Time for a pint?

It is 6.14pm.... time for a pint! Boffins have told us that this is the time when most people in the UK have their first pint, with only one in ten quenching their thirst at lunchtime. Changed days! Can't retell the story here, but anyone who has heard Billy Connolly waxing lyrical about the casual vomit will know how prevalent (serious) lunchtime drinking used to be.

The Danes are the most anxious to get to the bar. They have their first quaff of Carlsberg at 4.41pm, and more than a quarter of them drink at lunchtime! But in France, Kronenbourg sales must dip after 8.33pm because that is the time they have their last beer! Les lightweights!

Stonehenge gold!

Congratulations to Stig and his team at Stonehenge Ales after winning a gold medal at the SIBA South West Beer Festival for strong bitters. Danish Dynamite was voted best amongst a very strong list of rivals. Cornish brewers also did very well at the event which demonstrated the renaissance in brewing in that part of the world.

So again, well done Stig!

End of an era... beginning of upheaval?

The entire board of Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) tendered its resignation today as it prepared for a new era of ownership under Heineken. It is indeed the end of an era as S&N can trace its roots back through turbulent times to the mid 18th century.

The Board may have resigned, but there is definitely more upheaal to come as the takeover beds down. One of the more obvious areas of concern for 'craft' beer lovers is the future of Caledonian Brewery and their brands. Now owned by Heineken there are real fears amongst employees, trade and loyal customers alike.

Anyway, the king is dead... long live the king!

Wickwar brews to the fore

We have got some new Wickwar brews coming to Cellarman Towers soon. The official beer of the Cotswolds and a beer brewed especially for rugby players all over the country... Rite Flanker! Look our for these in the very near future.

I don't normally do straight 'ads' on the blog, but the guys at Wickwar deserve a special mention for the wonderful ales they brew. If you see them, try them!

All shook up!

After Marston's bought Refresh, the next move in our world of cask conditioned beer has been announced. Scottish & Newcastle have bought Caledonian Brewery. This begs a number of questions: why are S&N buying breweries when they won't exist this time next month? What are Heineken going to do with a small ale brewery in Edinburgh? Where does that leave Harviestoun?

On the latter, the following is an opening paragraph of a press release: "The independent future of Harviestoun Brewery Limited has been secured in the wake of this week’s outright acquisition of Caledonian Brewing Company by Scottish & Newcastle UK." For how long?

Anyone got an idea what will happen next? The first cracks are starting to appear!

Hobgoblin gobbled up

Midlands-based brewer Marston's has bought Refresh UK, which brews ales including Brakspear and Hobgoblin and has partnership agreements with Wadworth, Thatchers, Löwenbräu and Innis & Gunn. Marston's said it wants to develop a portfolio of well-established premium beer brands to complement its core range, led by Marston's Pedigree, and promised to continue brewing at Refresh's Wychwood Brewery in Witney, Oxfordshire.

Is this the start of the second wave of consolidation? Will the economic conditions forestall any further activity or will we see further deals? And where will the deals stop? Will they percolate down to the smaller craft brewers? Is there over capacity in the market? Of course there is, but can it be affected by the 10, 20, 30, 40 barrel plants?

Am I asking rhetorical questions?

No. You read it here first. Heineken will soon be the biggest UK brewer, but the indigenous brewers will retaliate.

April Fool!

OK, I know I am a day late but sometimes it is better to be late than never. Has beer ever been used as an April Fool 'prop'? You bet your cotton socks it has. Here are just two examples:

Not long ago on April 1, a San Diego radio station announced that a beer truck had jack-knifed and couldn't be towed until the beer was drained from it's tank. Over 100people showed up to help drain it!

In Singapore, an ad campaign was launched for a new beer, called XO, so strong that it must be consumed lying down. Guests were invited to a hotel on April 1st to help drink and launch the product.

I would never have fallen for those. Would you?

Right, I am off down the pub later. My mate told me yesterday that every time Liverpool are in possession of the ball tonight, beer is £1.00 a pint. When Arsenal have the ball, it is £4 a pint. It is called a 'floor pair' promotion seemingly. Sounds good.

You have to admire their gall!

A campaign has started to ban Alistair Darling from every pub in Britain after his "tryannical anti-pub budget".

The campaign group, being run on Facebook, has so far attracted 170 members across the country.

I think this is a wonderful idea. Whether it will have any impact is another matter altogether, but the sheer audacity of the attempt has to be applauded.

I don't own a pub, but I have barred Mr Darling from coming round to watch the footie in my house. There. Take that Alistair!

The price of peace of mind

According to the Daily Mail, Dutch winemaker Ilja Gort, has a nose for the job - a £3.8m one. Lloyds has decided to insure his nose for the sum after concluding that his smelling ability is "far above usual".

