Reinheitsgebot for Britain!

What a great word. Reinheitsgebot. Reinheitsgebot is the purity requirement for German breweries that orders them only to use water, hops, barely-malt and yeast. It dates from 1516 and has given Germany a proud history of quality ale.

I wish we has a code like this in the UK. We have an as proud if not prouder brewing heritage which is slowly being eroded by changing tastes moulded by huge marketing budgets of the trans-national brewers.

But the fightback is gaining momentum. Craft breweries brewing pure beer is one of the fastest growing sectors in the drinks business, a drinks business which is under continual pressure from lobbyists of all shapes and forms.

Why shouldn't we lobby for British purity laws? People want natural products. They don't want preservatives, colouring, etc. Let's hear it for British Beer Purity Laws!!!

The gloom is lifting....

At last... some good news to share with you! The country's 550 microbreweries, loosely defined as those that produce less than 10,000 barrels a year, may only enjoy less than 2 per cent of market share but sales of their products grew 10.7% last year, according to a Society of Independent Brewers survey! That is great news. It also tempered the depressing statistic that 67 pubs are shutting very month because of slumping sales.

Seemingly there are now 50m fewer pints drunk per year nowadays and there are 'only' 58,000 pubs left in Britain. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the prices in the supermarkets, but surely there must be other reasons? What about the rampant homogenisation of pubs? Threatening behaviour of some elements? Lack of comfort? Less relaxation more parading? I don't know, there must be more to this 'shift' than people buying cheap booze from supermarkets.

Any suggestions?

An oldie but a goldie

I thought I'd share an old joke to try and lighten a cold, damp January day:

After the Great Britain Beer Festival, in London, all the brewery MD's decided to go out for a beer. The chap from Corona sits down and says, "Hey Senor, I would like the world's best beer, a Corona." The bartender dusts off a bottle from the shelf and gives it to him.

The lady from Budweiser says, "I'd like the best beer in the world, give me 'The King Of Beers', a Budweiser." The bartender gives her one.

The man from Coors says, "I'd like the only beer made with Rocky Mountain spring water, give me a Coors." He gets it.

The man from a small craft brewery in Suffolk sits down and says, "Give me a Coke." The bartender is a little taken aback, but gives him what he ordered.

The other brewery MD's look over at him and ask. "Why aren't you drinking a Black Adder Stout?"....the man replies, "Well, if you aren't drinking beer, neither will I."

Fury at new licensing costs in Scotland

Scottish pub landlords are blazing. No wonder. So what’s happening? In future, instead of the present fixed, limited fee for all pubs and shops, licensed premises will pay a variable rate for obtaining a licence. Smaller premises would pay £800, the big places up to £2,000. In addition, there are annual renewal fees.

Why have the SNP government done this? The nature of the minister’s (Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill) response is interesting. Far from being sympathetic he placed his decision firmly in the context of wider efforts to tackle the negative consequences of alcohol.

He said, bluntly: “Those who profit from the sale of alcohol have a responsibility to help pay for the costs.”

What a cock-eyed, roundabout, avoiding-the-real-issue, misguided way of trying to tackle those 'negative consequences of alcohol'. Surely the supermarkets selling to kids at prices lower than soft drinks would be a better place to start?

6 Nations Rugby offer

Coming soon.... the cellarman 6 Nations Rugby offer. The rugby Six Nations Championship kicks off on 2nd & 3rd February with Ireland v Italy at Croke Park, England v Wales at Twickenham and Scotland v France at Murrayfield.

To celebrate, the cellarman has put together his own Triple Crown offer to whet your whistle during the tournament. More details soon......

On-line spending growth

One in six pounds spent shopping last year was spent on the internet. Online retail sales in 2007 were over 50% higher than in 2006, according to data from UK trade body the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG). That is amazing. What is it about the interweb that makes shopping so easy? The comfort of your own home? Avoiding hefty travel and parking costs? The choice and variety on offer?

Here at Cellarman Heights, we like to think enjoying draught beer in the comfort of your own home without the hassle and cost of busy pubs, taxis home, threatening chaps, etc. is reason enough. But add that to the fact that you can also BUY it from the comfort of your own home and you have a beer buying and drinking experience worth holding on to.

But then we would say that.

New chums and inevitable increases

I have been speaking to two new brewers today: Milestone and Mauldon. Both have some wonderful beers on the go, including some former Champion Beers of Britain. I am hoping that we will be able to offer them to you soon.

It is looking inevitable that we will increase our prices. All our brewers are struggling to maintain the current levels, and we are also being hit by delivery fuel supplements. I'll do my best to keep them to a minimum though. The beer is too good to miss through penny pinching by me, but I have to be realistic.

We're doomed, doomed I tell you!

We in the UK have a knack of talking ourselves into a negative position. At the moment we are determined to enter a recession by telling ourselves it is on the way. The same is true in the beer business. True, the general trend for beer consumption is down. But there is the flicker of a shift in drinking habits with consumers now seeking quality rather than quantity in beer and, for that matter, wine, spirits, food, holidays, etc. etc.

