Thursday 18 August 2016

It's Meant to be Like That


You don't hear that any more when you buy real ale do you?  If you get a horrible warm, murky, flat pint and complain, nobody says that in response nowadays. Education of barstaff precludes it, that's the common position isn't it?  Or do they?

 So, @Erlangernick and I are in JDW's Willow Walk in Victoria, London and get pints (or was it halves - we'd been drinking) as above. I complain and get the classic "It's real ale - it's meant to be like that." I insist it is certainly not meant to be like that and we have the drinks exchanged for something slightly less poor.  In beer, like life, all things are relative.

This is why I moved a motion that CAMRA must include improving the quality of cask beer at the point of dispense as one of its key objectives. The motion was passed and it is time I think to find out what is being done about putting this motion into action.

For those that still think the fight for real ale is won, think again. It won't be until quality is assured and we should complain to make that more likely.

What is it with London and warm beer? Even lager there is usually just a bit too warm. Is this some kind of odd sub culture, or are they just too mean to turn the cellar cooling up / have it maintained / upgraded? London has always had warmish weather. This should be taken into account surely and is by some, but not nearly enough.

An extreme example. On a visit to the CAMRA North London pub of the Year the Bree Louise, again with Nick, his beer - as measured by him I must emphasise but I can confirm it -  was an astonishing 24.8C. WTF? 

35 comments:

Cooking Lager said...

Customers are treated differently by bar staff based on appearance.

Whilst its only my observation, I've seen younger customers get the brush off for shoddy beer more often than older customers.

The Beer Nut said...

Just did a quick tally from next week's blog posts and I count 19 different cask beers that I drank in Sheffield, Huddersfield, Leeds and Manchester last month. And I wouldn't describe a single one as in bad shape. Not all great beers by any stretch, and a handful were served warmer than the ideal, but nothing murky or vinegary or flat. It was a very marked contrast to my experiences around London pubs last summer.

Bailey said...

TBN -- the tentative conclusion we reached a few years ago is that you stand more chance of getting a decent pint walking into a random pub in the North than in the South. Really not sure why. Assume something to do with the general overcrowding, which is to say that London pubs could sell piss from a tin bucket at £30 a go and they'll still be uncomfortably rammed from 5-8 most nights.

Bailey said...

'Depends how big the bucket is...' Some Smart Arse.

Tandleman said...

BN: Thanks. Stats always help.

Bailey: Well even I wouldn't have put it like that, but I do know what you mean. Shocking standards even in GBG pubs - not all obviously - but enough.

John West said...

I wholly agree. Living in London, I can think of maybe 10 pubs off the top of my head that serve peerles cask. As someone interested in the matter, and given the population density, I should be able to think of more.

Cask *and lager, as you said* are both by default too warm in London.

As you've always said, cask quality at PoS should be a major CAMRA priority. Given the North London branch's bizarre continued love of the Bree Louise (worshipping variety rather than quality, I fear), I suspect this work will be heavy lifting.

I wonder also if this isn't one of the reasons flavoursome keg beers have hit the ground running in London. I know people talk about craft keg as a "bubble in a bubble" but Camden Hells and Meantime and Beavertown Gamma Ray are tough to avoid these days unless you deliberately aim for a down-at-heel estate pub.

Beer selection also plays its part. Just spent three glorious days in Thanet swimming in the sea and supping in micropubs. The number of these gaffs serving nut brown ales of 4.5% or more and a stout was just weird. In the otherwise peerless Yard of Ale, we struck up a conversation with the locals about how we'd more or less between us see of a whole nine of Hophead (or similar) but were settling for cider.

Curmudgeon said...

@BeerNut - I'd say even in the North, at least 1 in 10 pints drunk in *random* pubs are seriously deficient. If you concentrate on the well-known beer shrines obviously it will be less.

I don't think there's any Northern equivalent of the Bree Louise, about which I've heard so many terrible reports.

Erlangernick said...

Nice to be mentioned again! It was just bizarre that the kid working the Bree Louise that day really didn't care AT ALL about whether it may have been a warm glass, the first (half) pint of the day, or whatever else might have led to me getting a really, really warm beer. He immediately offered to exchange it, when I brought it up. But he didn't want to see if maybe another glass of it was just as warm, nor did he want to try it himself at all.

And IIRC, your glass of whateveritwas was a reasonable temperature. Mine was the house beer, apparently brewed in the cellar.

Another bizarro experience I had on my own last Friday was a ridiculously warm glass of cask OBB at the Citte of Yorke. It *tasted* perfectly fine. For some reason, I didn't feel like pursuing it at that moment. One pound fifty-five a half, it was, normal London SS price, I think.

So I thought, okay, I'll try that keg India Ale I hear people raving about on t' internets. Didn't think to figure out what it cost first. Two pound seventy a half. The Double Four at the Angel was lovely and cold, FWIW.

