Craft Beer FUBU - or - Why People Get Upset When Breweries Get Sold

I haven't blogged properly in a while (ha! "a while"), largely because I haven't had anything constructive to say. That doesn't stop many bloggers, but I really got to a point where I felt I'd said everything useful. And of course, once you have a financial interest in the game, everyone should take anything you say with a pinch of salt, so what's the point in blogging if people are just going to argue with or ignore you?

But the recent spate of takeovers and reactions to them makes me want to say something. I'm not sure where to start, so lets talk about the most recent - Anchor being bought by Sapporo. It isn't the first time in its history that the brewery has been bought out. The heroic stewardship of Fritz Maytag was of course the result of a buyout, albeit of a company that was by all accounts on its arse.

People get emotionally invested in stuff, to an extent that seems irrational to some. When a brewery is sold, I think it's natural to re-evaluate how you feel about that. I totally get that some breweries need to sell when the owner gets older, or gets bored with the grind of running a business, or just wants to cash out, but it's important that everyone looks at what has happened and asks if they feel differently now.

It's important that people do this because it matters where you spend you money, and who you decide to finance. Arguably, as political power is ceded to a global elite, how you spend your money is your last source of political influence. If you want to give your money to someone who is making beer with great determination but little critical acclaim, that's fine, it's your money. If you want to give your money to local breweries because they are local to you, even if they aren't world beaters, that's fine, it's your money. If you want to give your money to breweries that are the flavour of the month, killing it on Ratebeer, that's fine, it's your money. But it's important to think about it. All of these choices are subjective, driven by the same sort of irrational notions that drive me to buy bright yellow New Balance trainers, or to make people queue for hours outside breweries for limited releases.

So when Sapporo buy Anchor, I'm pleased to see people ask how we should feel about it. When Lagunitas sell 50% to Heineken, it's good to question how we feel about it. And then when Lagunitas sell the other half, we should at least think again, because your money is the only thing that will make a difference. And Ballast Point. And Camden. And Meantime. And who next?

It's fine to change your mind about how you feel based on new information, that's what grown-ups do. It would be a shame if you didn't let things change you, or at least make you re-evaluate things. Is your favourite brewery the same if someone new owns it? I don't know the answer to that, but at least ask yourself the question.

The reason I feel strongly about this is because, of course, it's my livelihood, and I've spent the last 17 years following the FUBU principle - I can't define craft beer, but as far as I'm concerned, it's For Us, By Us. So every time ABInBev, or SABMiller, or Constellation, or some faceless group of investors buy another independent bit of the industry (and it's happening at production, distribution and retail levels) and pass it into consortium ownership, I stop and have a long look at it. I might even solicit opinion online if I don't understand it, but the important thing is at least to stop and question it.

Translating Big Craft

As the KLF said in 1987, "What The Fuck Is Going On?".

I saw ABInBev's two recent acquisitions described as a rampage on Facebook - it's hardly a rampage, but it is significant. And it's also unlikely to be the end of it - more acquisitions (or mergers, if you prefer) will come, that's for sure. But what's really going on here?

Much has been made of the big players suddenly realising that they have been left behind, but left behind in what sense? Craft beer has finally become cool, but the big brewers don't care about that. They genuinely have no desire for craft beer credibility, what they want is to somehow revive their falling market share and hard pressed margins.

It's true that the more craft breweries that are acquired by the big players, the less route to market there is for anyone else. There is only a finite (and shrinking) amount of bar space, and no matter how many craft bars open, the linear mileage of bar top is shrinking, getting more crowded.

It's also true that, historically, great beers have been ruined by accountants gradually cutting corners, reducing the quality of the ingredients, dropping %abv to pay less duty but not passing the saving on - all tiny things that gradually add up to royally bastardise a once great beer. Ask Pete Brown about Stella Artois. I'm not so sure that this is the particular tactic with this round of acquisitions, and we'll return to why shortly.

I also made a throwaway comment on the back of the Ballast Point acquisition that (a) they'd overpaid massively (recouping in 30 years or so at current size) and following on from that (b) how's everyone's hop contracts looking? Because the thing is, Ballast Point aren't going to remain static, they are going to grow hugely. Maybe the quality will stay the same, maybe it won't - that's not the issue right now. Ballast Point - and Goose Island, and Camden, and whoever else gets hovered up - will grow massively, and will need lots of hops to do that. Lots of hops grown expensively under license, that will only get more expensive, even as more acreage is planted.

Ironically, this could be the thing that sees Big Craft prosper. Big Craft wants to acquire small breweries with big ideas, big reputations and crucially, big margins. I'm guessing that a tipping point has been reached in the boardrooms where no more savings can be made, products cannot be squeezed any further to reveal greater margins. One of my mantras as a retailer was don't cut costs, add value. If people can taste that a product is superior, they will happily pay more for it. Sure, in global terms, that's a niche market, but that's where the growth is, and that's what Big Craft is all about.

So my prediction is that breweries aren't being bought up to be dumbed down, run down and closed down, but are genuinely being bought to grow and produce flavourful craft beer on an industrial scale. Sure, there will be a monopoly created as Big Craft takes up more of the available bar space, and swallows up all the hops that little craft needs. But Big Craft is storming the barricades and launching a counter-attack on the revolution.

And what do we think about that?

Craft Beer in a Post-Craft World

A pair of blog posts over at Jeff Alworth's Beervana (here and here) has roused me from current torpor with a few observations. In fact, this started as a comment on the blog, but quickly spiralled out of control.

The first thought is that although there is a big difference in the legislation between the UK and US markets (see here for a summary of the US three tier system. In the UK, this doesn't exist), it seems as though in practice it doesn't make any difference. So when Jeff writes "But having an invisible layer in between the producer and retailer also offers an opportunity for hard-to-stop corruption", the important word in that sentence is "opportunity". In practice, this doesn't happen, it just adds another layer of sweeteners and kickbacks.

The big problem is that whenever anyone writes about the beer business, the tend to focus on the "sexy" bit - the beer - at the expense of the "dull" bit - the business. These two, as we've seen from Dann Paquette's accusations, are inseparable. You can make great beer, as in my opinion Pretty Things do, but if you can't get it to drinkers, why bother?