Thank the Lord and pass the biscuits! I have got a quote from Lloyds: £234,908. At least I will be covered. I was beginning to think that all those thousands of hours of beer tasting may have gone to waste.

But now I can quaff safe in the knowledge my belly is fully insured. Third party, fire and wind.

Remote mashing

I was flicking through TV channels last night trying to avoid cookery programmes, anything to do with moving house, and quiz shows when I happened upon 'An Island Parish' about the vicar on the Scilly Isles. There is now a brewery on the Scilly Isles (nothing to do with the vicar I hasten to add) and it got me thinking about remote breweries.

In the UK, Dent Brewery in Cumbria is fairly remote, then you have the Scottish island breweries on Skye, Orkney and Shetland. In my travels I have been to breweries in the Arctic circle (Mack) and off the east coast of Australia on an island called New Caledonia, but I wonder where THE most remote brewery is? Has anyone got any ideas?

Beer with food

A lot has been said and written about matching beer and food. I have been slow in buying in to the many concepts banded about (the marketing people call that a 'laggard' I am told.... bloody cheek). However, I am now coming round to the idea having conducted a few scientifically calibrated experiments on a carefully selected sample of those who know everything (i.e. Mrs Cellarman).

Here are some tips:

Pilsners - cuts through fatty foods, oily fish and refreshes the mouth with spicy foods. Great with seared fillet of salmon or Thai green curry

IPAs - great foil for hot and spicy dishes eg. Indian, Mexican etc.

Bitter - classic English ales work brilliantly with roasts, pies, cheese based starters, hearty soups

Strong Bitter - fuller bodied ales work well with cheeses

Wheat beers - mussels, creamy white meat dishes

Porters - caramelised dishes such as seared scallops, chocolate desserts

Abbey & Trappist beers - braised meats, casseroles and stews

Fruit beers - pates and foie gras

I hope this helps. Give me your opinion.

Cheers

Two pints of Jacobson's please... do you take VISA?

Have you ever paid £4 for a pint? £5? What about £255? If so you must have bought a Jacobsen Vintage No.1.

The 600 limited edition bottle, filled with 10.5% ABV beer, and brewed within the Carlsberg group, has gone on sale at £204 a bottle. With the bottles holding 375cl, that equates to £255 a pint!

Vintage No.1 has been matured in J C Jacobsen's original crypt-like cellar for six months, in new Swedish and French oak barrels.

"The project started as a wild idea and a wish to create a new type of beer that had never been seen before," said Jens Eiken, head brewer at Jacobsen,

"During the ageing process in new barrels lots of chemical processes take place. Not all reactions are known but they taste wonderful."

The beer will be sold mainly through three upmarket restaurants in Copenhagen

Each bottle of Jacobsen Vintage No.1 is labelled with an original hand-stilled lithographic print made by Danish artist Frans Kannik. The prints depict fables of Sif, who was married to the Nordic god Thor, often used by Carls Jacobsen as a symbol of strength.

It may not seem like everyone's idea of great value, but beer writer Pete Brown told the Sunday Mirror: "It is worth every penny in my opinion. I promise you, if you taste this drink it will totally change your perception of beer."

Here is another interesting fact: did you know two positives make a negative? For example.... aye, right, Pete Brown!

What a kick in the b@*&^%*s Mr Darling!

Well, there you have it. Beer duty is going up by 4p a pint, plus of course the VAT on that. After a year of escalating costs, this really is the icing on the cake for breweries up and down the UK. Can you imagine the German or Belgian or Czech government increasing the duty on beer by such an amount? No, they want to protect their historically important and economically vital brewing industry.

I don't want to get enmeshed in party politics. This issue is more important than petty men making petty points in their petty committees (and claiming vast salries and expenses to do so). No this is about equity and fairness. Every single day, the Treasury is losing over £1 million in beer taxes and four pubs are closing..... that is more than 120 a month! People are now drinking 1 million fewer pints a day compared with last year. That trend will continue.

Supermarkets will continue to sell at below cost and squeeze suppliers' margins so hard they need to make cost savings by chucking people on the redundancy scrapheap.

And you know what.... binge drinking will continue unabated!

This blunt instrument of duty hikes will NOT 'cure' binge drinking. It merely penalises the majority of level-headed and peaceful beer drinkers up and down this land. And remember, Darling promised more hikes in future years at 2% above the prevailing rate of inflation!

This is not a doomsday scenario.... this is happening NOW! In the UK, a country with one of the finest brewing heritages on the face of the planet.

It could make you weep.

Come on Darling, kick us harder! You might just drive us all to drink!

