A Bank Holiday Monday seems an odd time for Carlsberg Marston’s to announce a major story about Britain’s brewing heritage. But we live in odd times. Whatever – it’s good news.
Sometimes there’s a happy ending.
In January, Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC) announced that they were getting rid one of the last remaining pieces of Burton-on-Trent’s brewing heritage. For decades, the old Marston’s brewery insisted that you couldn’t brew proper Marston’s Pedigree unless it went through the unique, eccentric Union fermentation system. Then suddenly, the story changed, and you could brew Pedigree even better in the same kind of fermenters everyone else uses.
Anyway, now it turns out that at least one of the Union “sets” has been saved. It’s currently being installed at Thornbridge in Derbyshire (photo above). This was announced, sort of, today by CMBC, who posted the tweet below. At the time of writing, the accompanying link is broken and there’s no relevant press release currently on the CMBC website.
Happily, Thornbridge will be providing clarification over the next day or so. And I’ve had a sneak preview.
The deal seems to have been orchestrated by Garrett Oliver, legendary brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery. Oliver has had a close relationship with Thornbridge for many years. And Brooklyn Brewery has a longstanding commercial relationship with Carlsberg. (It’s complicated – Carlsberg don’t own Brooklyn, but do have international rights to sell Brooklyn beers in Europe and other parts of the world.)
Oliver said:
“When I heard that the unions were slated to go silent, I immediately thought that Thornbridge would be the perfect inheritors of this beautiful piece of British brewing heritage. I’m thrilled to provide the ‘assist’ on this historic play.”
For their part, Thornbridge are going to do some really exciting things with the Union set that kick against the narrative that contributed to CMBC’s decision to discontinue the Unions: that cask ale is supposedly in terminal decline and brewers can’t make money from it any more.
For anyone wondering what the hell a union set is and why it’s important, this would be a good point to explain. It would be perfect if this news could have waited till after my forthcoming article in Ferment magazine on this very subject. But that’s going to be a week or two. And it’s now. So let me sum up briefly.
In the nineteenth century, Burton was the most important brewing centre on the planet, home of the OG IPA. The Union system emerged in the town in the mid-nineteenth century. It was a curious – no, let’s not beat around the bush – it was downright weird and strange and brilliant and British. A bunch of wooden barrels or a “set” – sat horizontally alongside each other in a kind of scaffold. Held in union. On top of this scaffold sat a big iron trough. Swan-necked spouts stretched form each barrel into the trough. After beer had been inoculated with yeast, it would be pumped into the barrels. As it fermented, the yeast pushed up through the pipes, foamed into the trough, and sat there happily for a bit before gradually running back into the barrels. It would keep doing this until it finished fermenting. Why? Apparently, it kept the yeast really happy and healthy, and that meant better beer. You want a definition of craft beer that’s actually about, y’know, the word “CRAFT” rather than who owns what? This was it.
That’s why it’s important that at least one Union Set has been saved. This is our brewing heritage. When Burton produced a quarter of all the beer in Britain, plus a big chunk of its exports, all Burton breweries used unions. To be fair to Marston’s, they clung to the unions decades longer than everyone else did.
CMBC cited “Low volumes due to the decline of the UK cask market” as the reason why “using the Union sets is no longer viable.” So why does a brewer like Thornbridge think they are?
Starting with a brew of their flagship beer, Jaipur, they plan to follow up by brewing other well-loved beers from their armoury, some brand-new new beers specifically designed for the Union set, as well as collaborations with other brewers who are keen to see what a union-fermented version of their beers will look like. I’m told at least one of these will involve Garrett Oliver, sooner rather than later.
Every aspect of this serves to premiumise cask beer, which is what cask beer has to do if it is going to thrive.
Let’s see what else Thornbridge reveal. Let’s see if CNBC can decide if they’ve issued a press release or not before then. I’m sure there’ll be lots of hot takes on this. But Britain now has an authentic union set brewing beer again. Which it didn’t have before this deal was struck.
A new press release about the rejuvenation of Britain’s most famous ever beer brand causes more problems than it solves.
Oh, you shouldn’t have! No, really.