But this isn't anything new. In conversation with Garrett Oliver in (I think) 2007, he listed a few bars in New York who would call the Brooklyn Brewery regularly and say that they had a line available if the brewery wanted to let them have a few free kegs. Garrett's response when asked "What have you got for us?" was always "Great beer at a fair price". But if anyone thinks this sort of integrity will carry on as the number of craft breweries continues to rise, in the UK, the US and worldwide, think again. Have a look at what Sam Calagione says here. Anecdotally, every small brewer in the UK has a story about being undercut by another brewer offering cheaper beer of lesser quality, or worse still, being told by landlords and beer buyers that quality is less important than price.

You can expect a lot more of this as we move into the post-craft era. Uh-oh, there's a buzz-phrase that's going to annoy a few people. But heads up, because here's some bigger news. Beer isn't going to get any better than it is now. I know, that's quite a rash prediction, but the beer business is going to stop being about beer, and become more about business.

Beer isn't going to get any better than it is now. That doesn't sound very sexy, does it? It will get more consistent, more reliable, but ultimately, the technology of craft beer - focusing on quality and flavour without cutting corners to maximise profits -  has reached endgame. There is nowhere else to go. What this means is that craft beer will have to focus on the dull business of making great, reliable beer, giving people what they want every time. In short, they will become big brands, go mainstream, and flood the country - the world! - with great tasting, flavourful beer, free of production flaws, tasting the same every time you buy it. This is exactly what the top tier of UK craft beer producers has done - build a brand built around consistency and great tasting beer. Once the beer is good enough, you have to focus on the business end of things. Price. Distribution. Brand-building.

Beer isn't going to get any better than it is now. It will be cleaner, more consistent, more reliable, less of a lottery. You might not like it, but Punk IPA will become the craft beer movement's Carling - a best seller, reliable, widely available, and reasonable priced. It's already happened. We all screamed "Judas!" when Punk IPA appeared in Tesco, but Bob Dylan's response to being called Judas was to simply say "I don't believe you, you're a liar" before telling his band to "Play it fucking loud!", and never looking back.

For earlier discussions of post-craft beer, please see Boak and Bailey, Pete Brown, The Pub Curmudgeon, and Justin Mason. They all (in the nicest possible way) focus on the sexy beer bit rather than the dull business bit.

Grayson Perry On Craft Beer

I caught the first of Grayson Perry's Reith Lectures on craft beer this week. They're broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (link), and the first lecture was largely to do with how we actually define craft beer.

Well, I'm twisting his words slightly. He was actually talking about art, but really all the arguments he deploys are equally applicable to craft beer. How do you define it, what it is, what it isn't, and who gets to make those decisions. Who gets to buy and consume it. Really, it's interesting, you should listen to it, just substitute the word "beer" every time you hear the word "art"

That's the good bit of the post over. The rest is about beer/craft beer and quality control.

I still think that craft beer is "a thing", but I'm still not sure that it's anything to do with beer. At IndyManBeerCon last year, I was part of the panel that James also sat on, the panel he mentions in the opening paragraph here. It's my recollection that we did actually talk about what craft beer was. Being the contrarian, I talked about craft beer in terms of what it wasn't (link here), and how the whole movement was about trying to define oneself in opposition to the mainstream. Hey, I'm a failed academic. Maybe it was a bit fine-grained, but James very kindly told us all that we'd missed the point, and showboated about Blue Moon for 10 minutes. Sheesh, if that's not defining yourself as the other, I don't know what is.

IndyMan is the dream of craft beer made flesh. I can't pretend that I get to many beer festivals, or even many beer bars these days, but IndyMan has a special place in my heart. It is everything that is great about Britain rolled into one. Britain has a reputation for being an early adopter, which might explain the endless reinvention and global domination of (for example) fashion and pop music. Couple that with a celebration of history, and a long weekend of craft beer in the crumbling splendour of a Victorian swimming baths couldn't be any more British.

I do wonder, though, if an idea as brilliantly conceived and expertly executed as IndyMan is almost done a disservice by some beer (craft beer, by definition, I guess).

At the Great British Beer Festival this year, I set myself a challenge: no beer that I'd drunk before, and a decent selection of stab-in-the-dark beers that I knew nothing about as a way of trying to gauge a cross-section of the market. It wasn't an entirely enjoyable experience, with dull, poorly conceived and/or badly made (or all three) beers easily found, and mostly from brewers that would, by any definition put forward, be classed as craft brewers.

While I didn't set any such criteria at IndyMan, I was surprised to experience a similar set of disappointments. Phenolic, astringent golden ales. Beer that smelled of freshly mashed grain. Beers that had a peculiar quality that I could only describe as "the opposite of drinkability". This isn't peculiar to IndyMan, or to craft beer, but there are a group of breweries who have quality control nailed, and rarely disappoint. They get my money every time. The others, not so much.

And what of the drinkers? One brewer reported to me having had a conversation with a craft beer enthusiast who was loving the butterscotch edge in their beer. It turned out to be diacetyl, although the drinker had never heard of it, and was adamant that they were enjoying it. Fair enough, for that drinker it was more important to be drinking craft beer than to be understanding it. For me, it's the other way around, but like I said earlier, I'm a failed academic.

Is quality control important? I think it's the one major challenge that faces beer, craft or otherwise. It's the elephant in the room. Having a trade body to "protect" craft beer (whatever that means - I think really it means a brewer-funded body to promote themselves, in the way that the Brewer's Association does in the US) is secondary to some way of ensuring that when people do eventually try beer (craft or not), it's a positive experience.

Put it another way: I'm not interested in your credentials if you've paid for them. Let the beer do the talking for you. It's part of the reason that I've worked in this industry for so long, because I genuinely believe that tasty, well-made beer is a life-enhancing experience, in the same way that good food is.

But that's just me - failed academic, beautiful dreamer.

European Beer Bloggers Conference 2013 - Keynote Address

Garrett Oliver has finally come of age. That's not my judgement - who am I to pass judgement on such a man? - he says it himself in the keynote address below. It's interesting to hear what he says about  becoming the brewer he wants to be, and how that resonates with the 10,000 hour rule pointed out by Boak and Bailey, and my general stab in the dark as to what craft brewing really means. Garrett sums up the c-word nicely in the talk, by the way.

He kicked off showing this video:


The talk picks up where the video leaves off. The quality is a bit shonky, sorry, but the content is worth listening to:

Online recording software >>

The Rise of The Cuckoo (Part 2)

OK, that last post upset a few people, and some other people enjoyed it. It's fair to say that it was pretty broad-brushed, made some sweeping generalisations, and made uncomfortable reading for at least a few people that I know personally. So in the interests of balance, a clarification.