Budget buzz!

Now that The Cheltenham Festival is upon us, why not have a wee flutter. What about 7/2 that beer will go up by more than 5p per pint!

Beer taxes - frozen in the 2001 and 2002 budgets - have gone up broadly in line with inflation since then. Tax accounts for 28% of the price of a pint and the odds are stacked against that figure being reduced. By why should the responsible drinkers of high quality beer be swept up in the same Draconian measures meant to lessen the impact of binge drinking? Surely there is a more equitable way?

Double carpet says Mr Darling doesn't find that way.

Landlady Madonna (with apologies to The Beatles)

Rumours that Madonna and Guy Ritchie have bought the Punchbowl Pub in London have proved false. Unfortunately. Can you imagine karaoke night in her place? I know footballers are prone to buying pubs for their 'retirement' but rock & pop stars? Who else might be in line for landlord or landlady status? And what would the name of their pub be? Come on, throw in some ideas.

A Milestone for cellarman

I am pleased to let you know that Ken Munro's Milestone Brewery will soon be featuring at cellarmandirect.com. Milestone are offering a range of three exciting beers including, as a first for cellarman, a continental style Raspberry Wheat Beer. Have a look and have a try.

Cheers.

Actions speak louder than words

Remember the supermarkets said they were going to take firm action against binge drinking? Well the first salvoes in their war have been fired... and they have shot themselves firmly in the foot!

This week Tesco is selling 24 x 440ml cans of Strongbow for £10 – 42p a can – and 24 x 440ml cans of Foster's for £15.

Asda, which last week said it would not sell booze after midnight, advertised its offers in The Sun. It is offering two crates of 18 x 440ml cans of John Smith's, Carling, Stella Artois, Carlsberg or Foster's for just £16 – 44p a can.

Meanwhile, Morrison's advertised in The Telegraph offering customers two cases of Stella Artois or Becks for £15 – 32p a bottle.

What a concerted effort to stop binge drinking. Three cheers for our supermarkets! As one person said in writing to The Morning Advertiser "The reality is the supermarkets will do nothing until their hands are forced by government or a major campaign of bad publicity which hits their pockets. Unfortunately it is probable that the goverment do not have the intelligence to understand the negative impact on our industry of not distinguishing between the largely responsible on-trade and the irresponsible sectors of the off-trade."

Sage words. Words, I fear, which state the real truth rather than those uttered by the PR machines behind the supermarket groups.

Wickwar wins

Wickwar Brewery has won the Winter Beer of Britain 2008 with their Station Porter. Kevin Newbould, Wickwar’s cellarman chum, said: “We are very pleased to have been voted the best winter beer in Britain and delighted that everybody feels the same way about this wonderful beer as we do. Let’s hope we see a resurgence in people trying more porters in the near future.”

We haven't listed Station Porter yet, but I hope to convince Kevin it would be a good idea as soon as I can! Keep a look out for it!

Re-masterpiece

The small brewers' champion The Society of Independent Brewers (Siba) has commissioned two up-to-date versions of Hogarth’s work.

Gin Lane is renamed Binge Lane, where violence, unconsciousness and underage drinking is depicted alongside shops selling cheap beer and alcopops.

The more amiable Beer Street becomes Pub Street, a peaceful environment of real ale, good food, bar games and live entertainment.

Siba chairman Peter Amor said: “The gin of the 18th century may have been replaced by a whole trolley of cheap drinks, but the message is the same.

“The pub is practically the only place where you can drink draught beer and people’s behaviour there is subject to strict controls by the licensee and by the presence of mature, well behaved regular customers who wouldn’t stand for any kind of trouble.

“The real source of the problems that are being sensationally highlighted by the media at the moment is cheap liquor sold in bulk and, in a minority of supermarkets and off-licences, without much regard to the age of the people buying it.

“In the circumstances, it is totally unfair to lump pubs in with the real perpetrators of the problem.”

Fine words. But surely the pub is not the only place where people can enjoy themselves with high quality drinks in safe, pleasant surroundings with like-minded friends? Drinking at home is the new going out, especially for those hard done by smokers!

Oo er missus!

Here's an ad for Dorothy Goodbody's Wholesome Stout from Wye Valley Brewery, which looks innocent enough, but has caused a bit of a stink. It prompted a complaint to booze watchdog the Portman Group, with one sensitive soul observing: "In my view the drawing of a young woman, whose dress is pulled back to reveal her thighs (whilst also hinting at a lack of undergarments) is sexually suggestive."

Wye hit back that the "complainant's imagination had got the better of him". And the regulator? The ad is "slightly saucy". Oh, behave.

This was lifted from The Telegraph, but you have to admire the tone.