I don’t go out of my way to drip withering scorn on Anheuser Busch-InBev, but they always seem to be able to trigger me when they announce the launch of a new beer. A few years ago I did a conference presentation on how (and how not) to do innovation, and when I illustrated this with numerous examples of rubbish launches, it started to look like a vendetta against the world’s biggest brewery. It wasn’t meant to be. They just gave me more instances of all that was wrong with marketing hype, more consistently, than any other brewer.
And so we come to last week’s announcement that Bass Ale is returning to the UK, and a launch which is pretty much a perfect case study in corporate bullshit being sprayed over something the corporation in question neither knows nor cares about.
A bit of background: Bass found fame in the early 19th century as the quintessential IPA (when IPAs tended just to be called ‘pale ales’.) Brewed in Burton on Trent, it superseded Allsopp’s, the town’s original big hitter in India, and went on to become the first ever global beer brand. Its distinctive red triangle was famous all across the British Empire and beyond, and became the UK’s first ever registered trademark, narrowly missing out to German brand Krupp’s in being the world’s first, in any product category. Bass was so admired that less talented, less scrupulous brewers would simply copy the label and pass off their own beers as Bass, necessitating the move.
By the mid-twentieth century the allure of IPA had faded, but Bass was still one of the biggest and most famous beer brands in the UK when a period of rapid consolidation began among breweries. The second wave of this consolidation in the late 1990s saw Inbev acquire Bass – by then a massive conglomerate still based in Burton on Trent – only to be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. They ended up having to sell most of Bass (the company) to what is now Molson Coors, but confusingly held on to Bass (the beer) and proceeded to largely ignore it in the UK for the next twenty years. When approached and asked if they didn’t want it, AB-InBev replied they would sell UK licensing rights (inaccurately reported as being for an outright sale of the brand) for £15 million – essentially a massive middle finger extended to anyone who thought the world’s most legendary beer deserved better than the neglect they were showing it.
So now, instead of selling or ignoring it, AB-InBev is apparently relaunching it. I should be happy about this. I don’t think I am. With reference to this article, here’s why.
1.The headline: AB-InBev announce they are ‘bringing back’ Bass ale to the UK on-trade.
No it isn’t, because Bass Ale never left the UK on-trade, despite appearances. It’s been brewed under licence by Marston’s for years. It’s simply been given no support by its owners. Where you occasionally found it, it wasn’t bad – if it had been treated right. So the headline is factually inaccurate, and merely draws attention to the fact that if it ever felt like Bass had disappeared from the UK, this was entirely AB-InBev’s fault.
2. The picture: ‘Imported Pale Ale’.
The same visual used at the top of this blog has accompanied every story about this launch in the UK drinks trade press, so it is obviously the image that was sent out by AB-InBev themselves with the release (or at least, I’m assuming it is – for some reason, they no longer send me their press releases directly. Can’t think why.) The reason they won’t sell Bass to anyone else is that even though they may not care about it in the UK, it makes a lot of money for them as an exported beer to markets such as the US and Japan. The image accompanying the story about relaunching Bass in the UK clearly shows a bottle of Bass saying that it is ‘imported’. So either:
(a) They’re planning on brewing UK Bass abroad, for some unfathomable reason, or
(b) They’re going to dishonestly sell beer brewed in Britain as a beer imported to the UK, for reasons, again, that I cannot possibly fathom, or
(c) They couldn’t even be bothered to find an image of what UK Bass will look like to accompany the announcement of its relaunch. If it’s launching in December as stated, the new label – if there is a different one – will have been signed off months ago. But they couldn’t even be arsed to find a reference to it.
3. AB-InBev is launching Bass is to ‘reinvigorate’ and ‘reignite’ the UK’s premium ale category.
The sheer, Trumpish arrogance of it. The UK’s premium ale category is doing just fine, thanks. The astonishing growth of craft beer means that nearly one in four pints in the UK on-trade is now cask ale or craft beer in other formats. Even when you take craft out, ‘premium’ ale is doing way better than ‘standard’. BBPA data shows ‘premium ale’ is more or less steady in volume terms in the on-trade. But here comes AB-InBev to the rescue of a category they haven’t cared about since they arrived in this country. The category doesn’t need ‘reigniting’! Its already on fire. Which is of course the real reason they’re now relaunching Bass after all this time, to exploit a healthy category rather than altruistically reigniting a struggling one.