And the cask OBB at the one just over the Tower Bridge...fantastic. And at the Captain Kidd. Love me some Sam Smith's in London.

Didn't have my digitherm as I was flying with hand luggage.

John, I have to wonder if you didn't run into a stretch of horrible luck in Thanet. A number of the micropubs there seem to focus on pale 'n 'oppy IME. Whatshisname at the 39 Steps is an outright northern beer fan.

Des de Moor said...

Tandy -- I think you know I agree with you on this one! But one thing we need to do to improve things is to educate drinkers better about what decent beer should be like. I'm convinced there are large numbers of regular real ale drinkers, including CAMRA members, that also think it's meant to be like that, and genuinely do believe that cask should be warm and flat and maybe a bit sour, simply because it so often is and no-one has ever really gone through with them what it should be like. And that feeds through into GBG selections. As I said to you at GBBF last week, when I was drinking the excellent Löwenbräu kellerbier on your bar, it had the condition and temperature the casks should have had, but most of them didn't. I've told the Revitalisation people that one of the most important things CAMRA could be doing is educating its members, including through taste training sessions.

Erlangernick said...

The young barmaid at the Devereux gave me a beardie discount just because I asked her some simple technical-y question about this or that beer. Like which was drier or something. And me, with my atrocious accent!

Curmudgeon said...

@Nick - I think the India Ale is priced on a par with the Pure Brewed Lager of the same strength.

In my local Sam's pubs, OBB is £1.90, but Pure Brewed Lager is £3.00. Still a lower price than local competitors for a similar beer (and much better) but not the same gobsmacking bargain. I have no idea about Sams' London pricing.

Incidentally, India Ale seems to have been withdrawn from the Swan in Holmes Chapel, presumably because it didn't sell.

Alistair Reece said...

Absolutely, complaining more is essential, but just as important is praising places that get it right and don't try to fob off the customer.

John Cryne said...

"Given the North London branch's bizarre continued love of the Bree Louise". Well it may be bizarre to the commentator but there was an open vote for the Branch Pub of the Year and it clearly topped the poll. I think that may be called democracy. Perhaps someone will wish to conclude that the people voting did not know what they were talking about? I reported Tandleman's/Erlangernick's warm beer experience to the owner. I noted they raised the issue at the point of service and having seen the further comments, I will also feed these back. The Branch also uses the CAMRA National Beer Scoring system in making its deliberations. The Bree receives a huge number of scores from CAMRA members across the country. Its average score is well above the average and indeed for the 31 scores in June rated the beer at the mid point between good and good/very good. But I would not like the facts to get in the way.

Erlangernick said...

One other POSITIVE note about that day at the Bree Louise: To the young guy's credit, when he was pouring my first beer (what I'd wanted before getting the infamous warm one), he stopped and turned the clip around, claiming it was off, just by eyeballing it. So he had no concern about taking a suspect beer off, just oddly didn't want to investigate the warm one at all.

Ben Viveur said...

I'd like to see a Venn diagram showing:

- people who actually like the Bree Louise
and
- people who believe 'the fight for real ale is won'

I suspect there might be considerable overlap...

ABrewHaHa said...

Pre GBBF beer at The Mall in Notting Hill was warm enough to bathe in. Took it back and the bar manager cheerfully told me that Cask beer isn't supposed to be cold, poured herself a half and realised it was very warm, pulled a pint or so through with no change, tried a different Cask beer found that was also warm and walked away. Bar staff looked lost at lack of help from her boss.

Curmudgeon said...

@JohnCryne - the electorate may well have been people who value choice over quality and see nothing wrong with beer served flat as a fluke at above room temperature. A CAMRA democratic vote isn't automatically correct. There have been many reports from out of area drinkers about truly terrible beer at the Bree Lousie.

@BenViveur - and people who haven't got a clue what real ale is supposed to be like.

Stono said...

the last time I went to the Bree Louise in April this year,from my part of the world the train service is one above Southern service so London is sadly only an occasional visit at the moment, the beer was fine, actually better than fine I could have stayed there all afternoon, unfortunately I had to get aforementioned rubbish train & bus combo to get back home but I stayed for 3 pints, when Id only planned a quick half,it felt a worthy winner to me.

but that said in general, London & warm beer,hmm, post GBBF pub crawl using Des's guide,cant say I visited a single pub whose quality of cask ale made me think, yeah lets stay for another. though the funniest interchange I overheard was a customer asking the bar staff "is the Punk IPA a lager ?" to which the barstaff replied "yeah its the same colour"

py said...

CAMRA appears to be busy popularising this idea that beer should be served warm, at least that's what a significant proportion of its rank and file members seem to think and actively try to encourage potential new beer drinkers to try warm bottles of GK IPA served at room temperature. yummy.

and we wonder why beer consumption has fallen so dramatically since the formation of CAMRA... or the "campaign for shit warm beer" as it should really be known.

Phil said...

