Brewaucracy

DB are the champion brewer of NZ for 2010. It’s official.

You’re all waiting for my long and angry rant now, aren’t you? Go on, admit it. It’s OK, if you’d been around when I heard the news (as several good friends were – apologies to Jamie, Phil, Kieran, Graeme and others) you’d have got one. However, I’ve chilled out, relaxed, and hell, a part of me is even pleased about that result.

Why? Well, first, let’s address the result itself.

The trophy is awarded to the New Zealand brewery with the highest average score across its three highest scoring entries. DB, no matter what you might think of them, make clean, well made beers. They have previously had an unpleasant banana ester across most of their range which I personally can’t stomach, but that’s immaterial when part of the style description is “light fruity esters are acceptable”. I’ve also not drunk their beers for a long while now, so it’s a little unfair for me to criticise this, as it may not be so present anymore. In this case, the beers nearly perfectly epitomised the styles they entered. Arguably, many of these “NZ specific” styles were created for the Big Two so they have somewhere to enter their beers. The other side to that argument is they accurately reflect the beers NZ likes to drink. I’ll leave that argument to another blogger, as it’s a bit of a digression here, but it’s a debate which desperately needs to be had.

Historically, Lion Nathan balances these style categories. DB have medalled in some, while Lion Nathan have not, and vice versa. The Big Two almost cancel each other out for points leaving the craft brewers a fairly clean run at the Champion Brewer trophy. This means we’ve had two great winners in the last two years, being Tuatara and Emerson’s. It was inevitible at some point that one of the Big Two would dominate the other, and thus take out the trophy. 2010 was that year. Apparently it was only by a gnat’s nut that Three Boys were pipped, but there you go. That’s the nature of competitions.

OK, so what’s to be pleased about? One of those DB results was for Monteith’s Black. It won the European Lager Styles category, in which it won a silver medal (almost perfectly epitomises the style) and the trophy (so it scored the most points for style adherence in that category). It’s a lager. But it’s BLACK! This will be mindblowing for many “mainstream” drinkers, and thanks to the huge amount of publicity around these awards, it might wake a few up to the fact that lagers can be black, and that beer isn’t quite as simple as lager, dark, and draught. Monteith’s Black is a Schwarzbier – a German styled black lager. How many of those who habitually drink it will know that? Hopefully, a few more might think about that and it could be their entry point into the world of beer styles, and the amazing flavours they can bring.

Secondly, it’s caused a fair bit of embarrassment among many of the craft brewers who make up the bulk of the Brewers Guild, not to mention many SOBA members. From a SOBA point of view, we work hard year round to promote craft beer and the brewers who brew it. We support the Brewers Guild in nearly all things, but then that Guild’s event produces the only result the media will bother reporting (ignoring all the excellent beers and breweries who won medals and trophies) which sends the message to the public “why bother drinking all that craft crap when the best beer in NZ is made by DB”? They won’t look at the style categories, the results, or even read much of the analysis. They’ll just see that Champion Brewery result. So why is that good? Because it will hopefully force some change within the Guild. Hopefully this situation won’t happen again. I’ve heard a couple of good proposals from brewers and judges, and I have hope things will be changed for the better.

With that said, and taking my early anger into account, I feel a little conflicted here. The “good guys” failed to win at their own competition, and as a result, they change the rules to exclude or punish the “bad guys”. Is that fair? If the Radler episode has taught me anything, it’s taught me to play the ball and not the player. I bear DB no ill will at all. I just think it’s better for beer in NZ if craft breweries continue to win the awards and thus gain the publicity from BrewNZ and Beervana. Does that justify changing the award parameters? I don’t know. That’s what the comments section is for! This is a thorny and complex topic, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. Have at it.

*EDIT* See Stu’s points in the comments for more clarification on how points are achieved.

One of the most refreshing aspects about craft beer for me is the lack of … there’s no polite way to say it … marketing bullshit. I’ve never heard a craft brewer claim their beer was “brewed 33% longer”, or any such ludicrous statement. I’ve always taken it as a sign that craft brewers think their market is too smart to fall for that silliness. Craft brewers, in general, simply describe their beer, the ingredients from which it was made, and some of the flavours one might expect to taste upon drinking it.