I'm not a huge fan of Ricky Gervais, but during one of his misanthropic rants about the nature of fame and celebrity a few years ago, he made the point that "wanting to be famous" isn't actually a career aspiration. He made the point that when you see (for example) George Clooney on the red carpet, waving, it's as a by-product of his work. He didn't work to get famous, he worked to become an actor - the fame is a by-product of his work.

The current explosion of interest in beer has led to a lot of people getting into the business, by whatever route. Some see it as an exciting career opportunity, a way to make their hobby their job. Others see it as a way of riding the new trend and making some money while it lasts. Others want to be part of the party, and just see what happens as a result. And you know what? That's fine by me, I'm happy that beer generally is finally getting the exposure that it deserves.

And I was somewhat misplaced in my singling out of cuckoo brewers as the target of my irritation. What I realised last night, in a flash of lupulin-inspired clarity after a series of somewhat disappointing beers, is - pay attention to this now - owning a brewery is no guarantee of good beer.

There, I've said it.

And you know what else I'm going to say?

That's what craft beer is all about.

Brewing is a craft, something diligently learned, endlessly studied, repeated until the actions are second nature, in a way that belies the years of effort taken to acquire it. A profound understanding of the process and how to make it go right. Making beer is easy, but making great beer is hard. The glass of beer that satisfies in an exceptional and yet undefinable way, that's the papped photo of George Clooney (your icon may vary), chiselled and dapper, breathtakingly handsome, waving to his fans on the red carpet, a single perfect moment crystallised by years of craft.

There's more to it than that. of course. Cuckoo brewers might actually turn up, brew their own recipe, dig out the mash tun, and genuinely rent the down time on a plant to brew their own beer. Sometimes they might collaborate with a technically skilled brewer to make a beer to their that the skilled brewer wouldn't ever think of making. Sometimes, they might contract a brewery to make a beer to recipe, but not actually get involved beyond that. And sometimes, an entrepreneur might contract a beer in a particular style with no more input than asking for a modern hop-heavy IPA.

So yeah, maybe you have a point. Maybe I would rather drink a well-made cuckoo-brewed beer than a badly-made nouveau-craft car-crash-in-a-glass

Thou Shalt Always Blog

Thou shalt not get so drunk you ruin other peoples' evenings.
Thou shalt not drink Desperados or shout Lager Lager Lager.
Thou shalt not take the names of Fritz Maytag, Ken Grossman, Jack Macauliffe, John Gilbert, Sean Franklin, Evin O' Riordan or Dave Wickett in vain.

Thou shalt not think that any male over the age of 30 with a beard and sandals is a CAMRA member. Some people are just cool.
Thou shalt not read beer blogs.
Thou shalt not stop drinking a beer just because the brewery has upscaled.
Thou shalt not question Garrett Oliver.

Thou shalt not judge a beer by its IBUs.
Thou shalf not judge BrewDog by inches of news.
Thou shalt not buy ABInBev products.
Thou shalt not buy SABMiller products.
Thou shalt not look at your brother's home brewery, buy a load of stainless, and build a better one.
Thou shalt not get impressed so easily.

Thou shalt not use you beer blog and Twitter feed to get into a brewery's pocket.
Use it to get into their heart.
Thou shalt not drink Fosters.
Thou shalt not attend homebrew group and then leave as soon as everyone's tried your double IPA, you hopheaded numbskull.
Thou shalt not email beer importers asking them if they can get you any Hill Farmstead beers - it's never going happen mate.
Thou shalt not put beers and breweries on ridiculous pedestals, however important they may seem.

Pliny The Elder: it's just a beer
Westvleteren 12: Just a beer
Dark Lord: Just a beer
Speedway Stout: Just a beer
Hopslam: Just a beer
Pannepot: Just a beer
Beer Geek Brunch: Just a beer
Cannonball: Just a beer
Orval: Just a beer
Ola Dubh: Just a beer
Racer 5: Just a beer
Xyayu: Just a beer
Fat Tire: Just a beer
Yorkshire Stingo: Just a beer
Cantillon Geuze: Just a beer
The next big thing: just a beer

Thou shalt give equal consideration to non-American IPAs as to American IPAs - freshness really matters, you know?

Thou shalt remember that water, malt, hops and yeast are the four elements of beer, and that's it.

Thou shalt not join the Campaign for Cooking Lager,
Thou shalt not join the Campaign for Cooking Lager,
Thou shalt not join the Campaign for Cooking Lager,
Thou shalt not join the Campaign for Cooking Lager.

Thou shalt not "hate to see it leave"
Thou shalt not "say cidre, not cider"
Thou shalt not "refresh the parts other beers cannot reach"
And thou shalt not follow the bear

When I say "malt" thou shalt not say "hops"
When I say "hip" thou shalt not say "hops"
When I say, he say, she say, we say, craft beer - kill me.

Ah, I forgot where I was, hang on.

Thou shalt not "Belong"
Thou shalt not be "a bit gorgeous, pet"
Thou shalt not wish you beer had a few more hops

Thou shalt spell the word "Belgian" B-E-L-G-I-A-N, not B-E-L-G-I-U-M, regardless of what you read on Beer Advocate

Thou shalt not express your confusion at the latest barrel-aged lambic IPA by saying "AWESOME!"

Thou shalt drink for yourselves.

And thou shalt always...

Thou shalt always blog.

With apologies to Scroobius Pip and Dan Le Sac. 

Dangerously Foreign Practices.

I really tried hard to bite my lip about this whole thing.

I said nothing when I first read it, because I've managed over the years to stop going off the deep end when I read something on the internet that irritates me. The truth is, if you look hard enough, you can find someone saying something ridiculous at any point on the web.

I said nothing when everyone went mental on Twitter about it - I even ignored this tweet from BrewDogBarJonny, sticking the boot into CAMRA (Wandsworth Beer Festival isn't a CAMRA festival). But that's not my battle to fight - if you look long enough on the web, you'll find all manner of lunacy going on. You might even find members of BrewDog's band of merry pirates saying things like "we took the recipe and BrewDogged it". Fine, I think I understand that, and jolly good luck to you. Hope it all works out.