Anyway, here is the news: pub volume figures published by AC Nielsen show the beer market slumped by 6% in volume in November 2007 compared to the year before. The figures show premium ale down 8%, standard ale down 8%, standard lager down 5%, premium lager down 10%, stout down by 2% and cider up by 3%.

Looking forward AC Nielsen consultant Graham Page said: “I think January to March will be very poor, without any real respite until June/July, assuming we have half a summer.

“I think we may be seeing the Moving Annual Total (MAT) for beer by Easter being down7/8%, possibly worse and the current economic circumstances are simply not supportive of anything other than consumers and business battening down the hatches in the first half of 2008.”

Thanks Mr Page. I know we are not meant to shoot the messenger, but is there any positive news you can share?

Survival of the fittest

It looks as though the genie is well and truly out of the bottle as far as price increases are concerned. S&N today announced that they will soon be increasing the price to trade by, it claims, a "fair and reasonable" 5.75% or 4p per pint. Now, the time that filters through to the man (or woman) on the Clapham omnibus that means around 13p on the price of a pint of mainstream lager.

The beer market is in a really tender state at the moment. Consumer confidence is low, the smoking ban is biting, multiple grocers are selling beer below cost.... all factors that add up to a market which is creaking. On the supply side, raw material costs are increasing significantly, as are the costs of packaging and transportation.

It is going to be tough for everyone in 2008. Survival of the fittest in every respect.

Beer, sausage and melting icebergs.

There are many countries in the world with a powerful brewing provenance. Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, and, of course, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. These 'old world' brewing super-powers are now being challenged by 'new world' beers which, in many ways, rely on the lifestyle associated with the beer rather than the beer itself to sell. I suppose you could say these beers promote the sizzle rather than the sausage.

Of course, that is not always the case. There are some wonderfully complex beers now being brewed all over the world: Australia, Korea, Japan, South Africa, Cuba, to name but a few. These 'weird beers' as I once heard them described have to travel a long way to get here, and often fail to deliver the promise of their exotic domicile. One exception to this, however, is a brown ale I tasted from Greenland. Yes, Greenland. Inland icebergs are melted to get water which is then used to brew the beer. Not sure of the green credentials of this Greenland ale, but it is a wonderful story nonetheless.

Disappearing act

I am having some good chat with a brewer in Helsinki at the moment. A very friendly and amenable man who I hope to meet up with some time soon. We were chatting through the 'good old days' and I was telling him I was based in Stockholm for a while and had crossed the Baltic to Helsinki a number of times on Viking Line and Silja Line. Now these crossings are a good reason (excuse?) for a party. The journey leaves Stockholm around 5pm and arrives in Helsinki at 9am the next morning. In between times, you eat, drink, dance, gamble.... indeed anything you feel the urge to do.

On one trip, a Sales Manager I worked with (a true Viking blonde lady of immense beauty and character) had a particularly late night. In the morning, whilst bleary eyes and addled heads checked for the whereabouts of our car, the Sales Manager (let's call her MJ) declared to anyone who would listen to her dull roar that our car had been stolen! Some feat, stealing a car from a car deck half way across the Baltic but MJ was convinced! The same MJ lost a hire car in Iceland, but that is a story for another day.

Budvar to remain with Czech government

The famous Budejovicky Budvar is to remain under the ownership of the Czech government until at least 2010. The stakes are high for the company and brand with Anheuser-Busch (who currently distribute the brand in the USA) waiting to pounce as soon as it can. The infamous legal battles between Budweiser (US) and Budweiser (Czech and original) have led to some crazy situations. In some markets, US Budweiser is simply known as 'B' to get round the trade mark issues.

Let us all hope and pray that brewing heritage and quality is not subsumed by a monolithic North American brewer run by accountants.

S&N 'battle' heats up

The on-going battle for control of the UK's largest brewing company seems to be heating up. How does this affect cask conditioned beer, I hear you cry! Well, S&N have tentacles that reach Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh, and still have an equity say in what happens with the Courage real ale portfolio. Their control of S&N Pub Enterprises and Waverley TBS is also significant for 'route to market' for our growing band of craft brewers.

S&N's defence is on-going, but it looks half-hearted compared to the challenge to Elders in the late 1980's. Then, S&N employees took to the streets in support of the company that employed them. I am not sure the S&N employees of 2008 would be so vociferous.

As a footnote, I overheard one wag state that give S&N has no brewing presence in either Scotland or Newcastle, the new company name is to be '&'.

Happy new year!

I have been stricken by a lurgy but am now back on my feet and planning/dreaming of all sorts of wonderful new beers and other ventures for 2008. We have some new brews from your favourite breweries coming on stream. Some new brewers will also be joining the cellarman gang hopefully. We are also looking at the website to see how we can improve that, whilst also apprecaiteing that meeting our great customers at country fairs and farmers' markets and the the like will be of equal import. Who knows, I might even venture away from beer this year.

2008... the year of living dangerously (although obviously with a hi-viz vest)!