Until now.

There’s a brewery I like very much who make excellent quality beer. The consistency is outstanding among their peers. The beers are clean, subtle, flavoursome, and approachable. The brewer is a cool person, and the sales people are fun too. but something has happened. What started as a joking exchange on Twitter seems to have revealed a bit of “big guy” style marketing. The new thing to do seems to be to go on a lot about how the brewery in question brews with “pure water” and nobody else does. They’ve started referring to fellow craft brewers’ products as “tap water beers”. I think this is a bit much, and it feels ugly.

The claim itself is, of course, marketing nonsense of the highest order. What is “pure water”? H2O? You certainly can’t brew with that. Without sending everyone to sleep, the chemistry involved in brewing beer requires certain amounts of minerals which have all sorts of effects on the pH and flavour profile of the beer – it has an impact on everything from clarity, to flavour, to perceived bitterness, and even to shelf life.

It is possible to brew beer with very soft water – that is, water lacking in much mineral content, but it’s only suited to certain styles of beer, and even then, you still need some mineral content. As a result, every brewery does one of two things: Work with whatever local water supply they have access to (spring, city supply, whatever) and brew beers which suit that water, or they start with a “base” known water profile (could be pure deionised water, or the local source) and treat it to add the mineral profile they require. The end result could be chemically identical (or near as makes no odds) to the brewery claiming to use “pure” water. Just because brewer A gets his water from a mountain stream and brewster B gets hers from the municipal supply, de-chlorinates and filters it, then adds some salts to achieve the exact chemical profile required, doesn’t make either more or less “pure”. Judge the finished beer on flavour, not on perceived quality of ingredients.

In competitions, beer is judged blind. There’s a very good reason for this. Leave the silly marketing tricks to the peddlers of flavourless industrial beer, and please realise that your market is a lot smarter than that.

To the person who inspired this post – no hard feelings, I still love ya man! I just thought it needed to be said.

Last night, I had the pleasure of being “the beer team” in a beer versus wine food matching debate/experience at House in Hamilton. I had the greater pleasure of winning that debate, despite an excellent (and extremely gracious) battle with “the wine team” – Dan Thursby from Hamilton Wine Company.

This was no mean feat, for several reasons. I’ll leave singing my own praises right out of this. I’m not the best public speaker in the world, so I can’t claim I swayed the audience with my shining wit. In fact, if anything, Dan was in fine form, and should perhaps have won on pure debating points alone. He does this sort of thing a lot though, whereas I’m usually limited to rowdy and unwelcome interjections from the sidelines, so I guess he had an edge there. He also claimed the room was stacked with beer friendly people. I felt the opposite was true! Several people I knew as avowed beer drinkers (and close friends) were voting honestly, occasionally putting wine as their preferred match – to my horror! Still, everyone is allowed to be wrong sometimes… I feel that 90% of people present (myself included) voted honestly and without bias. I genuinely believe that beer is a much better match with food than wine, and this proved that point for me because… well… I should have lost.

No, I’m not being self-deprecating here. The primary reason I should have lost was that of the five beers I selected to match the five courses, three were badly flawed. It was only testament to just how effortlessly beer matches food that even with the flaws, the beer and food matches were at worst adequate.

Before I go on, I need to get a few important things out of the way. Firstly, this was not the fault of House, Hamilton Wine Company, or anyone else involved in sourcing the beers. I’ve had this experience many times, with New Zealand craft beer purchased from many different locations. Secondly, this is not a dig at any particular brewer or brewery. I’ve experienced this across the board with almost every craft brewery in New Zealand at some point or another. Even with that said, I’m not posting the menu or selections here (though I was going to), lest people assume that I am saying those particular beers are bad. Far from it. These beers, when fresh, are excellent beverages and do the brewers proud. So please, read this in the spirit it is intended – a starter point for discussion of a problem I believe needs solving urgently. It’s not an attack on anyone.

