Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Tales from the playground, the Tartan Toddlers take on the Cask Pensioners.

It's like watching the two playground bullies knocking 10 bells out of each other, everyone wants to see both parties get a slap of reality, Camra want to wake up, smell the beer, times move on, dispense will never pull away from cask, it is too fundamental to the soul and core of British brewing, but there are some times that modern dispense and quality beers can be great bedfellows, as for their "lab" well, that really is getting too far up their own backsides about quality - by their opinion, not the rest of the industry, and trying to get their will imposed on the industry - well, life ain't like that. I would rather drink a pint of sterile Sam Adams than a minging wholesaler cooked pint of Crudgingtons old Chunderbox , even if Camra say that I should stick to Tradition, sometimes tradition, like Rickets, TB, Plague and Small Pox is best left on its own.

There are plenty examples of beer festivals on great and grand scales, and some very well run smaller events too, completely outwith the control of Camra where Brewery Conditioned and other "non-approved" beer styles are served, and drunk, with as much gusto as cask. We have branches which consider themselves immune to the very moaning about beer temperature with which they cane landlords when it comes to the County fest, where warm beer is OK, and expensive out of county beer is fine where they would nail any landlord who charged more than a pensioners beer price, and expel brewers who complain about poor festival beer quality and massive out of county plugging because a brewer pays for a big advert in their Rant Mag! 

As for the Truculent Tartan Brigade? 
Well, after a while, one gets more than a little bored with constant mewling and literary puking from the wailing brat in its cot. Beer so good it has to be brewed by a grown-up under contract, beers so good that only by causing offence and gobbing off like a Buckfast fuelled wino in a Glaswegean Gutter can they get attention. 
Producing [NOT BREWING] beers by 1st year student chemistry tricks (most of us grew out of making apple jack cider after our first years) and calling it an innovation just to top the European Neighbors in fairly poor terms (the Bismark marked a huge  loss of life, not just a sales opportunity for the local Fucktards in the industry).  I will not bother with the other wheezes as they are not worth the physical effort to type out, other than to say that it has always been what is in the bottle which I have considered the key part rather than what is on the outside of the bottle as far as label, PR stunt or "Bad Boy" image.

Both bullies need to learn that they are not the biggest or most important in the playground and both need to grow up and look to the future of beer rather than their own , narrow, self important, futures. As most people know who have been around for long enough, neither can be trusted to be telling the whole unspun truth, and both will be looking to their own ratings as they continue to stamp and rant at each other [YAWN]. 

Long may they continue to knock lumps off each other while the rest of us continue to brew great beers, have a good time and do things our way.

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