I didn't say anything when the debate took a craft keg dimension over at Hardknott Dave's blog. I've softened my slightly rabid line on the term "craft beer", even occasionally dropping it into conversation in industry company, and watching to see if anyone flinches, or says "AHA! WAIT! YOU SAID CRAFT BEER!". I understand why people get all passionate and aerated about the debate, and sometimes think that if all that passion was channelled into the business of making great beer, and all of the tedious detail that goes along with it like proper cleaning schedules and quality control checks, the beer world would be a more reliable playground (please note: this isn't directed at anyone in particular, just a general observation based on frequently buying - and being being sent - an apparently endless parade of faulty, poorly-conceived or badly made beers, both in bottle and on draught).

But I've finally cracked. This post over at the ever-excellent Boak & Bailey actually had me LOLing and almost ROFLing. This is a great example of what happens when you take too seriously something that is obviously a ludicrous outpouring of ill-informed nonsense from someone with an ill-formed agenda. If I get this right, the thrust of the argument being taken seriously here is that bland beers are being disguised by giving them flavour. This is clearly buffoonery of the highest order. It's like moaning that some cultures disguise fundamentally bland food - chicken, say - by adding garlic, chilli, cumin and ginger to make something that is a betrayal of its source. That argument is, frankly, bollocks.

I'm starting to think that the idea of "good beer" is fundamentally flawed. There is beer that is well made, and beer that is badly made. And there is beer that I like, and beer I don't like. I tend to like well-made beer across a variety of styles. I can tell if a beer is poorly-conceived but well-made. And I can tell a badly-made beer a mile off (with the exception of the output of Cantillon, where I understand that I am in such a minority that my view is probably fundamentally wrong). But I can tell if the spices in a curry are there to disguise poor quality ingredients, or a lack of skill in the kitchen.

The lack of skill rarely resides in the quality of ingredients, but it can be glaringly obvious in how those ingredients are deployed to produce an end result.

What The HELL Is Craft Beer?

Scoop front left, scallopcheeks dead centre

As questions go, it's an interesting starting point, but I'm not sure that anyone seriously expected the panel discussion at Indy Man Beer Con to yield any definitive conclusions.

John Clarke and Tandleman (Peter to his friends) both gave a viewpoint that was perhaps informed by many years as CAMRA stalwarts, with John perhaps having a slightly broader view of the global scene, and Peter taking more of a pubs-man approach. Both broadly agreed that anything that was good for beer had also to be good for the culture of beer, with Peter striking a surprisingly conciliatory approach born of a desire to keep pub culture alive - "there's a beer for everyone" was a quote I was surprised (but not disappointed) to hear coming from him.

What of people involved in the industry? BrewDog kingpin James Watt put on a virtuoso performance showboating against the calumnious claims of big brewers making faux craft beer, with a tirade against Blue Moon that produce applause and rolled eyes in equal measure. Big brewers don't make craft beer, small brewers make craft beer - that was the message, and indeed that sort of resonates with most accepted definitions of craft beer, although of course there is no guarantee of quality in that. Ever one for a spot of devilish advocacy, I asked James at what point in their growth BrewDog would cease to be a craft brewery, to an "ooooh, handbags!"-style response from the crowd.

There was an impassioned interjection from the floor about how craft brewing was about the willingness to experiment, and the willingness to get things wrong occasionally. My response - "By all means experiment, but if it goes wrong please don't dry hop it and call it a special" - might have been seen as an attack on the person raising that point (I think it was Jan from Marble), or on any other brewer that I waved an impassioned finger at as I said that (god knows there were plenty in the hall that I've had "polite words" with over the years). It wasn't an attack on anyone in particular, but more of general appeal not to sacrifice quality and consistency for restless, needless, or pointless experimentation.

You would imagine Toby McKenzie of Red Willow brewery to have a viewpoint, and indeed he did. He brews the beer he likes, and if people like it, that's a bonus. His most impassioned plea, though, was for everyone to stop taking everything so seriously, which I completely failed to do with my analysis.

I think craft beer is about identity politics. I think that whether you're a brewer or a drinker, it's about defining yourself as much by what you are not as by what you are. I think it's about a willingness to experiment, both as a brewer and as a drinker. It's the forerunner of something that's going to get bigger, in the same way that styles of music go from being underground cool to mass-produced products. And that's not to belittle mass-production - Sierra Nevada are an example of a brewery that has grown without ever compromising its core ideas, but who are now really turning it out in volume.

Is craft beer more a state of mind, for the brewer and the drinker, than anything else?

The Symbiosis of British & American Craft Beer

On Thursday night, I was delighted to give a short talk to the Northern branch of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling (IBD). The topic that I'd been asked to address was the relationship between British and American craft beer cultures, which is something that I like to pretend I know a bit about. Of course, when faced with an audience of very well-respected brewers and other assorted luminaries, it's hard to remain cool, so rather than major on trifling things like facts, which are either right or wrong, I fell back on the safety net of telling a story anchored to a couple of key points.

To summarise thirty minutes of rambling into a few sentences: a lot of the early American brewers came out of the homebrew scene, and looked to Europe generally and Britain specifically for inspiration; Jack McAuliffe at New Albion was just ahead of the curve; when Ken Grossman brewed an English-style ale with local Cascade hops, he set the blueprint for the industry; for a country whose culture has dominated the world, the craft brewing scene in the US is still mostly about local beer, drunk fresh; there is an ongoing, symbiotic realtionship between American and European brewing traditions; dragging bottled beer from California to Europe is, if you stop and look at it, a really stupid idea.

Let's expand on some of those, shall we?

When Ken Grossman brewed an English-style ale with local Cascade hops, he set the blueprint for the industry.

The beer that became Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was a local interpretation of what brewers in Britain were doing at the time. It was born out of expediency, using local ingredients feremented in converted dairy tanks, a tried-and-trusted route into the game. The key point here is that the beer is about what is available, a bottom-up approach to craft foodstuff production. That Sierra Nevada have become the worlds largest consumer of whole-cone hops is born out of that mindset of wanting to do something in a traditional way, but just do it on a scale that boggles the mind.

For a country whose culture has dominated the world, the craft brewing scene in the US is still mostly about local beer, drunk fresh.

Americans don't mess about. They take everything very seriously, even fun, perhaps down to the fact that they have so little paid holiday that when they are on their own time, they want to have fun RIGHT NOW. Craft beer is an expression of that. But despite the fact that Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Brooklyn Lager (or at the very least, one of those three) are available in most UK supermarkets, American beer is still about local production and consumption. For example, Odell Brewing have a wider presence in the UK than they do in the US, but they only export a half of one percent of their output to the UK.

