The Rise of The Cuckoo - or - 2013 (What The Fuck Is Going On?)

This is written from the perspective of my day job - hell, my only job. For those of you who don't know, as well as the shop Beer-Ritz in Leeds, I also co-own and co-manage the wholesaler Beer Paradise.

Part of my job at the moment is saying no to people. Not customers, not drinkers, but producers. Brewery numbers in the UK have topped out around 1000, a high point in our lifetime, even for old gits like Zythophile.

Almost a year on from writing this and this about cuckoo/gypsy brewers, I find myself swamped, besieged, inundated by enquiries from people who have brewed (or are about to brew) beer, and wondering if I would be interested in helping with the distribution of it. Some of it is pretty damn solid, and none of it is actually bad. Some of it is still words on a piece of paper, or images in a thought bubble brought to life by the excited passion of the recently converted.

I'm torn. It started out about nine months ago, saying no to perfectly decent beer purely because we had our next couple of months' listings figured out ahead of time. Then the supply from our favourite breweries started to run short, overcome as they were by demand from the newly-converted drinker. It got ridiculous, with large scale breweries (some of whom I mentioned in this article as people who we had been buying from since year dot) unable to fulfill orders.

Couple to this the fall-off in consumption of more traditional British ales, and it doesn't take much for someone with (say) a 20 barrel plant to suddenly find that they have spare capacity, as the demand for their trad brown starts to wane. What better way of keeping things ticking over than to contract for some eager brand visionary with a sack of hops under one arm, and a sack of money under the other.

So it's good business sense all round. Capacity is filled, drinkers are satisfied, cuckoos sing happily. A new generation of gypsy brewers starts the journey with a single step, following the trail that has been blazed for them by Mikkel. Indeed, so revered is Mikkeller now that it doesn't seem to be a brand - it's a brewery, a person, a story being told in water, malt, hops and yeast.

So why is it all starting to leave me a bit cold? Is it the fact of being sold to before there's a product to buy? Is it that I somehow perceive cuckoo brewing as not being fully committed? Do I perhaps smell a rat in the sense that people are seeing a market to exploit, and creating products to do just that, as Ed points out elegantly in his recent post?

That can't be it, as I have visited breweries who make a virtue of producing commercially accessible, consistent beers with a cutting edge leaning - not very romantic, but solid, tasty beers nonetheless. I feel that's better than the scattergun approach of many breweries who are learning their trade in public, missing the mark they were setting out to hit, but selling the beer anyway.

To paraphrase the KLF: 2013 - What The Fuck Is Going On?


That picture of me was taken at Sharp's Brewery in 2009. I look much older now. Much older.

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. 

Beer-Ritz - Bottling Success.

This is just a little heads up about Leigh Linley's interview of, er, me, over at Culture Vultures. It was very nice of Leigh to take the time to do this, and also interesting because it was more focused on independent business than on beer.

The most telling thing aspect of it, for me, was the fact that I started working at the shop in 2000. My claim that ‘We were selling beer before a lot of the current cream of UK brewing existed. We were pretty pleased when they finally joined the party’ isn't hyperbole or braggadocio, it's just fact.

Anyway, times change. Beer is certainly hip right now - whether that translates into it becoming popular, reversing the apparent decline of recent years, is something that only time will reveal.

On a related note, the nominations for the annual Observer Food Monthly Awards are open. While it's obvious who I want you to vote for, there are other categories that we don't fit into, and other businesses that need your support and recognition. You can vote here (it's a bit weird - you have to submit your details first - but I'm sure you'll get it).

European Beer Bloggers Conference 2013

This just in from the organisers of the conference - press release starts starts here:

The 2013 European Beer Bloggers Conference takes place July 12-13 in Edinburgh, Scotland http://beerbloggersconference.org/europe/ The conference offers industry representatives and members of beer media the opportunity to get together for a few days to talk and learn more about beer and the beer industry. There are over 1150 non-industry related beer bloggers in the world. We expect 120 of the most enthusiastic “new media” beer influencers to attend in 2013.

This is the number one event in which you can meet, learn from, and make connections with beer bloggers - the "citizen" influencers who write about beer on a regular basis on the internet. The content is also geared towards using social media in the beer world, which is a huge part of today's industry marketing.

You or someone at your brewery may use social media to promote your beer events or your latest brew. Good idea. If you want to learn about using social media more effectively attending the conference as a participant is also a good idea. You or they can register here: http://beerbloggersconference.org/register/

The following marketing opportunities are still available. Benefits and costs of the sponsorships are listed below the signature.

• 2 more breweries to take part in Live Beer Blogging

• One brand has the opportunity to host an After Hours event at the Edinburgh City Council Chambers starting at 9PM on Saturday evening, July 13th

• Sponsor to host lunch on Saturday, July 13th from 12:00 to 1:30. This is an opportunity to share a variety of beers, food and information.

• Premier & Event Sponsors

Press release ends here.

Anyone interested in the last few sponsorship opportunities should contact Reno Walsh ( reno(at)zephyradventures.com ).

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.

Resisting The Wine-ification Of Beer

That's a litre of homebrew, fresh as a daisy, glistening with condensation. PHWOAR!

You want to moan about beer getting too fancy? Oh look, Rome's on fire - grab a violin and join the party.

Are You Missing Something?

Are you missing something? You are if you haven't read this post by David Preston, and the very well thought out response to it.

To summarise: There is a conflict between reports of the beer industry being in steady decline and the current buzz around the industry.

Why are these two factors at odds?

Is it an artefact of only using stats that are readily available (e.g. data from electronic point of sale tills derived from larger on- and off-trade chains)?

Is it that the growth at the micro- to middle-sized end of of the brewing industry isn't being charted?

Is anyone recording total brewery output and/or sales across the whole industry, from the majors to the boys and girls brewing in sheds?

One further point not raised by David or his lone responder: What effect on this decline does drafting in the accountants to save £6.6 million by reducing the strength of John Smiths Extra Smooth from 3.8%abv to 3.6%abv? Is that part of the solution, or part of the problem?

Your thoughts please, if you have any on this subject.