All three beers which were flawed were in various states of oxidation. One had a huge problem with acetaldehyde (green apple) aroma, and one was little but cardboard and marmitey yeast autolysis flavour. It’s extremely hard to stand in front of a room full of people and wax eloquent about how much better craft beer is than mass produced beer when what’s in your glass almost makes you wish you had a clean BigBrewCo EdgePureLite(tm)(r) instead. Luckily, in all three cases, there was just enough of the original beer character left to create matching magic.

What’s the answer then? I know for a fact that craft brewers are NOT doing it for the money. Most are over-capitalised, under-resourced, and mortgaged to the hilt for their art. They make beer because they love to make beer, not as a method of making money. Buying a really expensive multi-jillion dollar industrial bottling line is far beyond their means.

What else? Bottle conditioning? It certainly does make the beer more robust by maintaining some live yeast in the bottle. That said, it can also result in wildly varying character if not done extremely well. Not everyone feels comfortable with that. Consumers are fickle beasts also, and not many would appreciate having to carefully decant the beer off the yeast. Heaven help the brewer if the punter ends up with yeast in their glass either – “Oi! Wot’s this gunk”? Not that then…

Some form of “brewer’s collective” who purchase fancy bottling lines between them? Nah – you’d still have to transport the beer to the bottling line. Not great for beer. It would just shift the root cause of the problem.

An evolution of the above option would be for contract brewing to play a wider role. Why does every brewer need their own expensive setup? Well, this is closely related to why brewers brew anyway. It’s just not the same to send your recipe off to someone else and hope for the best. Even if you brew it yourself on someone else’s setup, there’s still a feeling that it’s not totally “yours”. So that one’s a maybe, but not likely.

Perhaps then, CAMRA’s LocALE is the answer? Beer is ideally drunk fresh, as close to the brewery as possible. That would be fine if the market were larger and that won’t happen if poor condition beers are used to attempt to grow it. Chicken and egg, or longterm solution?

What else is there? I don’t know, but as someone who spends a lot of time trying to promote craft beer, and really wants this problem solved, I’d love to hear some suggestions. Please, by all means, discuss!

SOBA has been trucking along without my involvement (other than the odd press comment, and buttinski-type annoying input) for nearly a year. It has grown and flourished under a new committee made up of some great people, old hands and newcomers alike. The man with whom all bucks must inevitably stop,  Geoff Griggs, and his executive right and left hands Ian Caig (Secretary – my old job, and no simple task), and Rob Owen (Treasurer) are bringing order and stability to the daily function of SOBA administration.

The organisation continues to grow, with our 400th member being signed up in April. Interestingly, the email to say this had happened came through during Marchfest in Nelson, where a team of SOBA stalwarts were signing up members “offline”, so 400 may have come around sooner than we thought!

One of the goals shared by all the original founding SOBA people, as we fomented rebellion around a noisy wooden table at the “old” Malthouse on Willis Street in Wellington, was that we wanted to fight a positive campaign. We were realists as well as idealists. We all knew it’s hard to praise the good without sometimes calling into question the qualities of the bad. We also knew that, when small batch craft beer was being maligned by mass market bullies, that we’d have to stand up and fight in the corner of the little guys, and that this can sometimes get ugly. The Radler issue* is an example of this. Even so, as I have always said, we are not anti big brewer, we are simply pro good beer. It doesn’t matter to us who produces it.

Where was I? Oh yes, being positive… I was reading Pete Brown’s piece on CAMRA and the sense of entitlement they seem to hold. I resigned from CAMRA last year with more than a pang of regret at leaving this well meaning group who have achieved more over their lifetime than any other consumer organisation I can think of. My reasons were varied, but were mainly as follows.

Firstly, they are all about regulation. Those who know me know that I’m a fairly passionate libertarian. The “left” and the “right” both annoy me in equal amounts. I just want people to be left alone to do whatever they want to do, with the government limited to protecting me from initiation of force from them, and them from me. CAMRA seem to see the government as a solution to almost everything these days. Yet, like goldfish with three second memories, they fail to notice that many of the problems which they campaign against are a result of “well intentioned” government legislation. This is known as the law of unintended consequences, and the more you want the government to fight your battles for you using the big stick of legislation, the more unintended consequences you will see. Sometimes they are worse than the original problem.