There is an ongoing, symbiotic relationship between American and European brewing traditions.

This just can't ignored. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is Fullers ESB brewed with local ingredients. Access to cheaper air travel in the 1980s meant that people and brewers (actually, brewers are people too, aren't they?) were able to travel to the USA and discover these new-fangled beers. You can't brew American beer without American hops, and so back over the pond they came, vac-packed and ready for action. British drinkers turn their back on traditional British ales, and the UK hop industry starts to founder. With wonderful symmetry, American craft brewers become interested in traditional British (actually, damn it, they're English, aren't they?) hop varieties, and the UK hop industry is saved via export to the US (This was put forward by Venkatesh Iyer, head brewer of Leeds Brewery - I think it's such a wonderful idea that I'm going to start passing it off as my own).

Dragging bottled beer from California to Europe is, if you stop and look at it, a really stupid idea.
Most beer is around ninety five percent water, and comes in a heavy glass bottle. Why wouldn't you move the key raw ingredients nearer the point of consumption and make the beer there? It will be fresher, tastier, and cheaper in the long run. So while Sierra Nevada are approaching carbon-neutral status by virtue of solar power, CO2 capture and anaerobic digesters, they they squander all that by insisting on refrigerated transport for their beers. You can look it it the other way too - they've earned the right to use refrigerated containers by virtue of being so eco-friendly at the point of production. Of course, this raises the issue of whether a beer brewed under licence is the same beer. Sam Adams Boston Lager for draught dispense is now being brewed at Shepherd Neame. Some moan about this, I'm on the fence about it. Would we feel happier if Sam Adams built a European brewery? What about a generic European American Craft Beer Facility that contract brewed for, say, Sierra Nevada, Brooklyn, Sam Adams and Stone? Or do we need the brewery's badge on the door to make us happy?

A couple more further thoughts. I was asked what I thought future trends would be. I think freshness is going to be a real driver of growth over the next 10 years, and allied to that, I also think that gap between the producer and the consumer will become smaller, and maybe the brewpub will make a return. But simply put, nothing tastes better than fresh beer.

The second point comes out of this. As British consumers come to realise that freshness is important, so understanding will grow about the ingredients in beer, and how those ingredients are key to enjoyment. I've said it before, but what American craft beer is doing to the beer industry in the UK is similar to what happened in the late 80s with Australian wine - it demystified the subject and made it easier to understand. Citra is basically Aussie Chardonnay in hop form, and that's actually good thing. But a lot of the key American hops - Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe, Ahtanum - are owned by individuals and grown under licence as registered brands. The question was asked of me; what to do when the year's crop runs out. My answer is to stop production of that beer, and explain to the drinker why. This was, you reinforce the idea that beer is a natural, agricultural and, to a certain extent, seasonal product, and imbue with all those qualities beloved of foodies the world over. Maybe the reason that BrewDog stopped making Chaos Theory is that it rested solely on a particularly sensational crop of Nelson Sauvin one year? (Thanks to Stuart Ross of Magic Rock for suggesting this to me). If that's the case, why not make a virtue of it?

These aren't finished ideas, or even close to being fully-formed, but I'd still love to hear about it if you agree or disagree with any of them.

Flat Cap Beers Ted

I'll jump straight to the conclusion, because I'm going to use some words and voice some opinions here that may well spark a lively debate. I really like this beer, it's a classic English pale ale, with plenty of toffee, nuttiness and spicy, pithy bitterness - so much so that it might be said to be a modern take on a traditional style. It's bitter, edgy and pushes the envelope a bit. It's rad-trad, dad, and all the better for it. I don't like the branding one bit, but maybe that's just me. What I also find slightly jarring is the stab at contemporary branding while cocking a snook at traditional imagery. Is it post-ironic? Retro-modernism? I don't know, but I'm not keen.

Let's have a look at the label, shall we? Their tagline is "Flat Cap Beers: Top Notch Craft Beer". Hmm, craft beer. Well, it's beer, and it's been crafted, I suppose. Their take on the c-word is that it means "small scale and not mass produced, independent and created with human skill and care" - Flat Capper Andy Orr explained this to me in an email. Their Twitter feed adds to the debate: "Brewed in the West Country of England & the Czech Republic". Again, hmm. Am I being taken for a ride here? Am I getting the feeling I've been cheated? The other two beers in their core range - a Czech pilsner and a Czech dark lager - are still lagering in the Czech Republic. That makes them authentic continental craft beers, right?

Make no mistake, this is all rather rum. The knee-jerk response to this is that it is All Wrong, And Must Not Be Tolerated, Because, It's, Like, Not Very Craft Really, Is It? That would be too easy though. Think a bit harder. Know any brewers who brew great beer without owning a brewery? Let's call them gypsy brewers, make it sound more romantic. And do you know any craft breweries who, when suddenly faced by a huge surge in demand for their flagship beer, decided to have it contract brewed for them? Sorry to break it to you so harshly, but that's more common than you might think, and done by the most unlikely people. Some unwillingly admit to it when directly asked, others flatly deny it, but it happens. And every now and again, when a beer moves from a small plant to a big plant, with fancy modern gizmos like flow meters and hopniks, it gets better. How craft is that?!

Craft beer, authenticity, transparency - these are Big Ideas, but now I just don't know what to think. Care to help me out?

The Name's Double. Ampleforth Double.

As I emerge blinking from another round of the game I like to call "Dishing It Out About Beer" (go and join in the fun at the Fletch-curated Real Ale Reviews), I'm reminded of an event that happened 24 hours ago that throws the all the arguments about "craft beer", keg vs cask, the relevance of CAMRA in the 21st century et al into a cocked hat.

When you look at these beers, there's little to inspire confidence. Sure, they are pre-production samples, but there's nothing about them that makes you think "ooh, helloooo". You might raise one eyebrow at the monastic connections to Ampleforth Abbey, raise the other eybrow at the 7%abv. But then perhaps you'll lower the first eyebrow noting that sugar is listed as an ingredient, and then lower the second raised eyebrow when you note that the beer isn't brewed on site, but is actually contract brewed by Dutchman in exile Wim van der Spek at his Little Valley brewery near Hebden Bridge. All of this eyebrow waggling, resembling windscreen wipers on a rainy drive, might have given you the appearance of Roger Moore doing a mid-period James Bond. If, like me, your experiences with Little Valley beers have been a bit mixed - on cask, delicious and sometimes ethereal, in bottle, mmm, not so much - you might even have lowered an eyebrow by now.

