Author: PeteBrown

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The “culture of binge drinking” and the credulous academics

The latest piece of binge drinking research would be funny it if had been written by a comedian. The fact that it is apparently serious is profoundly depressing.
The BBC today reports that a culture of binge drinking is ‘well-established’ in north-west England. Liverpool’s John Moore university discovered this by going out around town centres on Friday and Saturday nights and interviewing people who they thought looked drunk.
They were horrified to discover that these people were indeed drunk, and that they intended to carry on drinking.
This is, apparently, newsworthy.
Among the shock insights uncovered by this crack team of researchers are:
  • “drinking at home before a night out and drinking later into the night may be associated with higher levels of drunkenness in city centres”
and
  • “drinkers who planned to stay out due to extended opening hours were the ones intending to drink the most”
So far, so many bears defecating in forests. But the bit I find astonishing, given that this report is coming from a supposedly reputable academic institution which presumably applies a certain amount of rigour to its research methodology, is “one in 10 (15% of men and 4% of women) believing their total alcohol intake would be more than 40 units before going to sleep”.
This gave Sky its headline for its coverage of the story, and prompted Alcohol Concern chief Don Shenker to comment “That some people are drinking over these amounts in a single evening is cause for real concern.”
So let’s get this straight: you went up to a bunch of pissed people on a Saturday night, interrupted their evening to ask them questions about their drinking, and when they told you they intended to drink the equivalent of 20 pints of beer, four and a half bottles of wine or 27 gin and tonics… you believed them?!
Did you also believe them when the lads told you they all had 12 inch knobs and had shagged all the most attractive girls in town?
Either Don Shenker and John Moore University are simpletons who have no understanding whatsoever of how people behave when they’ve been drinking, or they’ve knowingly bought in to a study which any serious researcher would laugh out of the room for its deeply flawed methodology, and cynically presented it as fact when they know it can only be taken at best with a huge pinch of salt.
And as the final link with reality is severed, what picture does the BBC choose to illustrate these supposed 40-units-a-night drinkers?
Go on, have a guess.
Correct!
Twenty pints of real ale please. We’re all going out to get bollocksed out of our minds on J W Lees Bitter.

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“An innovation set to revolutionise the beer category”

Press releases. I get sent an increasing number of them.
Some of them are genuinely useful. Many others are completely irrelevant (when have I ever done anything that suggests a professional interest in female sanitary products?) Often they confuse what a press release should do – supply a writer with news, information, quotes and angles for potential stories – with a really crappy attempt at writing the story itself that would insult the intelligence and credulity of a three year-old.
I was thinking of sharing the most outstanding examples with you instead of simply binning them – perhaps introducing a ‘press release of the week’ feature – and then, I received one this morning that changes everything, redefining the entire genre.
The headline on the email from Zoo Communications crashed through my hangover and pulled me to attention – this was a prize scoop and no mistake: “Anheuser-Busch InBev UK launches Budweiser Brew No. ‘66’ – an innovation set to revolutionise the beer category”.
Wow! They weren’t mincing their words! Words like:
Innovation: defined by Dictionary.com as “something new or different”.
and
Revolutionise: “to effect a radical change”
Bud 66 eh? What could it be, this new or different thing that’s going to bring about radical change in the beer, um, “category”?
Because beer is going through a very exciting time at the moment, with plenty of innovation going on: we’ve got style mash-ups like ‘Belgian IPAs’, explorations in wood ageing beers, ingredients like strawberries or spices being added to beer, an endless search for new hop flavours from around the world, and regular smashings of the ‘world’s strongest beer’ record. What could AB-Inbev possibly be up to that could top that?
With shaking hands I clicked open the press release. Boy, Zoo Communications are good. Usually a press release gives you what you need to know, if not in the headline, then in the first line of copy. Not this one. More like a Steven King novel than a press release, it just continued to build the suspense.
AB-Inbev president Stuart Macfarlane declared Bud 66 “our most important business action in 2010”.
This is the world’s biggest brewer we’re talking about. Their ‘most important business action’?This really was serious.
But why were they embarking on such a radical, revolutionary departure? Why? Because according to Stuart, you, the drinker, demand it: “Consumers, and in particular consumers in their early twenties are looking for something new and different – and it’s up to us to continue providing compelling product offers that reflect their needs and tastes.”
Not just “new or different” but “new AND different”? Oh I’m almost pissing myself with excitement here, PLEASE Stuart, tell us what it is!
Halfway down the page, he finally gives in: Bud 66 is “A lightly carbonated lager brewed with a touch of sweetness for a smooth, easy taste at 4% abv.”
I’m sorry? A what!?
“A lightly carbonated lager brewed with a touch of sweetness for a smooth, easy taste at 4% abv.”
Hang on a minute, that sounds a little bit familiar. Why might that be? Ah, the press release goes on to tell us: “Over the past few years, AB InBev UK has catered to the premiumisation trend with the launch of Beck’s Vier and Stella Artois 4%.”
Oh. Right. So a 4% lager still counts as ‘innovation’ if you’ve done it twice before in recent years then?
In fact hang on, it’s not that dissimilar to Bud Silver, the 4.1% beer launched by Anheuser Busch in 2006 which was discontinued a couple of years later.

