, a printed and framed medium of communication or advertising, manages to be anonymous?

But I am talking about blogs.

To post a comment on mine, as anyone but anonymous, you have to have a google account. Which is not a problem necessarily, since most people I know sign their name. And as long as its not enabling offensive or defamatory material, it can be good. Especially since now and again a person posts something odd and fairly incongruous under such a moniker.

Now, when assessing if someone is posting a legitimate campaign of comments or links, I admit that I don't get many problems to assess. I have spam referrals but rarely have cause to worry about my comments ( I only got spam comments twice - both by signed in bloggers with adverts!). In my experience most anon comments are likely real - I know that iphone apps and similar hand held Internet devices fail to work properly on blogger. Therefore I can usually see when something is in fact a comment posted by someone on a phone, instead of by a machine.

But, as per recently, that doesn't help identify whether or not a post is from someone wishing to remain unknown...

You see, my reason for mentioning this is the emergence (if we concede that both persons are the same) of a "poster" (of comments) on Curmudgeon's blog. Since its not mine I am not commenting on the blog management, only its published public interaction.(Caveat1.)

Being the observer rather than recipient of such content, it doesn't bother me, but its unusual to see an anonymous commenter that changes their identity, whilst seemingly being the same person, more especially if you find their content interesting. Now, I realise that Curmudgeon may know this person, (though I doubt it - caveat2.) but I have seen their like nowhere else. And their odd prose style is at least recognisable on each post, even if, really, it makes no sense!

Here are a few choice lines :

"Loathesome are the sad prats ,humming with
soiled Y Fronts and festering armpits not forgetting the forlorn femmes some with worn out
sanitation,festering in early evening pseudo pubs.
Eternal Optimist
Good riddance to a "Judas" rag,pity the other
Quisling organs have'nt joined it yet.
Such as the Pub chains (you know who),most brewers,the various luke warm campaigns including the Whiskers Guild and not forgetting
the cringing regiments of KeyboardKommandos.
,the remaining half wits who stand outside near empty pubs muttering 1 decibel anger.
One day reality and democracy will emerge from
their coma,but I for one will not be holding my
breath,we have to many in"reserved occuptions"
Asphalt Fusilier"

Apologies if this is a "blogosphere" in joke that I have missed, but it seems that the blog sites settings encourage the phenomena of the rogue poster through making it so difficult to attach an identity to a comment. You could argue that the anonymous option in fact supports the emergence of such "involved" writing.

Signing in as anonymous and attaching a new moniker per post is surely easier than fannying around setting up a a new email address every time, so surely we should only be allowed to post by signing in using our email address, and then attributing a (traceable) name?

That said, the above material, rightly or wrongly, I secretly don't mind.....

Wee Beefy

N.B - Curmudgeon - I hope you don't object to my copying comments from your blog. Y (WB)

And.... who is Luke Warm, and what are occuptions?