Stoptober

I'm no friend to the public health industry. I'm also sceptical about most charities, especially health ones. MacMillan on the other hand is, as far as I know, very good. It provides nurses to help care for people with cancer. That's a great thing to do and I applaud them for it.

I am very annoyed with them now because of their latest temperance campaign. TV commercials, media coverage, all asking people to give up drink for October. 

Having a month off the sauce is no doubt a very wise course of action for everybody, maybe even as often as once a year, but since when was it MacMillan's job to add its voice to the throng of puritanical guilt trippery coming from the largely publicly funded public health "lobby"? 

Furthermore, do you remember the fuel protests of the early 21st century? Some people tried to organise a protest whereby nobody bought any petrol on one certain day of the week. The point being that the supply chain wouldn't be able to cope and the oil companies would have to slash prices on that day or face overflowing storage tanks. Same goes for the drinks industry. Nobody's saying you have to get pissed every day. It's good for people to have some time off the sauce. But all at the same time? That could push quite a few businesses, social amenities and livelihoods over the edge.

There are already plenty of preachers in the health charity sector without MacMillan adding its hitherto sensible voice to the din. If you are involved in or value the beer and pub industry you might like to think about suspending any future support for MacMillan until next October when you'll find out whether they intend to continue their assault on your living. Unlike MacMillan however, I'm not going to tell you what to do.

Annual "Complain about CAMRA" season in full swing.

It's that time of year again. After the wonderful preamble of complaints about what beers CAMRA chooses to buy for the massive beer festival it puts on without any subsidy, it's now time for the main event. Complaining About The Winner Of Champion Beer Of Britain. Deep joy.

Not being one to go with the herd I have two points to make here. The first being specific to the CBOB competition, the second being generally about CAMRA.

1. The CBOB competition is an extremely high profile event (whose rules are a mystery to me) which serves the purpose, among other things, of highlighting real ale to those who may not have tried it. 

Everyone I know who moans about the result annually is, like me, into more radical, hoppy beers, IPA's and suchlike. Good for them. I would like to pose this question to such moaners as a group. Do you think that the best way to convert people from John Smiths Smooth etc. or mass lager to real ale (that's the aim, forget craft beer for now) is to get them to try a West Coast style IPA? Really? 

I don't. My experience is that my road from drinking lager and not really liking it to swilling uber hoppy 10%ABV IPAs and loving it went through a good few stages. Gateway beers if you like. In the same way that a proportion of kids who enjoy eating candy cigarettes will end up doing crack, there is a progression to these things. I started off with extremely trad real ales and ended up drinking keg IPAs. Never would have happened without CAMRA.

This is my point with a lot of moaning about CAMRA. There is no need for them actively to promote keg IPAs. What they are doing already is massively helping that section of the market.

Results like this will encourage people to try a pretty inoffensive, technically good real ale. IPA makers should be pleased about this, the same way crack dealers are pleased when someone tries Marijuana.


2. Somebody said to me yesterday, "CAMRA should be abolished." I think this phrase neatly encapsulates the attitude that a small group has toward CAMRA but I would argue that it is based on a completely false premise. 

Because of CAMRA's huge success it has a lot of influence. It doesn't have that influence because of legislation or because it is in receipt, like the public health lobby for instance, of public funds. Therefore it cannot be abolished. It has to answer to nobody but its members. 

If it was failing maybe its members might hold it to account. They might even complain about who won CBOB, but I'm afraid I have to remind the moaners that all it has to answer for is more success than any other consumer group in the UK ever.

I personally would like to thank CAMRA for its role in creating the fantastic, exciting and varied beer market that we operate in. I salute you. I may even do so with a pint of Boltmaker.

Another Expansion

I haven't blogged for a while so it's past time for a post: This isn't the usual biting insight though, just an update on our current expansion and where we're going with the brewery and the beers.

Some of you may already be aware that we decided to expand the brewery again, it's only just over two years since we more than tripled our fermenting capacity, in the face of demand which pretty consistently outstrips supply.

The plan, which is well underway, will see us move everything except the office and the brewery itself off the site at Great Heck to a new refrigerated packaging site and warehouse in the neighbouring village of Balne, about three miles away. This will allow us ultimately almost to double our fermenting capacity at Great Heck, and will instantly give us an extra 20 brewer's barrels per week of capacity.

This will be achieved by converting our two existing 12 barrel conditioning tanks into two 10 barrel fermenters. Our existing procedures see all beer spend some time in one of the CTs before being racked into casks and this will still be the case using a fleet of 800 litre mobile Stainless Steel CTs which will be filled at Great Heck and taken, for storage and emptying into the appropriate containers, on a trailer to the new site which is currently being specially adapted for that exact job.