So, apart from a few caveats:
a) it’s just a 4% bottled lager, which isn’t new to the beer market by any conceivable logical definition
b) it’s not new to A-B Inbev
c) it’s not even new to the Budweiser brand
d) it’s going to taste stale because it’ll be lightstruck, thanks to being in a clear bottle (unlike other Bud beers, to be fair)
e) no one wanted it last time something very, very similar was launched,
this truly is an innovation that’s going to revolutionise the beer market!
Well done, A-B Inbev! Well done, Zoo Communications!
Let’s have more where this came from!
“Hello, I’m Stuart Macfarlane, and this is a bottle of 4% lager. I swear to you I have never before – in my entire life – seen anything remotely like this. And neither have you.”

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Beer Porn

Beers of Europe is my favourite mail order beer shop.

And you can believe me when I say that because I’ve asked them in the past about discounts when I buy beer for tastings and events and they’ve ignored me, and yet I’m still saying how much I like them.

They asked me to feature this video on my blog. I think they asked a lot of people and they did it months ago. I’m just catching up.

So here’s some beer porn. I kept waiting for a punchline or something which never arrives, but the one thing it does very well is convey the sheers epic scale of the range.

Enjoy.

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Why Beer Matters – Second place runner up

People seemed to enjoy reading John Bidwell’s piece, (and it’s gratifying to see the competition topic still being discussed on beer blogs) so I now present the entry that narrowly beat him.

Shea Luke is a young woman who really enjoys drinking real ale. That shouldn’t be extraordinary, but some people seem to think it is, and in the piece below Shea tells us how she deals with that.
What the judges liked about this one was its energy and freshness. There are a few women writing about beer, some with a great deal of success, but it would always be helpful to have some more if we want to convince women (and men) that there is no inherent reason why women can’t drink beer too. We liked the attitude here and hope to see more of it!
WHY BEER MATTERS
The most common reactions I get when people find out about my geekily keen beer passion are “How do you stay so slim?” and “What’s it like hanging around with loads of bearded old men?” Granted, it’s unusual to find a 26 year old, female girl about town, who has drunk around 1200, and continually counting, different British beers since records began. These are only my records, of course, in four consecutive Good Beer Guides, but my obsessive carrying around of these near sacred tomes, and the subsequent broken handbag straps and scarred shoulders, will surely convince you of their trustworthiness. By the way, just in case you are a particularly curious type, this number does not include the hundreds of foreign beers I’ve supped; I have to draw the ticking and record keeping line somewhere, people. This achievement, whilst undoubtedly nerdy for such a groovy gal, which I assure you I am in most other aspects of life, is a fact I am always quick to point out to the handful of ‘bearded old men’ who still advise me to stick to something weak or fruity. You see, these 1200 odd brews are not just evidence of a deep love of beer, but an (admittedly thus far relatively short) lifelong quest to sample and delight in our country’s beers. Beers from both ends of the strength spectrum, beers from all corners of the nation, beers that represent a long heritage and history, beers that began as an enthusiast’s home brew, beers that use local produce, beers that help keep vital community pubs alive, beers that bring likeminded people together, beers that push boundaries with unusual and exciting ingredients, beers that simply make your day that bit better, beers that just taste darn good. Let it be known that I am willing to stand my ground to fight for these beers, even if I have to argue with an outdated girlphobe to get my hands on them. Hands which, for your information, are not so small and delicate as to require a special mini, stemmed girly glass, and while we are at it, no I wouldn’t prefer a vodka, yes I do know that there are more stouts than Guinness, and no, it really doesn’t need to be fizzy for me to enjoy it. But, as a fellow curly haired revolutionary said, the times they are a- changing, and it really is just a teeny handful of fuddy-duddies who persist in derogatory ‘you are a girl, you don’t know anything about beer’ comments. I now have a faithful collection of bearded (and clean shaven) pals who are interested in my beer related opinions. Young people who are equally proud of their ale geekdom, people from other beer minority drinking groups (like my pensioner friend form the Caribbean who claims we are two of a kind, fighting the corner of underrepresented ale lovers), and a London based brewer who might be producing a special for my wedding (you don’t get that from Smirnoff). But none of them look as good as me in a Dark Star Brewing Co. T-shirt. Or pint glass shaped earrings. Beer matters. It matters to all those people. It matters to all the pub landlords in the cities and towns around the UK that my Good Beer Guide led holidays take me to. It matters to the microbrewers in manky derelict farm buildings that have left jobs in the city to pursue their passion and to help nourish ours. It matters to the retirees whose social calendar revolves around manning the beer mat flooded tombola. It now matters to the Spanish girls in their twenties that I met at a recent beer festival who asked for something like San Miguel but left drinking porter. I’m not a brewer, I’m not bearded, I’m not retired, and I am absolutely not a bloke, but, do you know what? Beer definitely matters to me.

