Saturday 9 June 2012

Beer Is A Continuum (or The Bell-Curve of Style vs Consumption)

I wasn't born in a mash tun. I wasn't bottle-fed wort when I was a nipper. I've learned to love beer, the same as everyone else, although I did it back-to-front compared to most. I cut my teeth on real ale, and didn't drink lager for the first 10 years of my drinking career. There are some styles I still struggle with, and although I may acquire a taste for them later in life, being in my 40s makes that unlikely. There are some styles that I've grown bored with - I still LIKE huge barrel-aged beers occasionally, but these form a tiny part of my drinking repertoire these days.

For everyone immersed in the beer world - and readers of this blog are mostly that, rather than casual passing traffic - there is a particular segment of the market that we like to drink. Chris Mair touches on that in this post, so there's no need for me to reiterate it. I agree with his sentiments. And as I'm sure I've said before, there is a tendency for any group centred around a communal interest - food, technology, lifestyle - to assume that they are the peak of sophistication for any given phenomenon. It's called having an opinion, and it's a human trait.

But one thing that I'm really keen to stress is that we're in a niche. If the world of beer is a pint, we're probably no more than the head on it, if that. And at the risk of being branded again as "cheery-beery", someone is drinking all of that other beer and enjoying it. You can take the view that all that beer is being drunk for want of an informed alternative, and in my experience this is true in about half of the cases. Most people don't have the information and experience available to them to make the leap to something difference. That's my experience from 10 years of retailing, and I was unsurprised to see Young Dredge reflecting that in a recent post

OK, I'm rambling a bit. What prompted this train of thought was the comment on my previous blog about Mikkeller Not Just Another Wit being a witbier with "everything turned up to 11". It prompted a response from Jon at Stringers asking if that was what we wanted in a beer.

And my response to that is, of course we do, but that's not the only thing we want. I want all the options to be available to me, all the time. I want anything from a pint of Carling or Carlsberg (I'd guess I only drink those a few times a year) to a monumental barrel-aged barley wine or tart lambic (which, equally, I only drink a few times a year). Those are my outliers which frame the bell curve of my consumption. The existence of those outliers doesn't threaten what's in the middle. And in the style of Boak & Bailey, I've prepared a graph to illustrate that idea: (EDIT: the vertical axis is volume drunk by me)


22 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. It's a fair comment, and I don't mean anything by it, other than one person's desire to dictate what others should enjoy....

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    2. Well, no. It's really not fair comment. As I'm sure anyone who takes words at all seriously would agree. And you misquoted me significantly. As anyone who follows your link (but manages to ignore the link text) would see.

      I have no interest in dictating anyone's enjoyment, as you'd know if you knew me at all. Y'all can do what you like, and drink what you like, right across the continuum from water to lighter fuel. Provided you don't frighten the horses.

      However, it strikes me that responding to a question, or to the expression of an opinion (on a matter of taste) with a gross insult, is the very epitome of intolerance.

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    3. Sorry Stringers, I meant you were fair to express your displeasure at what I said, not that I had a right to say that. Although I do, of course.

      'beer fascism' is a tag I use to describe any knee-jerk response to progressive changes in beer culture e.g. keg beer will never be as good as cask, commercial lager is fizzy piss and people who drink it are idiots, craft beer is the saviour of the UK beer scene and anyone who disagrees is an idiot, beer that's turned up to 11 is a bad thing, British beer and beer culture is better than it's American equivalent - basically anything that tries to prescribe what anyone should think, and anything that stands in the way of moving things forward.

      That said, it is an inflammatory word, one that I've perhaps used to casually to describe something, and if that has caused you (or anyone else) offence, then I apologise, and will happily go back and re-tag any posts that have used it, if we can decide on a suitable replacement term. I stand by the sentiment though.

      With reference to misquoting you, if you mean the reference to turning everything up to 11, you'll see that I haven't quoted you at all - I've paraphrased what you said and provided a link to the original text so that people can read it for themselves and make their own conclusions - that's how intelligent debate works, isn't it?

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  2. Yes, you caused offence. But I accept your apology. You might want to reconsider your choice of words for the future. Intelligent debate tends not to include playing the nazi card. But relax, I can't see there's any point going back through your oeuvre and "airbrushing" history.

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    1. OK, I'm happy you accept my apology, and for the sake of any future misunderstanding, I've decided to airbrush history and have changed that tag to "beer dogma". That's probably for the best if the general understanding of Fascism is that it equals Nazism - I guess once emotive buzz-words start getting thrown around, all sense of fine-grained linguistics tend to get ignored in a rush of blood to the head.

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    2. "Playing the nazi card" is a figure of speech that I thought you'd be familiar with. I was wrong. It's my turn to apologise - for confusing you. How about "name-calling" , I hope we concur on the "fine-grained linguistics" of that?

      I do hope anyone who's picked up a false sense of my feelings on this matter will take the trouble to read what I actually wrote. I'd be unhappy to be widely considered a "fascist", or "dogmaticist"(?) thanks to you.

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  3. Replies
    1. I suppose it depends what we mean by "craft" :-)

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  4. As I age I find the bell curve moving to the left as my desire to pursue the 'beer of the week' wanes.

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    1. That sort of mirrors my experience Bill - I guess 5 years ago the top of the curve would have been a bit to the right

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  5. There is an irony in that demonstrating how you're not a "beer fascist" to the mainstream drinker you come across as more than a little...well... fascist! The suggestion that people aren't broadening their beer horizons because the poor lambs don't have the intelligence or education to choose an "informed alternative" more than affirms you are part of the niche you seem to be claiming to be so different from - if it quacks like a duck......

