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.