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Ready to play? What’s the day? It’s bottling day!

Hello, I’m Brian Cant. *Sighs wearily*. Yes, I AM sure it’s spelled with an ‘A’!

This is an admission of being an old fart now I guess, but do you remember Play School? The highlight of every programme – before you were old enough to be sneery about who was hotter, Hamble or Jemima – was when they went through one of the windows to look at the world outside their pastel-toned Neverland. Would it be the square window? The arched window? Or the… the……. The ROUND window! That pause taught Chris Tarrant and Reality TV presenters everything they know. Once safely through the appropriate window we always seemed to end up in a factory. After a while they all blurred into one, but they never failed to fascinate. In the 1970s Britain’s economy was still manufacturing-based, and there was something both soothing and compelling about watching unidentifiable bits of extruded plastic pass along a conveyor belt, through various stamping and shaping and colouring and bending and cutting machines, the duff ones being lifted from the belt by blank-faced yet somehow cool factory workers in white coats and hair nets, until at the end you recognised ranks of shiny, brand new dolls. Or cars. Or ready meals. Everything in creation seemed to come from a production line, and Play School visited every single one of them. The windows seemingly looked in on God’s own workshop.I’m reminded of this every single time I visit a brewery. Because while beer writers and beer lovers may profess a passion for hops, or yearn to see ancient coppers still toiling away or breathe in the fruity aroma of rocky yeast from open square fermenters, as far as the brewers themselves are concerned there is one star attraction and one only: the bottling line.

God moves across the face of the brewery
We often talk about the uneasy and complex relationship between the brewer and his yeast in which the microscopic organism is always the ultimate boss. But the same applies to the bottling line. It’s a cruel mistress that enslaves and fascinates them. They love it and hate it. They want to smash it with hammers on the frequent occasions when something goes wrong, and to become one with the elegant dance of its shiny, sterile perfection when it works properly.The last brewery I visited was Hall & Woodhouse, and despite the extensive tour which included watching the beer being mashed in, the bottling line wasn’t running and they couldn’t apologise profusely enough. To hear them, you’d think they’d got us all the way to Dorset under false pretences. They genuinely thought they’d let us down. This reaction is exactly the same whenever I visit a brewery where the bottling line isn’t running.But be afraid if you visit when it is running. At the main SABMiller brewery in Milwaukee they show you a video of how beer is made, then take you on a tour of the bottling and packaging lines, and the distribution depot. They tell you all about how much beer they ‘truck and train’ across the US, and then it’s on to the tasting room. When I asked if we were going to see the actual beer being brewed on this brewery tour, I was told no, because compared to the bottling and distribution of beer, brewing itself is “pretty boring”.Perhaps in Miller’s case that’s true. But even good breweries worship their bottling lines like Pacific Cargo Cults venerate aeroplanes.