Secondly, there was the insularity I noticed in their publications. Every other article seemed to be about the governance of the organisation – AGMs, branch meetings, policy, etc. All these are important things. A society can’t exist without them. The problem is, reading about them doesn’t do a thing to promote real ale, which is, after all, the core function of CAMRA. I can’t see any of it firing people up to get down to their local and demand real ale.

Finally, the infighting, bickering, and passive-aggressive “I think you’ll find” supercilliousness of the letters page in their publications just turned me right off. If this was representative of their membership, I just didn’t want to be one of them. I felt terrible when I realised that, and I want to make it clear that I do NOT think CAMRA members are generally like that. One of the best times in my life was at a CAMRA beer festival in Margate in 2008 (Planet Thanet – amazing time). I met some great CAMRA members, all of whom made excellent ambassadors for the organisation. These people are just gold, but they never seem represented in CAMRA publications. What does come across in spades is the old “beards and sandals” stereotype I thought CAMRA were trying to break.

Pete’s blog post made me realise that I hadn’t made the wrong choice. I still support CAMRA’s goals, if not the methods they might use to achieve them. It also made me think about some of our original goals for SOBA, and reinforced my commitment to those goals.

I know some people who joined SOBA “for discounts”. Sure, they ideologically identify with promoting good beer, and do a bit of promotion themselves. When House opened here in Hamilton though, these people riled me a little. The first reaction wasn’t to be impressed at a bar selling relatively low margin product at a very competitive price because they loved good beer. It wasn’t to be happy that the quality of the food was really high, the atmosphere was great, and the staff were friendly. It also wasn’t to appreciate the variety of interesting NZ craft beer in the fridge. Did they realise how tricky this was to pull off in conservative “give us a Waikato thanks mate” Hamilton? Nope. They first asked “do we get a discount”?. After that, they proceeded to complain that the beer range wasn’t as exciting as it could be, that the coffee was pretty ordinary, or that there wasn’t a bottle of “X Fabulous Belgian Ale” in the fridge. This behaviour is not limited to Hamiltonians, or even SOBA members, but it still bugs me. Hell, I’ve caught myself doing it before, and that bugs me even more!

Reality check: Part of the fight to raise awareness of craft beer means realising the limitations of the playing field we are on. Owning a bar doesn’t mean “you can put whatever you like on”. You have to consider qualities which craft beer can often make difficult like shelf life, consistency, and the margin you can make on the volume you expect to sell. We SOBA people might think we’re doing really well finishing an entire keg of Three Boys IPA in a night. Guess what? In that time, the bar has sold four kegs of Waikato at twice the margin per pint. Remind me again why you’d stock craft beer if you owned a bar?

Now, I’m painting a really bleak picture here to make a point. Sure there’s the other side of the argument that “generic” bars come and go all the time. Beer can be, and is becoming, a serious point of difference amongst bar owners. They’re running on low margins in order to guarantee customer loyalty and long term survival. My point stands though. Don’t dwell on any perceived negatives. Accentuate the positive!

Does that mean that constructive feedback isn’t welcome? Hell no. I have a friend who doesn’t like the coffee at House. Instead of whinging about it, he’s mentioned to the manager that he knows a guy who runs barista training sessions, and attempted to make something happen there. That’s a great thing to do. The simple rule I follow in these situations is “don’t bitch about something unless you can suggest a way to fix it”.

Also, promote the spread of craft beer. If a bar opens with one craft beer tap on, don’t whinge that they only have the one tap. Get in there and drink that tap dry! Talk to the bar staff. Tell them how much you love that Epic Pale Ale, but have they also considered stocking a nice stout on tap? Make sure you thank them for any steps in the right direction. Also, remember that your comments and feedback will only be taken seriously if they are backed up by spending. Just because you aked for it isn’t enough. If it goes on, and nobody drinks it, guess what will happen? Get your mates in!