Anyway, that frightfully clever, look-at-me-and-my-fancy-words preamble is a roundabout way of saying that last night I opened these beers, and they completely cut through the craft-cask-keg-CAMRA debate about where we go from here, because these are simply very well-made beers, and great examples of what they should be. Perhaps my expectations were lowered from all the eyebrow waggling, and I have to say that the initial banana and acetone notes that wafted out of the glass were a little unnerving, but given a couple of minutes to breathe, this blossomed spectacularly into a really solid, slightly sweet, slightly boozy Belgian-style double/dubbel.

I know, I know, it's really unlikely, but there you have it. I spoke to the guys at the abbey today and they have a colossal first bottling run booked in. I won't say exactly how much, but my initial "yeah, I could sell a bit of this, but I wonder how much?" finger-in-the-air estimate of how much to buy was about a half of one percent of the total production run. They're clearly slightly mad - the only English abbey beer, brewed under licence by a Dutchman 50 miles away - but like all mad things, there's an element of greatness to it.

More pertinently for me, it underlined that actually the key thing that makes a beer great is, very simply, that it must be well-made. No doubt some smart-arse will pop up and say "but that's the definition of craft". Well, bullshit. There are well-made beers, and then there are the rest. If you can brew a beer and get it into a glass free from any production flaws, and tasting broadly how it should taste (let's not use this as an argument about styles), then you'll have made me, and a legion of drinkers, very happy. It seems like a modest set of desires, doesn't it? Brew a beer free of flaws, ensure it carbonates properly, and tastes (for want of a better word) nice.

Anyway, I drank the first bottle of badly-labelled, contract-brewed Ampleforth Abbey Double, and when I got to the end, I thought "was it really that good?" and drank another one to make sure. And you know what? It really was that good.

Sucking Up A Social Class: Some Further Observations

As Boak and Bailey point out on their blog, there is a lot of debate at present around "craft" beer and snobbery. I was going to post on their blog about why this is, but then realised that it probably warranted a post all of its own.

There are a couple of things going on here. One is the conflation of money and class, a peculiarly American concept. Could it be that the "craft" beer movement, as well as drawing beery inspiration from the USA, has also imported a load of social values along with it? There are a lot of naysayers who object purely on principle to paying £10 for a bottle (or a pint) of beer. I'm not exactly sure why that is - it would be easy to say that it's jealousy, but I think there's something more fundamental going on. I think it's the idea that there is something posh, snobby, pretentious - call it what you want - about spending your money on fancy, rare or expensive beer. Just as I'd defend anyone's right to spend their money on anything that they want (as long as it isn't criminal, in the legally defined sense), I'd also defend anyone's right to express their discomfort about it. But that's just what I think - I'd love to hear your views on that idea.

Tied into this is the idea that people who buy fancy, rare or expensive beer are doing so because they somehow think they are better than people who don't. For this to be true, there would have to be a substantial amount of blog content denigrating the sort of beers that "only" cost below £3 a pint. But I can't find anything, anywhere that says anything like that, BrewDog's publicity machine aside, of course.

Ah, the B-word. Has BrewDog stance on "industrial" beer become so well disseminated that now people are conflating their views with that of the "craft" beer movement as a whole? Or are they closer than "craft" beer lovers would like to think? Or is it really simply about money and snobbery?

Hi, My Name's Zak, And I'm A Hypocrite

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been 1,716 weeks since my last confession, and in that time I've been guilty of the sins of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, acedia, lust, envy, vanity and pride"

"You said lust twice, my child"

"I'm sorry father, I like lust"

I like to think that I'm as even handed with "ordinary" beer as I am "craft" beer. A nervous glance back through my recent posts (did I only post once in October? That's sloth and acedia for you) suggests that although I do post about rare and hard-to-find stuff, I also post about easy-to-find stuff too.

Coupled to that, a recent theme in my posts has been to support independent retailers - no particular reason, other than it's what I do for a living, and I think that independent retailers have a very clearly defined role in the beer market. Having said that, I'd be interested to hear what you think that role is.

However, I have to admit to having strayed from the path recently. I live a 3 minute walk from a Morrisons supermarket, and the other evening, having just driven home from a warehouse with around £100k of great beer in it, I discovered that I didn't have any beer that was appropriate to my mood. I didn't want any homebrew, any Fuller's Gales Prize Old Ale, any Stone Old Guardian, any Birra Del Borgo KeTo Reporter, any Hair Of The Dog Adam, any Hardknott Granite (Batch 1), any Williams Bros Fraoch 20, any Thomas Hardy Ale. What I wanted was a couple of bottles of BrewDog Punk IPA. And Mozzers sells it.

I confess, I went to a supermarket and bought some "craft" beer. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, I'm delighted that it's available to me (and other shoppers) so readily. On the other hand, I'm saddened that it's available to me (and other shoppers) so readily.

What do you think? Is the chase part of the fun? How hard should you have to look for "craft" beer? Is it any less "craft" for being in a supermarket?

The Revolution Will Not Be Economised

It's the annual awards dinner of the British Guild of Beer Writers this week, which for me is increasingly becoming an anchor point in the year, perhaps more so in beery terms than Christmas, birthday or New Year. The picture above was taken in the Euston Tap almost a year ago, the day after I won the Molson Coors-sponsored National Journalism category. I was having a beer, staring off into space, and wasn't aware of the photo being taken. That picture has also recently appeared in the online and print editions of The Economist. Leaving aside the tiresome cliché of beer making you fat (the caption to the picture prompted fellow blogger Nick Mitchell to point out that "1.4m influential businessmen, professionals, economists and thought leaders now think you're fat.") and the questionable fact that fancy beer has any snob value at all outside of a very small circle of people, it's a pretty decent summary of the situation.

That things are changing in the beer world isn't in doubt. What is surprising is the potential for growth that the niche end of the market is providing - indeed, it's where ALL the growth is at the moment. In a year that's seen me invest roughly two thirds of the value of my home in a warehouse full of beer, my senses have become acutely tuned to business side of what's happening at the bar (or more commonly, at the off licence), as well as what simply tastes good. I'm happy to report that it's not just a lot of noisome bloggers creating an illusion of a scene, it is actually going on in real life too. Of course, you knew that, because you're part of it, but the view from the other side of the fence, the bit that needs to pay the bills in order to feed the interest, is happy to confirm it: Call it what you want - craft beer, really good beer, beer - it's not just a bubble, or a phenomenon, or the flavour of the month. Sure it's niche, sure it's small, but at a time when the media is focusing on the bad (neatly summed up here), there's a part of the economy that is in growth, and that needs to be celebrated. Perhaps with a beer.

