What to look out for in 2012

I've tried to steer clear of the cask VS keg argument. I'm a firm believer that good beer is good beer. The way to find good beer is try lots of beer. One of the best ways to do that is to go to a good beer festival. Hold that thought.

So what am I looking forward to in 2012, a

question I first asked myself after reading Mark Dredge's blog here. Now he knows his stuff, but I thought I'd have a go from over here on the Welsh borders.

1) Local breweries.

I'm blessed to be situated where I am. Breweries 'local' to me as operated by our local branch of CAMRA include (in no particular order)

Wye Valley - a strong 'family brewer' sized brewery. Key descriptive word: Consistent - Butty Bach has never left the bar, and I can't see that changing.

Brecon Brewing - the brewery may have just been established, but Buster the Brewer has certainly been established for years. Cracking core range, small, close and friendly enough to let me play regularly. I'm looking forward to brewing a house ale soon.

Otley Brewery - I'm not allowed to describe them as the Welsh version of a Scottish brewery, and to be fair that wouldn't do them justice. They think in terms of beer evolution, as opposed to beer revolution. I've just taken out Erdinger in favour of their O7 Weissbier on the kegs, and I'm deadly serious about putting their CreosO on instead of a Copenhagen beer if they ever keg it. The best thing about these guys is they really do let the beer do the talking.

So straight off, I've got 3 excellent breweries, each offering something different and each of which will be regularly available. I've also lined up regular beer tastings and variants, starting with Brecon in Feb, Wye Valley in March and Otley in April.

2) Better Service

Something I'm a stickler for when I'm a customer, and a huge factor in the Value for Money stakes. With trading conditions likely to remain difficult, the days of just plonking a pint on the bar without saying more than 4 words to the customer are well and truly behind us. I love the opportunities I get to drink in London as the pubs I visit, and go well out of my way to visit, are ones that get these simple things right. A personal recommendation to publicans who sell many different beers/ales - get rid of branded glasses, or get your own branding on glasses. We've done this for the last 3 years on ales, keg should be this year. Apart from anything else, when someone nicks/buys one off you, their advertising your pub for you.

3) Better Anti Alcohol propaganda

Possibly I haven't phrased that correctly, but a more realistic approach is something I think the industry could get behind. I've often laughed at the notion that more than a pint and a half is 'binge drinking' and the concept of units. The latest suggestion from government advisers isn't laughable either - ditch the daily recommended limits, which handily ignore the simple fact that alcohol affects every single person slightly differently. Instead recommend that people have a couple of dry days a week.

This sensible advice may or may not have anything to do with Alcohol Concern's Don Shenker stepping down after their funding was cut.

I'm going to limit myself to these top three, as I'd love to know what you think the future holds for pubs and good beer. And what do you consider to be the best beers out there at the moment, brewed in the UK?

Apologies for the poor layout settings of the blog, Blogger have decided to dick around with their editor taking out key features such as resizing pictures.

Bye-bye CAMRA

Well my eyes have well and truly been opened recently.

There's been a few things going on over on the CAMRA forums, that I've decided to keep out of and not get involved in, but one particular discussion I've been following with interest has been regarding the AGMs.

The process to submit a motion

I haven't been to one, read about one or chatted to anyone about one, so I have no idea what goes on. From what I can gather from What's Boring, it seems that after a complex procedure to submit a motion, nothing much happens. This, to be fair, could because the communication from HQ is poor. One of the points made in the fit for purpose review.

Back to the forum, what did interest me was the suggestion that the AGM could be recorded, or even better involve web-conferencing. This would be ideal for me, as I don't have the time or money to travel to any AGM (I doubt I'll be able to make any more GBBFs for that matter as well).

The chairman, Colin Valentine, graced the forum with his presence and had the following response to this suggestion:

{extract}Anyway, back to the thread. Personally, I am totally against webconferencing although, as I said to conference in Sheffield, it is conference's decision and the only way to influence conference is to actually go there.

Just because someone is pathetic or dishonest enough to record parts of my address to conference (see you tube, search my name and join the other 845 views, 6 comments who watched 2 minutes 47 seconds of my (almost interminable) 16 minute speech) does not mean that we should record it and post it on the website.
Colin{/extract}

Now this grabbed by goat - I've read it back a few times and mulled over it for a couple of hours and still stand by my interpretation:

I'm not allowed to influence conference, specifically regarding access to it, because I can't make it to conference.