The press release also reminds us that AB-InBev owns Stella Artois and Budweiser. Without disclosing the actual figures, the Marston’s On-Trade Beer Report shows that in the on-trade, Stella Artois is in single digit decline, Budweiser is in double-digit decline, and so is Stella 4%. Maybe ‘re-ignite’ your core brands first, eh guys?
4. ‘The beer will be made at AB-InBev’s brewery in Samlesbury, Lancashire.’
Because in a market where provenance, tradition and heritage are some of the key drivers, who gives toss where an iconic beer is brewed, am I right? Bass pale ale made Burton-on-Trent the most famous ale brewing town in the world. Across the planet today, pale ale brewers still ‘Burtonise’ their water to give it the unique mineral profile that made Bass so famous. Bass is being brewed right now under license in Burton, by Marston’s. But yeah, let’s relaunch this premium, iconic brand that’s indelibly associated with the world’s most beer town by making it in a factory in another county. While we’re at it, let’s make Cornish pasties in Croatia, Roquefort cheese in Slough, and vintage champagne in Barnsley. Because it doesn’t matter.
5. ‘Bass was the world’s first pale ale.’/’Bass is a pale ale pioneer’.
Oh fuck off. I’m sorry (I’m trying to rein in the bad language and anger on this blog and sounds more professional) but fuck the fuck off. Even the most cursory reading of the history of pale ale/IPA shows this simply isn’t true. Bass was not even Burton-on-Trent’s first pale ale, let alone the world’s. Readily available records of ‘pale ale’ go back at least 160 years before Bass was even founded. Allsopp’s were sending pale ale from Burton to India for almost a decade before Bass got in on the act. There are only two possibilities here: either AB-InBev haven’t even been bothered to read about the history of the brand they’re relaunching, or they are knowingly lying. The problem in this press release – as in any other by this company – is their clear display that all this stuff is just marketing copy to them, to be used in the moment as they see fit, whether it’s accurate or not.
6. ‘We can’t wait to reintroduce shoppers to this historic brand.’
Bear in mind that this is a story specifically about reintroducing Bass to pubs. They could have said ‘pub-goers’, ‘people’, drinkers’, even that lazy catch-all ‘consumers’ – given that beer is actually consumed – but they choose to describe punters at the bar in a pub as ‘shoppers’ instead. To my mind, this suggests that’s all AB-InBev see people as – entities that shop. All that matters is that you buy the beer and hand over your money. But even my assumption is true, it’s still a weird thing to say out loud. No one else describes pub-goers as ‘shoppers’ – it just sounds wrong. It makes it sound like you don’t understand what a pub is. A halfway competent PR might have said, “You know what? This may be typical of the eerily robotic language we use internally, but maybe we should change it to something that sounds more normal and human if we’re speaking publicly.”
They didn’t.
7. “5.1%”
I don’t mind that Bass ale is 5.1% ABV. That sounds good, in line with what the style should be. What I do mind is that this is the only detail they see fit to mention about the beer itself. We get stuff about its illustrious history (which AB-InBev had nothing to do with.) We get stuff about its success as an export beer. But true to form for the world’s largest brewery which in fact cares nothing whatsoever about beer, there are no details at all about what ‘shoppers’ can expect if they drink Bass pale ale as opposed to just buying it. Is it brewed to a traditional Bass recipe? Given the focus is on bottles, will it be bottle-conditioned or not? What hops are in it? Will it differ at all from the existing cask version? Is it brewed with traditional British barley or has it been re-worked? FOR GOD’S SAKE WHAT DOES IT TASTE LIKE? These are the things that people who are truly interested in the premium ale category care about. They seem not to have occurred to the company that thinks it is going to ‘reinvigorate’ that category.