Image from The Euston Tap's website

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?*

Just as we are at a high point for beer in the UK, so are we at a high point for beer appreciation. Like anything that elicits passion and opinion, the beer world is riven with various factions. CAMRA are unquestionably the old guard, and as of today, there are two new kids on the block - Craft Beer UK, and CAMRGB, the Campaign for Really Good Beer.

CAMRGB (website here) were first out of the blocks by my reckoning, and I like their cheery, naive (or is it faux-naive?) approach. It also helps that their logo is reminiscent of the Cuban flag, but that's sort of by-the-by. They clearly state their aims on their homepage, and it's difficult to disagree with any of them. In fact, that's the problem - it's so commendably all-inclusive that it's hard to know who will say "hell yeah, I like beer and fun, this is something that I can really get behind!". Or more pertinently, who could disagree with those sentiments? It's so warm-heartedly bouncy and eager that to dislike it would be to dislike a puppy. "Sodding puppy, with it's floppy ears and big paws, and wide-eyed innocence... aww, go on then, come here and have a cuddle". There's a saying that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything - I wonder, how does the epithet end if it starts "If you stand for everything...."?

At the other end of the scale, we have Craft Beer UK (website here), who set out their stall very clearly. The c-word is ever-present - not that one, you dirty-minded beast, but the more nebulous term, craft. In their "About" section, Craft Beer UK attempt to set out their stall, arguing that "the term 'craft beer' has been used in the UK to refer to artisanal brewers who focus on quality over quantity and brew good beer", a definition that is somehow simultaneously so broad and so narrow as to be meaningless. Is there an innate nobility in brewing less beer? Are Sierra Nevada somehow less craft for being the world's largest consumer of whole cone hops? You can work out the answer to that, I'm sure. Even more worrying is the fact that Craft Beer UK will admit breweries to their roster on application, but with an element of peer review (see this tweet and their stated membership policy). This slightly undermines their claim that craft beer is something more than "beers that I like" (see Phil's post on craft beer, and my comment of the FUBU brand for more analysis of this).

Just as neither of these organisations needs any endorsement from me, neither should they take my opinions too much to heart. It's great to see people getting behind beer, and unquestionably the drinking public of the UK might benefit from a heightened awareness of their drinking options. But I do worry that neither of these organisations is bringing enough to the table. My experience is that many people still have a bit of trouble with the notion of what exactly constitutes real ale, so trying to bring a nebulous term like "good beer" or "craft beer" into the public arena may ultimately do more harm than good. That's not to say we shouldn't try, but as the title of the post asks: *Who Will Watch the Watchers?

To The Crafterati: An Apology

There's been a lot of debate lately (notably on Beer Birra Bier and Tandleman's blogs respectively) around how best to go about reporting bad beer experiences. This is a topic close to my heart, as I've been accused on more than one occasion of being one of the 'cheery beery' crowd - reporting how great everything is, and never passing comment on anything bad.

Like many commentators, I think it's a tough call. I prefer to focus on the good experiences, but that's not to say that I never give bad feedback. The majority of my reporting back is direct to the brewers. Plenty of times over the last few years, I've had need to tell people that their work isn't up to snuff, and I'm not talking about taking a pint back - most often, it's been multiple cases, or a whole run of one beer, and once, nearly a full pallet of bottles.

Most of the time, there's no need to 'go public' with these things. Sometimes beer does make it into the supply chain before a fault is spotted, but in relatively small quantities. I've seen beers pass into circulation, and people pass comment on them. Most of the time, these beers are withdrawn or sent back. It's irritating when this happens, but is mostly handled correctly by brewers.

But that's not the main thrust of this post. The main idea here is to pick up on some things I said about The Crafterati a little while ago. I'm happy to hold up my hands and say that I was wrong about a few things in that post, or at least gave the wrong impression about what I thought. And here's why.

When I see people criticising 'boring brown beer', it irritates me. It irritates me because these 'boring brown beers' are part of our brewing heritage, and these are the beers that inspired a generation of American craft brewers. They were inspired by imports to the US in the 80s, or by visiting the UK, and then they brewed beer with local ingredients. And when Ken Grossman chose local Cascade hops with which to make Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, he defined a beer style, and to a lesser degree, the entire American craft brewing movement. And we all know how influential that movement is in the UK today.

I love some boring brown bitters. Hook Norton Old Hooky, Batemans XXXB, Wadworths 6X - classics all. They taste great, and are living icons of a classic ale brewing tradition. I like boring brown bitter so much that when Denzil at Great Heck Brewing invited me for a brew day (that's him mashing in - yes, that's quite a full mash tun), I wanted to do an ordinary brown bitter with knobs on. Sure, it's a single-hop beer, dry-hopped with a shedload of Apollo, but at it's heart, there's crystal and amber malt. Yummy, nutty, and ordinary with knobs on. It's like a great meat and potato pie - done well, it's indisputably fabulous. Denzil and I will be launching it at North Bar in the next couple of weeks - do come along and let us know what you think.

But hold on. Those beers that I love are have been around forever - that's part of their appeal to me. What is inexcusable - and here's where I'm making kissy-kissy to the crafterati - is that there is still a lot of crappy brown beer being made. If you're going to make a beer that takes a classic as its model - say Bateman's XXXB for the sake of argument - you'd better damn well improve on it. Every week, I receive samples of beer that are both dull and badly made. And that isn't good enough. And so this is the bit where I set out my stall and say sorry to The Crafterati - you're right, there's no excuse for that sort of rubbish.

Of course, that knife cuts both ways. To use a recent example, on International IPA Day, at Mr Foleys, I bought a couple of beers that I left after a few sips - there's no excuse for making unbalanced, clumsy hop-and-malt bombs either. So along with a new tranche of traditional brewers making inexcusably boring and faulty beer, we have a new wave of radical brewers occasionally trying too hard.

Change is good, but change for the sake of it - substituting the new crappy for the old crappy - strikes me as a bit pointless.