It's the final straw for CAMRA and I, so I'll be trying to get a refund on the remainder of my membership fee. The NE appear to be stuck in their own world, full of hypocrisy (during his speech Colin refers to the 'blogerati' in a derogatory way, yet admits in his speech he only reads Tandleman's) and poor communication. In this day and age, with blogs, tweets, emails, websites etc, there is no excuse for poor communication. 


In the example above, be against web conferencing by all means, but at least have the decency to explain why!

In my view this further demonstrates that CAMRA is stuck in it's ways and the NE won't change. As I still feel with trade bodies, organisations that claim to represent their members should make it as easy as possible for their members to get their views across.

I'm not going to do a Brewdog and not sell any real ale in the pub - that would just be daft. But I doubt CAMRA will be around much longer - not because of 'craft beer', but because real ale has been saved - almost too much. There are beers and breweries out there that I won't put on the bar due to their quality and their attitude to the pub when quality issues are raised. There are a lot of good keg beers now that are far superior to these ales.

I also certainly know of at least one large beer festival that will be showcasing amazing beers, be they cask or keg, coming up this year.

Sound the bells, Cask has been saved. 

Local Beer & Food Matching

Just a quick heads up that we are again putting on a beer and food matching evening, with a little twist this time. Each of the beers will be from the newly established Brecon Brewing, and each of the dishes will involve cooking with beer (or cider in one example). The scary bit is I'll be cooking instead of taking part this time!

These events really have grown in popularity, and are likely to be at least monthly in the new year. The menu for this event can be found here, and those of you who made it to this year's Ale & Literature Festival can vouch at just how well that Ysbrid y Ddraig goes with Stilton...

We're a bunch of moaning....

My word we're a bunch of moaning good-for-nothing sometimes. Publicans I mean. Obviously not all of us, but I really do despair of our public image.

I don't often read the Morning Advertiser website as every article lists the first line of comments made beneath it, and nearly every one is negative. I strongly believe in looking for the opportunity in everything, rather than the easy 'slag off and give up' approach that some appear to have.

Don't you just hate brands that produce elegant glassware

They recently ran an article about the now-legal 'schooner', or 2/3 pint measure, being shunned by 'pubs and pub-goers'. I could go on about how this would appear to be a non-story, given the data comes from an online survey of 300 CAMRA members. This isn't meant to be taken as against CAMRA, except for one thing, which is 300 is 0.00227272727% of CAMRA's membership. Just over a fifth of 1%.*

No, what really grabs my goat is the response from publicans on the forum.

'Whats wrong with a half pint glass'

'Who would want to drink any beer in less than a pint quantity'

'No surprise here, as no-one wanted them'

Come on chaps, lets look for the positive eh? For a start-off, lets give them a chance to get out there. Heineken are seemingly the first to get them out, and they've only just become available. I got my mitts on them yesterday, and they fit nicely in the hand, well weighted - exactly the same as the pint glasses, just slightly smaller. 

Secondly, nobody is forcing you to stock them. I don't see what the fuss was about with the wine measures coming in. You don't need 3 different sized glasses for wine, you need one, unmarked, and 3 thimbles. 

For the lagers, I'll probably keep half a dozen of each behind the bar (they don't take up much space as they're tall and slim). Where I really see the opportunity is with the ales.

As the majority of our ales are guest ales on rotation, we bought an amount of pint glasses branded with the pub - kindly sponsored by a couple of breweries who gave us a free firkin of ale in return for their name being on the back. We got the glasses lined at a third and a half, using them for our beer festivals as well. 

Shamelessly stolen from A Good Beer Blog

What we haven't got yet are branded half pint glasses. What we'll do now is get some branded 2/3 pint glasses, lined at a half. Elegant, table glasses that bottled beers would also look good in. If I can get them nucleated then they'll do for the lagers as well.

It's so easy to be dismissive of something without trying it first - lets see if CAMRA festivals add another line at the 2/3 mark on their pint glasses and see how it goes. For stronger ales it's another selling point - for no extra work or expense. 

Remember, it's not a problem, it's an opportunity. And it's not going to replace pints - pints will never disappear, ever. Having the leader of the free world enjoy a pint helps:

The guy in the background either really likes beer or really like the president

I would like to find a better name for them though...