    What is true - and Mr Dredge rightly points out - is that there is a dearth of information about beer styles in this country that could be solved with some simple things like mainstream media writing about beer or beer menus in pubs or beer aisles in the supermarkets not looking like cash & carry's. Does that mean the vast majority of the beer drinking public are staring woefully into their pint glasses just wishing someone could point them on the path to enlightenment??? Not in the slightest - they enjoy the beer they drink but are missing out on the diversity of styles available or skipping beer altogether on occasions when they don't think it has a place (food being the classic example).

    Don't kid yourself that this community is the head on a pint - to stretch your analogy you'd struggle to form a whole air bubble in the aforementioned head when you look at the total beer volumes as a whole. And you won't grow your numbers by patting the poor mainstream drinkers on there little heads and saying there there - we can help show you how stupid you are

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    1. Kristy, the thrust of what has clearly come across as a patronising point was that, as you and Mark have pointed out, there is a huge opportunity to not only recruit but, crucially for a sector in decline, retain drinkers by presenting them with alternatives within a category that is losing appeal to them.

      Having spent a decade talking to people and being in a position to present them with an alternative, my experience has been that about half of them are interested in the idea, the other half not. But if you hadn't asked them - presented them with an informed alternative - then perhaps none of them would have shown any curiosity.

      And I'm aware in terms of volume that the head on the pint analogy isn't proportionately accurate, but in terms of growth and opportunity, that head is so large as to be sent back for a top-up!

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    3. There you go again with your 'informed alternative' - that as a definition is patronising as implicit within in it is the suggestion that you know best, that only by bowing to your greater beer knowledge can I make the right choice.

      All beer drinkers make an "informed" choice - their decision on what beer to spend their hard earned cash on is informed by their taste buds and whether or not they think it's worth the money. There are beers they don't know about and as a beer industry we need to get better at addressing that but, dare I say it, there will be beers I know about that you don't, does that make me smarter and more of a beer expert?? No, just means I shop / drink in different places - the definition of beer snobbery should be assuming superiority just because you try something first!

      Your decade of experience is a good benchmark but you can't assume people in your shop are representative of all drinkers - the fact they're in there and haven't run out to Bargain Booze screaming for Fosters suggests they're already low hanging fruit so a level of interest is to be expected. Try espousing the same views in the beer aisle of Lidl and let us know how you get on.

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    4. Hang on, the shop is a good neighbourhood off licence that sells cans of Fosters, Stella, Guinness, Jacobs Creek and Marlborough Lights (etc etc) as well as a great range of bottled beer. It's a beer geek's dream, but so too is it a good corner off licence. Plenty of people go there to buy a four pack of Carling and pack of fags. I actually think it's not a bad cross-section of the drinking public.

      I'm totally with you on beer snobbery being a bad thing, and that's not what I'm getting at. All I meant by the phrase "informed alternative" was that many people drink what they know, and enjoy it to the point of not even bothering to look for anything else. I honestly think that many people are not aware of, or interested in, an alternative. If that was keeping the industry buoyant, then great, but it isn't.

      It's important not only to be able to present an alternative to people, but do it in a way that gives them the information in a way that doesn't frighten them off. That's really hard, but it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be attempted. You're right when you say that "There are beers they don't know about and as a beer industry we need to get better at addressing that", and it's that failing that is throwing the industry down the pan. People are not being given information about the alternatives, they do not have an informed alternative, and so when they are presented with something unfamiliar, they opt out of the category all together.

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    5. I cut my teeth on real ale, and didn't drink lager for the first 10 years of my drinking career.

      M3 T00 - the first time I had keg bitter I already knew what it was a pale imitation of. This may explain my continuing scepticism wrt craft keg.

      There are some styles I still struggle with, and although I may acquire a taste for them later in life, being in my 40s makes that unlikely.

      Don't count on it. I was 50 when I got hoppy bitters, after drinking them (and grumbling) for ten solid years.

      Kristy -

      All beer drinkers make an "informed" choice

      This is playing with words; on that basis everyone is equally "informed", every choice is an "informed" choice, and the word "informed" becomes meaningless.

      Some people know a bit more about some things than some other people; I think that's all Zak was saying. If I had my pick in a Euro 2012 sweepstake, I couldn't make an informed choice to save my life; in that area I'm not informed. When it comes to beer, on the other hand, I know... a lot less than Zak, making me more informed than most beer drinkers.

      What's more interesting, I think, is the area where a shared level of knowledge blurs into groupthink - so of course black IPAs are {brilliant|last year's thing}, of course flavoured beers are {anathema|next year's thing}, and so on. I've written before about my local, which often has guest beers by Salamander and Oakham, and has regulars who rave about Hobgoblin. Real ale enthusiasts all, but they don't think like beer geeks - very few people do.

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  6. And the beer you like the most, "craft" just so happens to be at the tip of the bell end. Well done.

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  7. Good to see a bell curve, I tend to think in terms of them myself. Don't think the bottom axis should be 'commercial' ---> 'extreme' though because extreme beers are commercial too. Or have I missed the free extreme beer give away?

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    1. I'll admit that it's a work in progress, and judging by the comments on this post, I should probably have thought through a few more things before I published it!

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  8. I just like to see people drinking beer in the pub. If it is cask beer, so much the better, because then there will be cask beer for me. Would I feel a concern If Mikkeller or BrewDog didn't exist? Would anyone drinking in the pub? No.

    Would others? Yes. So that's fine isn't it? Does there have to be a crossover? I've been down the route of evangelising and ticking and seeking out of exotics. Still do from time to time, but for me at least I know where that road goes. It leads me straight back to the pub, drinking bitter with friends and it always will do.

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