You’re impressed, right? You sure as hell better be, boy. You don’t wanna make me come over there, I’m tellin’ ya.
When I visited Asahi in Tokyo we had to watch the bottling line for half an hour. We were given every single specification. They told us that the man who invented Kaiten sushi – the conveyor belt with dishes that come around to your seat – was inspired by watching this very bottling line. He probably dreamt it up in desperation, a ruse to get out of there. “Yes, it’s lovely, really it is, but I’ve got to dash – I need to, um, that’s it! I need to invent a completely new model for how restaurants work! It’s been lovely though, Bye!”For the rest of us, paying homage to the bottling line is a sort of penitence, a sacrament that must be performed before we can proceed to the heaven of the sample room. So you stand in a strip-lit metal cavern, mute as the shrill chink of glass deafens you, and watch reverentially for about five minutes, pondering. Wow, think about how much beer that is. If you drank two or three bottles every day, how long would it take you to get through that lot? Gosh, they’re a much bigger brewer than you think. And then when you run out of such reflections you turn and indicate that you’re ready to move on, and the brewer looks at you, first hurt, like you’ve said you can’t tell what his five year old son’s drawing is supposed to be of, and then angry, and he grabs you by the hair and slams you against the safety railings and twists your heads to face the conveyor, and growls, “Look at it. I SAID LOOK AT IT. WHAT? YOU’VE ALREADY LOOKED AT IT? WELL LOOK AT IT SOME MORE! AND KEEP LOOKING AT IT UNTIL I TELL YOU THAT YOU’VE LOOKED AT IT ENOUGH!”Two hours later, hungry and scared, you see him finally turn without a word and leave through a door you’d forgotten existed, into a world you never thought you’d see again. And then you’re in the sample room tasting beers and he’s back to his old self, and everyone pretends nothing happened, and you have a great time.
I said look at it.
Bottling lines are expensive pieces of kit and amazing feats of engineering, so many tiny parts all working in concert. Something has to go wrong, and when it does it must be as frustrating as it is when I spend hours working on a document and then the computer crashes and I lose it. And I know that bottling lines can transform the fortunes of a brewery.
But what I could never say to a brewer’s face is that, while we understand that to you your bottling line is unique, and beautiful, and the best one in the whole world, to us it looks like all the other bottling lines, and when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. And remember – a lot of us saw Play School when we were kids too.
And if I’m ever invited to a brewery again after writing this post, I will insist that the entire thing is a joke and in no way reflects my truly feelings, my enduring love and fascination for these wonderful, beguiling pieces of machinery.

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Crackdown on mythical creatures as new Mandatory Code comes into force today

Tinkerbelle: barred from UK pubs under tough government measures coming into force today.

Irresponsible creatures from the world of faerie including pixies, elves and sprites will be barred from pubs under tough new powers introduced from today, announced Home Office Minister Alan Campbell.It is estimated that magical creatures cost the UK taxpayer between £8 and £13 billion a year. The mandatory code introduces five conditions for all alcohol retailers which will ensure consistent good practice and crack down on problem premises where irresponsible drinking by mythical creatures could put individuals at risk and lead to crime and antisocial behaviour. (We said ‘could’, because of course there’s no evidence that it actually does.) The conditions coming into force today are:

  • banning irresponsible creatures such as pixies, elves, sprites, boggarts, kobolds, goblins, orcs and level six halfling thieves
  • banning “dentist’s chairs” where drink is poured directly into the mouths of customers making it impossible for them to control the amount they are drinking – or at least, that’s would would happen if there were any pubs that actually ran them

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said:”Like the dentists’ chair promotion, creatures from the world of faerie may not actually exist outside the feverish imaginations of Daily Mail readers and one tacky bar in Newcastle, but just think what it would be like if they did. A minority of them would continue to take part in irresponsible activities which fuel the excessive drinking that leads to alcohol-related crime and disorder. I mean, centaurs may not really exist, but you can bet that if they did they’d be right bastards, necking blue WKDs for all they’re worth and shitting all over the floor of their local ‘Spoons. So it’s best that we just take the precaution and ban them. Even though they don’t exist. I mean, it’s easier to find a photo of an elf than it is a dentist’s chair promotion, so if we’re banning the dentist’s chair, it’s better to be safe than sorry and go the whole hog, banning everything else that doesn’t actually exist.”The code will see an end to these entirely fictitious creatures and drinks promotions, ensure premises check the ID of those who appear to be underage or have suspiciously pointy ears, helping to make our government look tough by pandering to a neoprohibitionist that inhabits a strange fantasy world with ever fewer links to reality.”

Bilbo Baggins was unavailable for comment.

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Cask Ale? There’s an App for that.

Today sees a big drumroll for Cask Ale Week, which officially launches on Monday.