I hope the relaunched Bass ale is a phenomenal beer. I truly do. I’ve probably written more about this brand than any other beer. In the history of food and drink, it is comparable to champagne or cognac in its significance. If it tastes great, I will buy it (can’t imagine there’ll be samples in the post) and I will publicly say that it tastes great. But when the most interesting thing they can say in the press release is that a beer with the same name (I doubt it’s actually the same beer) went down with the Titanic, I only get a sinking feeling.
*Update, 19th November*
I asked AB-InBev on Twitter about the ‘imported’ claim in point 2, above, and they had the courtesy to reply.
It turns out that the bottle featured here is the right bottle, and that AB-InBev do in fact plan on selling Bass dishonestly in the UK as an ‘imported beer’. Their exact response was ‘The name is a nod to its international popularity and to differentiate it from other Bass ales in the UK.’
As I pointed out in response, it’s great that they want to talk to British drinkers about the success of a British-brewed beer overseas. But the correct word to use here would be ‘exported’ – the precise opposite of the word they intend to use on the bottle. The fact that they are also selling the beer in the US-format 355ml bottle instead of the standard UK measures of 330ml or 500ml also leads me to conclude that this is a deliberate and knowing attempt to mislead British drinkers into thinking Bass Ale is an imported beer. That’s why I have now reported this to the Trading Standards Authority.
If you love beer, and think you’re a good brewer, this is like Masterchef and Pop Idol rolled into one.
Steve Wellington, Jedi Master Brewer of Worthington White Shield, is looking for a new Padawan.
White Shield has long been a legendary, semi-mythical beer, with a hardcore of devotees sighing wistfully at its very name, a few others going “Dunno, can’t see what all the fuss is about,”and a vast majority in the middle saying, “White Shield? Is that still around?” or “White who? Never seen it.”
For me, it’s one of the best beers in the world. It traces an unbroken lineage back to the 1830s as one of the genuine IPAs brewed in Burton on Trent and sold in Calcutta. When I was researching Hops and Glory I found records of it being imported to the Calcutta docks. It was dwarfed in size by Bass and Allsopps. but did steady business. Allsopp’s is no more, and Bass is in trouble. White Shield has certainly had its ups and downs, almost disappeared after brewing was contracted out from Burton, but was rescued and revived by Steve about a decade ago. Since then, it’s won Champion Bottled Beer of Britain and Steve has been named Brewer of the Year.
But all this was happening on a tiny, ancient three-barrel museum plant, that looked lovely, had a personality of its own, but was showing her age.
That’s why, at a time when most UK macro brewers were disinvesting in ale, Molson Coors took the relatively enlightened step of giving Steve a brand new, state-of-the-art £1m brewery to play with in the newly reopened National Brewery Centre in Burton. The macro has seen that there is a future in ale and decided to take a bit of an interest.
The new plant has been operational since the start of the year. So far, the only thing Molson Coors have done wrong with the new William Worthington Brewery is let marketing have the final say on the names of the new beers that come out of the plant alongside White Shield. Marketing has misunderstood the brand and declared that every beer has to have ‘Shield’ in its name. So the first seasonal is called ‘Spring Shield’. Nice beer, silly name – the master brand is William Worthington, guys.
Anyway, within a few months the new brewery was working at capacity, and today Molson Coors will announce that it brewed more beer in the first quarter of 2011 than the old girl did in the whole of 2010. So successful is it, they will also be announcing the search for a new brewer to work with Steve and his fellow brewer Jo White. It’s a dream job: one of Britain’s oldest and most revered brands, on one of Britain’s most modern and advanced small breweries.
We shot this month’s video blog in Burton on Trent at the Brewing Industry International Awards, a prestigious competition that’s back after a six year absence. 800 beers from around the world judged only by active brewers – no beer writers, no industry figures, this was about excellence, peer-to-peer.
And there wasn’t too much emphasis on beers being ‘to style’. The focus was on ‘is this a great well-made beer?’ and ‘is this a beer that drinkers would/should love?’
Anyway, the competition took place in the reopened national Brewery Centre in Burton – a great location to talk all things beer. We talked to Steve Wellington in the new William Worthington Brewery and tasted a couple of beers.