I’ve probably ranted enough. I blame Pete! Good on him though. It’s no good assuming that just because you agree with the goals of an organisation, that there’s no need to keep focus on doing things right.

* For those interested, the Radler case is far from over. DB are simply prolonging things as long as possible by taking issue with every legal point involved. It’s like one of those parliament TV sessions where nobody gets to say anything over the constant points of order. Realistic timeframe for an update: August. We at SOBA are very optimistic about the outcome.

“I don’t get this campaign. Are we really that interested in beer classification?” — Phil Parkin on CAMRA’s Mild Month (via Twitter).

Before people think I have my own little Phil-worship cult going on here, I’d like to point out that while yes, the last post was entirely dedicated to his film, this one was merely triggered by something he said on twitter which tweaked my cerebellum. He doesn’t pay me, I swear! Plus, I doubt both the readers of this blog will be much of a market for him.

Right, so, grovelling excuses out of the way, what was so intriguing about that quote? I’ll start with it’s subject. I’ve been a CAMRA member for quite a while. I have the utmost respect for what CAMRA have achieved. I’ve been fortunate enough to have visited England a couple of times, and have really enjoyed CAMRA’s presence in pubs, and in absolutely magic beer festivals such as the amazing one Alex and I attended in Margate, Kent. That said, I’ve declined to renew this year. I sense a serious lack of focus and direction within CAMRA, and I get tired of their solution to every regulation-induced problem to be “ask the Government to create yet more regulation”. One campaign I’ve always supported though is May being Mild Month.

I am a huge Mild fan. On my first visit to England, I had some excellent Milds. Elgood’s Black Dog was the first taste (in Cambridge, of course) and after that, I tried them wherever I saw them. I’ve even brewed a few. My favourite was similar to Banks’ Original, and took out a Best In Class at the SOBA National Homebrew Competition a couple of years back. I was surprised, as the sample I’d retained hadn’t lasted very well… but it was a cracker when fresh. That’s another story though…

Britain has always been a nation of classifications. Standardisation abounds, and yet, there is delightful (and less delightful) non-conformity hiding in corners, and in plain sight. In a small pub in Chester, I overheard a punter complaining “that’s never a pint” to the landlady. His not-quite-a-pint was Greene King IPA. I didn’t hear him say “that’s never an IPA”.If CAMRA launched IPAs for April, do you think they’d be celebrating Greene King’s effort? Mild is even more variable than IPA. You have Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby, which is often cited as an example of a historical “strong mild”, but most classification-loving English wouldn’t think it was one. Styles change and shift for so many reasons – economic, geographic, horticultural, as well as the most fickle driver of all – people’s tastes.

And there’s the rub, and the part that suddenly changed my mind on an issue I’ve always been fairly sure of.

Why do we need to “save and preserve” milds if people aren’t that into them? We have a good record of them. We can judge a beer entered into a competition as one. We know exactly what a mild is. Not only that, but the more a beer threatens to fall out of style, the more “the fringe” will always want to brew it, sometimes out of a desire to preserve, but often out of a desire to be different. When a beer style ceases to be brewed, it doesn’t cease to exist. It’s just stored, waiting for someone to resurrect it again in the future.

As homebrewing has grown and flourished recently, moving from that vile stuff that grandad made in the bath to excellent beer which rivals and often surpasses the best of the commercial best, everyone now is a brewer or knows a brewer. If you really want a mild, and you can’t get one down your local, you can always make one or bribe a mate to make one for you. If there are enough of you wanting this, it’s in your local’s interest to provide one, and it’s in their interest to nudge the brewers.

So should the consumer care if the lovely dark beer, with a stunning array of interesting malt flavours, and just enough bitterness to prevent cloying sweetness is technically a mild or not? Should the brewer be made to feel bad if that same beer he has brewed is technically outside the style guidelines? Should CAMRA be flogging this horse quite so hard, when it could actually be limiting creativity, and thus choice, rather than enhancing it? I’m not sure. I’m also not sure it’s a huge issue, but as I said at the beginning, it certainly got me thinking.

Having said all that, I’m well overdue to brew my mild again. It is a lovely drop.

Cheers!