Two exciting things this morning:
Firstly, The Independent, the official media partner of Cask Ale Week, has published a cask ale supplement. I’ve written the intro and a piece on the history of beer, and there are also pieces by Protzy on the rise of microbreweries, Tim Hampson and Tom Stainer at the Kelham Island Tavern, none other than Al Murray rhapsodising about cask ale and British tradition, and Neil Morrissey on his life in beer. Follow the links by all means, but please do try and buy the paper as well – they need all the sales they can get!
Secondly, Cask Marque and Cyclops today launch Caskfinder, an iPhone app. Now I’ll be honest: when you see Cask Marque’s somewhat dated, cramped website, I didn’t have the highest of hopes for this. But having just downloaded it I’m absolutely blown away by it. I can see it’s going to be indispensable.
First, there’s an encyclopedia of every beer rated using the Cyclops tasting notes – currently just over 1000 – searchable by beer name or brewer, with tasting notes and the opportunity for you to record your own rating of it.
Second, there’s a directory of every one of Cask Marque’s 6000-odd pubs. Let your iPhone know where you are and it flags up the nearest pubs to you – you can also download this onto your car Satnav. Googlemaps gives you the address of the pub, a link to their website if they’ve got one, and details of any beers on tap that have been tested by Cask Marque’s assessors.
Then there’s a directory of brewers – don’t know how many bit I’d guess a couple of hundred. You can see all their beers, back search from here to find the pubs that serve them, link to the brewers’ websites, and find the brewery in a map.
There’s a directory of upcoming beer festivals with full details, locations, maps etc, a featured beer of a week, and and, er, an RSS feed to this blog! Looks like I’d better tone down the profanities from now on.
And it’s absolutely free.
I know there are some people who are sneery about Cask Marque, and critical of Cyclops. Some breweries claim their own quality standards are higher, and people don’t like the format of the Cyclops tasting notes. But in each case, while they may not be perfect, they are rapidly becoming national standards. This app shows the confidence and vision that cask ale as a beer style now has. For pubs and breweries that have not yet signed up, or feel they don’t need it, I’d say it’s worth signing up just be be on this app. The more pubs and beers it includes, the more indispensable it will be.

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Cask ale and lager: friends or foes?

It’s Cask Ale Week next week – and Roger Protz and I will be celebrating by singing the praises of lager. No, it’s not a premature April Fool. I wrote in January that drinking unfiltered, unpasteurized Budvar straight from the conditioning tanks in Ceske Budejovice was one of the most amazing taste experiences of my beery life so far. It was exquisite, a completely different drink, and it underlined to everyone present that great lager is every bit as superb as great ale. Well, next week I get to drink it again, without having to go to the Czech Republic – and you can try it too. On Tuesday night, 30th March, The White Horse at Parson’s Green will be cracking open some of the unpasteurized, unfiltered nectar flown straight in from the brewery, and Protzy and I will be singing its praises and talking more generally about the difference – and similarity – between ale and lager. I’ll be focusing on what I learned at the fascinating Guild of Beer Writers lager seminar at Thornbridge about 18 months ago, questioning our conventional understanding of how you define lager, discussing examples of beers on the borderline. Then, the Protzatolah will share some of his research on the history of lager brewing, challenging conventional wisdom that lager is inherently somehow inferior in quality to ale, and showing that lager brewing actually goes back much further than most of us think. Admission is free but places are limited, so if you’re keen, it’s best to book a place with the White Horse now. Things kick off at 7.30ish. See you there!

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Thunderbird Zero – you’re fired.


Just realised I can’t bring myself to use this picture any more after today.

It might be funny, but I love Thunderbirds. It was my favourite show when I was growing up. You know what? It still is.
International Rescue helped people. They saved lives. Made the world a better place. This man is an disgrace to the uniform. It’s an insult to Scott, Alan, Gordon, Brains and especially Virgil to associate this fucking moron, this retard, with their legacy any longer. (And yes, I know ‘retard’ is politically incorrect. But not as politically incorrect as ‘cunt’, which is the only other word I can think of.)
I hereby proclaim that Alistair Darling is off the SupermarionationTM roll-call forthwith.
I was going to do a post sounding off about the budget in detail, but what’s the point? Everyone else from CAMRA and BBPA to the entire UK beer blogosphere is venting their spleen, and I agree with them, but I’ve nothing additional to say. I have been thinking about where we go from here though. And I plan to write quite a bit about that, real soon.

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