The logistics of this sometimes strike people as a little far-fetched but in fact it will eliminate many of our operational problems here at Great Heck. Notably reducing manual handling and it will give us a much better chance of filling the correct casks with the correct beer, thus giving more efficient utilisation of our container fleet.

Cask washing, vehicle loading and storage are also being moved to Balne which means I should get my back yard back! Other positive results are that we will be able drastically to reduce the number of vehicle movements in the village of Great Heck and in addition to an extra fermenting room, which is currently used for cask storage, we will be able to develop a staff canteen and visitor centre/bar at Great Heck in one of the current coldstores.

A new Role is being created as part of the project. Whilst Jarno @drumlordsj will be in charge of production at Great Heck, Karine @3somegirl will be promoted to Overlord of Balne where she'll be working with new boy Barry Weetman and our new drayman, Ged.

The extra space at Balne means we are going to be filling our own keykegs and there's a possibility of doing our own bottling at some point in the future as there is potential to expand our new premises when we are ready. Keykeg products will start off with Yakima IPA, Shankar IPA and Black Jesus. We'll also soon be kegging Amish Mash in proper Steel kegs and making it available to pubs looking for an alternative to the ubiquitous permanent German Weizen.

Thanks to all our lovely customers, now in the UK and abroad, we are experiencing huge demand and we're really looking forward to being able to come a bit closer to meeting it. Hopefully our beers should be just a little bit easier for you to find in the coming year. I hope you enjoy them.

Cheers!

Denzil. 
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Reactionary Attitudes in (fringe) Media

It's Saturday and I'm drinking beer by the fire in my pyjamas so I finally have time to unveil my slightly amused thoughts on a "blog" which is in fact, and I apologise for this, really an article in a huge .pdf of a fanzine which you can read here http://theedgemag.co.uk/blog/pdf/edge_january2014.pdf . If you can't be bothered to read the whole thing you will have heard similar stuff before: "This modern hoppy beer is a load of undrinkable piss water and everyone who thinks it's good is suffereing from Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome." To provide a short summary.

The article in question was posted on Facebook by +Sue Hayward earlier this week and I found the reactionary sentiments within it somewhat familiar. Particularly because, even though, as previously established, I am always right, I used to expound such sentiments myself to anyone who would listen. Famous listeners of the past including none other than Richard Burhouse, now of Magic Rock, then of MBT and Justin from Moor brewery, both in the same sitting. It was pretty much the only time I ever met Justin (For some reason) and the first of many hilarious japes with Richard. 

I explained in detail to both of them why they were mistaken in thinking that Richard's particular favourite USIPA which he'd brought to the SIBA conference was good and that, on the contrary, it was like drinking ear-wax, except that ear wax would have been clearer.

In my defence I will say that I did not lump all hoppy beers together in this. At the time I was already a big fan of and indeed in the early stages of acting on my inspiration by Sierra Nevada IPA and the like, and I still am a fan although my homage is not in such an early stage any more. the thing I've always admired about American beers is the level of flavour and aroma achieved combined with low or moderate bitterness. Hopefully you can taste that in Great Heck Beers. 

Nonetheless I now publicly admit to Richard and my few readers that, in spite of years of leg pulling fun which must probably draw to a close hereafter, I was talking out of my arse.

What it comes down to is the perception of the drinker. Does he or she like what he or she is drinking or not? That's all that matters. 

Some of my readers will be at some point in a journey of acquiring a taste for hoppy beers. I think that's how it works. Luckily for brewers like Richard and Justin that development of a taste for it seems to be a one way street. You're as likely to switch back from drinking Magic Rock to drinking John Smiths as you are to switch back from crack to Vick's vapo-rub. It's a one way street. A one way street with many stops along the way.

My journey started with beers like Landlord. I remember trying it and thinking how amazingly full of flavour it was. It blew my mind. It was and still is a great, iconic beer but I don't drink it or particularly like it any more. It's not Timothy, it's me. I'd probably drink a gallon of that stuff Richard forced on me at SIBA 09, or whenever it was.

So what does this say about our self published journalist's reactionary editorial? Remember when you were a teenager and you had a boyfriend or girlfriend? You thought they were ace right? And they probably were but would you go back to them now? Maybe you would but it probably wouldn't be much fun. Our columnist is, in beer terms, still seeing his first girlfriend. that's fine. Maybe they'll stay together forever and be perfectly happy. It doesn't mean I'm stupid for shacking up with a hot blonde 12 years my junior though does it? 

The difference is, I know what I'm missing and he doesn't. 

Hahahaha! (Loudly)

www.greatheckbrewery.co.uk