Cheers

*This is an issue I have with many surveys and, more importantly, how their results are reported. Like I say, not CAMRA per se

Head down and crack on

Firstly, a big thank you to the staff and customers for making the pub what it is. Thanks to them, we've been included in a new guide: Great British Pubs

Busy times at the pub for us, which seems to be becoming the norm I'm pleased to say. A new chef in situ, with some cracking menu and events ideas. If you're interested, have a look at his Christmas Menu and New Year's Eve buffet menu. Already we've got more bookings than last year, which I'm happy about. I'll be working with him to offer a beer & food matching evening, hopefully with the help of some friends from that there London as well as local brewers Brecon Brewing and Otley.

It's that time of year again where I re-assess the lines on the bar - Peroni has more than earned its place on the bar for another year, whilst expected price increases will see Carlsberg off for Amstel. At the premium end, Pilsner Urquell isn't shifting enough, so that will be downgraded to bottles only leaving me with a pump spare. Whilst flirting with the idea of going exotic, or a guest keg, a couple of lagers have caught my eye whilst in pubs where the ale hasn't been up to scratch. The first is Heineken, which will give me so great support if I install it alongside Amstel, and the other is one I didn't previously know, Dortmunder Union Pils.

In other news, the website has been updated, hopefully to a cleaner, more user-friendly style. We're going to add more local information to it, offering it as another online home for the people and friends of Hay on Wye. The pub is the social hub, so it makes sense for the website to be a local information hub. Any ideas or advice on this is greatly appreciated.

The kitchen has also been completely refurbished (god I hate taking down and putting up ceilings), and we're off today to Norfolk to pick up some fantastic tables for the new-look function room, which will then officially be finished. We can then offer conference/training facilities as well as private dining.

Personally, I've kept my online presence to a minimum recently (I note I haven't updated this blog in two months yet gained 3 followers, so presumably you lot like it when I say nothing). As well as being knee deep at the pub, I've been moving home and coping with an illness. Hopefully, normal service will be resumed shortly.

Cheers!

Summary of the Festival

A week on from the festival, and there are few signs it took place in the marquee at the back. First of all, was it successful? Yes - less wastage, more beer sold and 2 fantastic beer & food matching dinners.

There are things I can improve on, and those are being taken into account already. With some very kind offers of help in different areas of promoting the festival, next year looks to be the one that really takes off. I hope so, I think there really is scope for this kind of festival.

Highlights
For me, these are quite simply the 2 dinners, the menus for which can be found in the previous two blog posts. I'm currently in the kitchen again, covering some staff holiday, and these two events have really got me thinking about the menus in different ways. Match of the entire weekend was a simple one for me - Ysbrid Y Ddraig, a whisky aged IPA, with Stilton. So simple, yet one of those combinations that improves everything about the individual ingredients.

The second highlight for me came towards the end of the second dinner, which Adrian has written up here. One of the guests had quietly spoken to me before the meal and had asked for a small glass of wine instead of the beers, as she was only there for her husband. At the end of the night, not a sip had been taken from the wine. It remained completely untouched.

I will certainly be holding these dinners again, and all that remains is for me to thank Pete Brown, Mark Dredge and Adrian Tierney-Jones for making the effort over August Bank Holiday to get to a small market town in the middle of nowhere. Should find something coming through the post shortly to you all.

For pictures and videos from the whole weekend, there is a Picasa album:

Beer & Books

Cheers

Beer Vs Beer Dinner

Just a quick one from me - with the festival starting today I realised I hadn't actually blogged about Adrian Tierney Jones & Mark Dredge coming over for a battle of the beers over one of our menus. So without further ado:

Sponsored by Monty's Brewery

A chance to be talked through the wide range of flavours available in beer through different styles of beers alongside flavoursome fresh food

Stilton & roasted Shallot Rissoto

with fresh parmesan shavings

Rochefort 8 Vs Orval

Fresh Filleted Sardines

served with ratatouille

Jever Pilsner Vs Oxymoron 5.5%(Otley)

Beef Wellington

served with Dauphinoise potatoes & roasted Cherry tomatoes

Schneider Adventus 8.8%Vs Goose Island IPA

Chocolate Fondant

with Bucks Fizz Ice Cream

Ysbrid Y Ddraig 6.7% (Breconshire)Vs Porterhouse Blue 6.6% (Waen)

Please note Ysbrid Y Ddraig may be replaced with Boon Kreik

4 courses Inc. drinks £35