These awards are notable in that brewers are judged only by their peers – other brewers. Pundits and hacks like me don’t get a look in. (This led to a fantastically entertaining meltdown by a certain beer writing legend when the Guild of Beer Writers discussed at the first AGM I ever went to. As I said at the time, it was worth the price of joining the Guild on its own.)
Anyway, there’s lots of stuff here about categories, judging and all that. In the gap since these awards were last held, the World Beer Cup has become pre-eminent in this field. The BIIA are joining to give them a run for their money once more from now on.
But what interests me most is not yet official news, but was revealed yesterday by Ruth Evans, CEO of BFBi, which runs the BIIA (OK, that’s enough acronyms for one blog post), at a conference we were both speaking at. Ruth said that at the end of the competition, there are approximately 10,000 pints of beer left. Wouldn’t it be a good idea if, instead of pouring this beer down the drain, they had an international beer festival? As Ruth points out, it wouldn’t be like a CAMRA beer festival – it would incorporate the best beers from around the world, of all styles, and there would be plenty of brewers on hand to talk about them. And if this festival were held in the National Brewery Centre… well, talk about putting Burton back on the beer map.
Ruth stressed that nothing is definite yet – discussions are ongoing. But if this came of, it would fill the gap left by the extremely premature demise of Beer Exposed after just one fantastic event in 2008. It would be a phenomenal event for everyone involved in the global beer industry, and could be the start of something much bigger, giving Burton a new role on the global beer stage.
I urge everyone connected with the National Brewing Centre to play nicely on this, and any potential sponsor or media partner to jump in. Let’s make this happen.
Burton MP Janet Dean with Coors and Planning Solutions bods who are giving the Home of Brewing a lot to smile about.
It used to be the Bass Museum, then it was the Coors Visitors Centre, and for the last 18 months its been an abandoned, heartbreaking relic of the world’s greatest brewing town’s former glories. But tomorrow sees the official announcement of the opening of The National Brewery Centre. Coors have done a deal with a company called Planning Solutions to reopen the museum by Easter 2010. Planning Solutions run a host of leisure and tourism attractions across the country. According to Coors and Planning Solutions, “it will retain key elements of the existing facilities, updating and reorganising the site to create a unique visitor attraction that will ensure its success well into the 21st Century.” This comes after widespread protest from the town and the wider beer community. But I always felt that Coors were looking for ways to make it work – the PR mess that would have resulted from permanent closure would have been very damaging, and the people I’ve spoken to up there show a genuine enthusiasm for the chunk of brewing industry they now own. Planning Soluitons aims to introduce animatronics and ‘live’ actors to help entertain and inform visitors in full historical character. “The public’s expectation is ever-greater and we will make sure that all of the exhibits fully-engage with people of all ages,” says CEO John Lowther, “Having live actors fulfil roles previously held by plastic dummies, the visitor experience will be completely transformed. It will be a lot more interactive and immerse visitors into an historical setting.” Bars and restaurants will be incorporated in the plans for the new centre and these will be open to the general public and available for private bookings and live performances. The move has been welcomed by the town, its MP and the volunteers who have kept the exhibits in good condition while the museum has been closed. This enthusiasm stretches from the past to the future – the museum will feature a new 30-barrel brewery, overseen by Steve Wellington, legendary brewer of Worthington White Shield. This will be the hub for the full national launch of Red Shield, a new cask ale from the Worthington brand, and will also allow more brewing of legendary beers such as P2 Stout and No.1 barley wine. I spent two days in Burton a couple of weeks ago brewing with Steve and hearing about the future plans, and my fuller account of it will be in February’s edition of CAMRA’s Beer magazine.
I spent two days in Burton-on-Trent last week, brewing No.1 Barley Wine and P2 Stout in the White Shield Brewery with Steve Wellington. I’m spending today writing up the story – complete with some exciting news about the future of the brewery – for a piece in CAMRA’s Beer magazine. It’ll be running in the Spring 2010 issue, out around February.
Anyway, while I was up there, Mrs PBBB – sorry, The Beer Widow – phoned me to discuss Christmas pudding plans. We’ve never made our own Christmas pudding before, and she’d been rooting around for recipes. This is the week you ‘traditionally’ make your pudding, apparently. Anyway, she’d found a Delia recipe which called for some barley wine and stout. Hey, I was brewing barley wine and stout! There was no barley wine near to hand, but I was sure Steve would let me have a bottle of P2 for the pud.