The Crafterati

I write for the trade publication Off Licence News. They're good enough to let me write more or less what I want, as long as it's related to retail. Although the main news pages are always up to date, the "industry comment" sections aren't. So below is the column that was published today. It's not really so much about craft beer, more how that beer is enjoyed, and how that impacts on the marketplace.

What I will say is that there is something about beer that makes people exceptionally passionate about what they believe, even in the face of reason. For what I consider to be one of the text-book examples of the chest-beating that gets aired whenever we beer geeks get aggravated, see this thread on Tom Cannavan and Roger Protz's Beer-Pages.com. And stone me if I don't find much to agree with in one of Cooking Lager's recent posts, not to mention Phil at Oh Good Ale.

I'm not "doing a Kevin" and not asking brewers to brew beer within narrow constraints. Quite the reverse, I'm celebrating diversity, and trying to underline the fact that, from the bottom to the top, the British brewing scene is as lively and diverse and stuffed full of passionate people as it ever has been. That's what the SIBA's "Proud of British Beer" video is about - sure it's a plea to the Chancellor to stop shafting the industry via punitive taxes, but it's also about the incredible diversity in beer at the moment. With very few exceptions, the brewing community is tightly-knit and celebrates that diversity. How come the consumers don't?

Anyway, here's the column in full - I hope it provokes some thought and comment.

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There's a discussion rumbling around the beer blogosphere at the moment that is related to the rise in interest in American craft beer. The nice thing about American craft beer, apart from it being as tasty as hell, is that it has both a standardised definition by the American Brewers Association, and also by shorthand use. The ABA's definition relates to volume of production and an emphasis on flavourful beer. It's basically set up to talk about tasty beer from largely small, largely independently owned breweries.

But the problem that has arisen is that a lot of vocal beer geeks (and I use that term with love, and recognition that I am one) have started using the term 'craft beer' to talk about the rise in American-influenced beer brewed in the UK. Whereas a few years ago, we had premium bottled ale, and even super-premium bottled ale, now we find that these terms aren't enough to describe the rise in small-production, American-accented beers.

The big problem comes because nobody can define what craft means in a UK context. Whereas 'real ale' has a text-book definition, pertaining to the beer's method of storage and maturation, there is a big problem when you start bandying the term 'craft' around, as it seeks to exclude a tranche of the brewers in the UK who are producing perfectly decent British beer.

The joy of British beer is that it draws on a long heritage, has been gently influenced over the centuries by improvements in brewing practices and, lets not forget, the introduction of hops in the 15th century from mainland Europe. It's quite apparent to anyone who drinks (for example) a Greene King IPA, and then a BrewDog Punk IPA, that these two beers are dancing to two very different soundtracks. In my opinion, both have a place in the repertoire of the beer drinker. Many disagree about being so eclectic, and both of these beers that draw on the IPA moniker have their vocal champions, and also their vociferous denouncers. But that doesn't mean that one has more right to be brewed, or drunk, than another.

But this is where the 'craft' argument starts to unravel. BrewDog are seen as craft brewers by what I'm going to call the crafterati, producing bold, American influenced beers with an iconoclastic streak. The crafterati see Greene King as a dinosaur brewery, making boring beer for boring people. Of course, they conveniently overlook the fact that Greene King have been wood-ageing beers since Noah was a boy, and not in a way that gives a beer the seductive, easy-to-understand polish of the bourbon barrel, but in a huge vat, blackened by time, gently sending beer sour and being blended to produce a classic old ale.

The crafterati are producing a division in the beer world, seeking to endorse some beers and denounce others, sanction some breweries and our scorn on the rest. In its most complex iteration, the crafterati will divide a brewery's output into craft and non-craft – see for example, the smaller volume output of Stuart Howe at Sharp's brewery vs. Sharp's flagship brand (and undoubtedly Molson Coors' target in the recent takeover) Doom Bar. Doom Bar, ordinary brown bitter – Monsieur Rock, high-concept craft beer.

As you can tell from my vague distancing myself from the crafterati, I'm not sure that this point of view is an entirely welcome development in beer appreciation in the UK. But from a retail perspective, it's important to understand how the marketplace is changing. What you decide to do with that understanding, however, is up to you.

Craft Beer: What Does It Mean?

I'm not much of a one for off-the-peg ideas, but Phil at "Oh Good Ale" completely nails this debate to the wall. I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, but he nicely sums up the intricacies and pitfalls of the question.

My point of view is that trying to find a category name for the beers that we enjoy isn't as important as explaining why they taste like they do. Once people understand what malt, hops and yeast are (I'll take water as read), and how they contribute to flavour, then things might start to change. It's easy to preach to the converted, but a bit harder to talk to the merely curious.

Having spent a decade doing that (talking to the beer curious) behind the counter of what was once a fairly good off licence, but is now a really great beer shop, I can tell you that explaining people what makes a beer great isn't as much fun as drinking it. But as always, education makes a difference, education is the key.

POSTSCRIPT: I'd also point out that education cuts both ways. I've had plenty of people ask what makes American beers taste the way they do, and on finding out that it is largely American hops, they've asked which beers don't contain American hops. And that's just fine too.

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Beer Vs. Fashion In the Land of the Tall Dwarves*

You'd never guess it to look at me, but I quite like fashion. I used to work for a small producer of very high-end printed textiles – in fact, that was my first job when I quit school at 16 years old. I even occasionally look at a couple of fashion blogs – Swagger 360 is my favourite.

The fashion business is a funny one. High fashion (couture) is the bit that gets everyone excited. The press lap up London Fashion Week, New York Fashion week, Dolce E Gabbana. It gets column inches, it gets the press and fashionistas worked up into a lather, but it is about as far remover from what people wear on the street as it is possible to get.

But the top end is where the icons work. There is a bit of trickle-down effect, where what happens on the catwalk influences high-street fashion. It would be unkind to call this sort of influence 'knock off' – at least it shows that someone is paying attention, and that there should be a bit of attention paid to what we wear.

However, the majority of what happens on the catwalk has little or no influence on what people actually wear. Despite the column inches given to sheepskin, metallics and wide-cuffed ankle boots, the delirium induced by a zip-up-the-back dress, and the brouhaha about marble print.

Does this ring any bells for beer-lovers?

Inspired by Phil at 'Oh Good Ale'

*the 'tall dwarf' comment came up at the Guild dinner last week. It's a faintly disparaging way of saying 'in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king'.

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