September 2008

Glancing at Guy Fawkes this morning revealed that the Liberals have decided they want a minimum price for alcohol as policy. Thank goodness they are even lower in the polls than Labour; they are unlikely to be able to get this view turned into law.

As I’ve blogged before, this particular idea is liked by many small brewers and by CAMRA. Small brewers tend to believe that if the price of cheap lagers is raised, more people will buy better quality craft beers. CAMRA thinks it will help pubs compete with supermarkets.

Personally, I’m extremely doubtful that any regulation of this nature will have the desired effect because to have a real impact the minimum price levels would have to be set at a level that are politically infeasible. Imagine a speech during an election where Clegg announces he is going to raise the price of your can of Carling to £20 for a pack of 10! For your own good of course. As I write Sainsburys are flogging a pack of 10 for £7.88.

The real impact of this is that it allows yet more interference by political busy-bodies in the operations of an already highly regulated industry. We are planning to start giving out free samples of our product at farmers markets soon, presumably that would be stopped. What about free bars at weddings or conferences ?

It also represents the start of a very slippery slope. If you can enforce a minimum price for a pint, you can presumably enforce a minimum price for a pack of cigarettes, a hamburger or a car, all of which are unpopular with one pressure group or another. Where does this end ?

The one group of people this stupid idea is not likely to have much of an impact on is MPs themselves since their beer is subsidized by the rest of us (look for Parliamentry Privilege, 22nd July 2008). The sheer hypocrisy is quite breathtaking.

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Apparently people have tapped a source stuck in Amber to brew with yeast that is 45 million years old… Wouldn’t that be a feather in your cap?!
linky

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I am shocked. Shocked I say. The Santa Cruz Mercury reports that a homebrewer was arrested for brewing a beer with poppy seeds in it. During his interrogation he freely admitted to also making chocolate mint stout and mango blonde ale.

Hanging’s too good for him!

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Yesterday afternoon we made our first large scale commercial delivery. Five hundred bottles went out to Threshers Wine Shop and they are now available at the Steyning and Tongdean (Hove) outlets. I checked today and they are selling fast.

See our Where to get it page for the address details and maps.

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The Publican reports:

Fears are growing that pubs across the country could be asked to take down their road signs to prevent drink-driving following action by a local authority.

The Highways Agency backed a move by Wiltshire County Council to block signs pointing drivers towards pubs – leading to concerns from trade chiefs that it could set a precedent.

About three months ago I was driving back from the north of England with a huge steam generator in the back of the monster, for the brewery. It was two in the afternoon and I’d been driving solidly more or less since 5am that morning. Breakfast was a banana and it seemed there was no where sensible to stop for a bite. I’d even have eaten at a Little Chef by this point.

Luckily I came across just such a sign, and within ten minutes was sitting down to a much anticipated plate of fish and chips, with a half pint of the local brew. Actually the food was better than the beer, but that’s really not the point. Without the sign I would never have realised the pub was there as it was off the main highway like many older institutions.

I’m not claiming the sign saved my life, but it did make a difficult day a little bit more civilized.

I’d really like Jacqui Ashman, local Highways Agency planning manager reportedly one the brains behind this, to understand that attempting to ruin someone else’s small business and make life just that tiny bit more unpleasant for everyone else is a truly evil thing to do. Particularly by someone who lives on the public teat.

Can anything be done ?

(hat tip to The Devil’s Kitchen Blog for this story)

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We have about 40 cases of bottled Velocity, 4%, with a nice fresh flavour, and I think a faint hint of marmalade. Everyone who’s tried it liked it and its all ready to go out to the shops. But can we send it ?

No.

The labels were sent on overnight delivery yesterday. Unfortunately, they didn’t actually get here. I’ve been waiting in all day and haven’t seen so much as a ’sorry you were out when we called’ card.

Oh for a muse of fire that I may ascend the brightest heaven of rants against treacherous courier firms!

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The Ancient Order of Froth Blowers was a charitable club that had a brief existence between the two world wars. People would meet in pubs (vats), display various bits of nonsense regalia such as the cufflinks pictured above, listen to talks, and raise money which as it turned out, was something that they were really good at. The order managed to collect £100,000.00 in 1928, when the average annual wage was about £100 a year; that would be about £24 million pounds today. It went to the ‘wee waifs’, poor children in the east end of London.

Their motto was ‘lubrication in moderation’ which has quite a modern intent even though the language is slightly out of date. They defined their ostensible purpose as:

A sociable and law abiding fraternity of absorptive Britons who sedately consume and quietly enjoy with commendable regularity and frequention the truly British malted beverage as did their forbears and as Britons ever will, and be damned to all pussyfoot hornswogglers from overseas and including low brows, teetotalers and MPs and not excluding nosey parkers, mock religious busy bodies and suburban fool hens all of which are structurally solid bone from the chin up

Which strikes me as something we could do with today.

There is the inevitable Wikipedia article here, and a rather more informative website here run by the Friends of the Froth Blowers.

Although I think we would find some of their ideas outdated and politically incorrect, there seems to be absolutely no doubt as to their overall benevolence. I was immediately struck by idea of reviving the order somehow. I’d be happy to provide a cask of Velocity for some suitable venue for a get together where the subject could be discussed properly over mugs of frothy beer.

If anyone is interested in this, they can get in touch with me via email andy (at) adurbrewery.com.

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I was glad to see that the much heralded switch on of the Large Hadron Collider on Wednesday didn’t result in the end of the world. I am however, slightly disturbed by the thought that in fact the world did end, but I didn’t notice.

On Thursday I learned that the UKs contribution to the LHC costs all the adults in the UK around one pint of beer a year. Normally I’d deplore this as a waste of money but I admit to a soft spot for CERN, given that it was the birthplace of the web.

In the topical spirit, I thought I’d put up a photo of our own newest scientific instrument. Behold the Egg Timer. There are a number of operations in a brewery that once started will simply carry on by themselves such as mashing the grain (90 minutes), boiling the wort (90 minutes), filling a cask (3 and a bit minutes).

This gives you a chance to be getting on with something else such as discussing that nice Mr. Brown’s chances of surviving his conference. Unfortunately it also gives you the chance to get totally distracted and fail to notice that the cask you were filling is now spilling out onto the floor. An egg timer solves this.

I originally wanted a nice simple clockwork one, but couldn’t find one that would stretch to 90 minutes. Hence the slightly gimmicky electronic one. It cost around £6.00 so it’s a bit cheaper than the LHC.

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Some of our more well established nearby rivals make much of their locally sourced ingredients – hops in particular. I’m sure you know who they are.

In an effort to compete with this vital marketing boast I have sourced some* locally grown hops and I will be adding one to each brew we do for the next little while. Our labels will be changed to include the phrase ‘contains locally grown hop’.

* a handful actually.

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