But Steve went one better than that. Yes, he gave me several bottles of P2. But when I told him what I wanted it for, he also gave me a bottle of Queen’s Ale.
This is a special brew of No.1 Barley Wine brewed in 2002 to commemorate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. There are not many bottles left lying around the brewery, and we’d just polished one off for elevenses because Steve hadn’t tasted it for a while. It was sublime – dark and rich and sherrylike but not too aggressive. The age on it had done wonderful things, creating a beer that was still a beer but as soft and mellow and deep and satisfying as a vintage Bordeaux.
The thing is, Buckingham Palace use it to marinate the fruit they put in the Royal Christmas pudding. And that’s why Steve very, very kindly gave me a bottle to bring home for TBW.
This was one of those crises of conscience. All I wanted to do was stash it safely in my cellar, or maybe sneak it up to the study to enjoy to myself on a dark and stormy night. But Steve had only given it to me because of the pudding story. It seemed like a waste for such an amazing beer. But I wouldn’t have it in my possession otherwise. With a heavy heart and some anguished mewling noises, I gave it to TBW. On Friday night, after a few tweaks to the Delia recipe, she poured it over some fruit.
Well, at least our Christmas pudding will be as posh as the Queen’s.
Yesterday was the final mixing of the pudding before cooking. Its traditional to gather round and let each family member have a stir, and make a wish as they do so. I wished I could have some more Queen’s Ale.
Later, I went down to tidy the beer cellar and try to make some room – it’s a bit overfull at the moment. And lo, as I tried to make sense of the barley wine and vintage ale shelf, I found not one, but two bottles of Queen’s Ale that the generous-to-a-fault master brewer of Burton must have given me when we were working together brewing Calcutta IPA, my Hops and Glory beer.
Hops & Glory is just going through legal proof reading just before it goes to design and print, and it’s throwing up some bizarre battles to keep in some of my favourite pet lines.
It seems that legal issues over books have intensified since I slagged off Anheuser Busch in Three Sheets to the Wind to the point where I included the unproven allegations about one Busch family member escaping a manslaughter charge because the evidence that would have proven it mysteriously disappeared.
Those were the days!
Now, it seems that lawyers are reading non-fiction books with the sole purpose of finding something they can create a libel case out of, then contacting the injured person or institution, making them aware of what’s said and trying to persuade them to launch a libel action – largely because Britain has the harshest libel law in the world. My publishers have been hit with five writs in as many weeks, for stuff they thought was safe. Makes a change from chasing ambulances I suppose.
Anyway, one of several contentious issues arises early in the book, when I’m trying to convey the atmosphere in Burton on Trent today and harking back to its former glories. In the middle of this bit comes the following passage:
Behind the storm fencing and DANGER KEEP OUT signs outside the derelict Riverside shopping centre and the abandoned Club Extreme, the Salt’s Brewery well still runs beneath the litter-strewn concourse, workers’ portaloo and graffiti informing us in emotive and disapproving terms that Fat Lori of Derby is liberal with her sexual favours, complete with her mobile phone number.
It turns out that there has been a case where someone has referred to graffiti like this, then when the book is out the person on the graffiti has suffered harassment and sued. Would Fat Lori share the same fate?
The building in question was derelict at the time. I figured if it had been pulled down by now, the number would have vanished and no-one could harass poor Fat Lori. So I phoned my mate Rudgie (who you’ll get to know well in the book) and he confirmed the building is still there. However, he left his very busy desk at Coors to go and see if the graffiti still adorned it.
It seems the building has been fenced off and you can’t get near it. And someone has nailed what looks like a door to the wall which obscures most of the message, so all you can read is:
Fat Lori
is a
07
It looks like me, Pan Macmillan and Fat Lori are all safe. But in the book Lori has become Jodie, just to be sure.
Pete Brown is a British writer who specialises in making people thirsty. He is the author of twelve books and writes widely in the drinks trade press and consumer press.
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