I've only been to the Bree Louise once, but the beer was bloody awful - second flattest pint I've ever had. Weekday evening, and the place was buzzing. Nowt so queer as folk.

JimmyR said...

Wholly agree. Visited a number of pubs and breweries in London last week and drank quite a few good beers, but finished on a downer with 12 flat beers in poor condition in 4 pubs.

I get the feeling that many bar staff often don't really understand cask ale and how to look after them - although there are pubs with staff that DO know.

Erlangernick said...

Beer highlights for me in pubs last week (besides Sam's & Harvey's...fabulous condition & temp at the Royal Oak, where he says he does run a cooler in the cellar) was ...wait for it... Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted and their lighter summer beer. At the Nicholson's pubs at either end of the Tower Bridge. No, not the Tower Bridge. The bridge where Blackfriar's is at the northern end and that gigantic, multi-storey place at the southern end.

UNSPARKLED

Chat with the landlord at the Royal Oak revealed that the hub-bub a couple of months ago, about Harvey's supposedly evicting them in order to renovate the place and up-scale it was a result of mis-communication from within Harvey's, more or less. And they're staying on, as-is, another two years at least.

I never did get round to having a half each of cask OBB sparkled and unsparkled for comparison's sake. Barmen at a couple of places did say they would happily do it for me if I wanted though.

I am slowly growing to like the city. Was actually great fun navigating around by tube.

Tandleman said...

Des: Thanks for the comments and I do agree. Telling the Revitalisation folks was a shrewd move too.

JohnC:I think the problem is more general than the Bree Louise. One thing would be to have the confidence that bar staff will at least pass the issue on to those that could do something about it. There is such a degree of indifference in London about the state of cask beer. We need more education here.

py: Another idiotic comment BUT. If you had related this to London I might have had some sympathy. And who is offering bottles of GKIPA to whom?

Curmudgeon said...

At our revitalisation meeting, beer quality at point of sale was identified as a major issue.

But it's very hard to wean members, branches and magazine editors off the automatic assumption that more handpumps = better.

Tandleman said...

Too true Mudgie.

RedNev said...

I see most of this discussion is London-based. I almost never drink there, and it seems I'm not missing very much. Cask Marque's 2016 Beer Quality Report said that the region that scores worst for beer quality is also the one where beer is most expensive: the South East.

Cooking Lager said...

The time has come to do away with cask marque and have "TAND Approved" on pump clips or keg fonts.

How many times must we ask this question before we accept its inevitable answer?

John Cryne said...

Interestingly we visited a city north of the border earlier this year and felt that the beer being served was warmer than that to which we were used to in London. On returning one pint, in a pub in the Good Beer Guide, the initial reaction, whilst changing the beer was less than might have been otherwise expected, I would say a tad unbelieving of our opinion. Subsequently, the barman came to our table and said that yes, as that beer had not had a pour for some time, he accepted our point and did his best to apologise without using the A word. But keep bashing London, we don't mind.

Tandleman said...

Fair enough but as others have remarked it happens with monotonous regularity in London. We all know drinking cask beer that duff pints can be part of the game.

We all need to do something about that. I can see why you might feel protective about London though and I respect that too.

Tandleman said...

Fair enough but as others have remarked it happens with monotonous regularity in London. We all know drinking cask beer that duff pints can be part of the game.

We all need to do something about that. I can see why you might feel protective about London though and I respect that too.

John West said...

When people criticise London because "it's all that murky craft muck" or "it's daft expensive", I just tune out. There is murky craft muck, but there are also exceptional young breweries. Complaining about London being expensive is tired - yes, it's a major world city. What do you expect?

But I don't think critiquing the generally poor level of cask conditioning across the city counts as London bashing. Cellars are typically too warm - even in some feted venues - and quality at point of sale is crucial for cask's sustained presence on the bar.

py said...

Its by no means just a London thing. Wherever CAMRA is, then warm beer follows. Go to any CAMRA summer beer festival, the beer is always served as warm as day old piss. You wonder why its the foreign beer bar that always runs out first?

Deny it all you like, reply with some pointless childish insult if that is really the best you can think of, but CAMRA have done more than anyone over the years to damage the quality of cask ale.

Rob said...

It's not just a CAMRA thing. Just look at beer facebook groups when people ask where they store their bottles and lots of people insist that on the side in the kitchen is fine, because 'ale' is meant to be served at room temperature. I've been round to friend's houses (none of them CAMRA members as far as I know) and they'll have lagers in the fridge, PBAs on the side. It is seemingly part of the consciousness in this country and I'm not sure it's really down to CAMRA. Personally, I blame Asterix in Britain.

Curmudgeon said...

Realistically, you don’t expect the beer at a beer festival to be as good as that in a pub because of the inherent difficulties of keeping it at the right temperature. Yes, you can do what you can to cool it, but it’s never going to be quite the same.

Another factor militating against good beer at festivals is the modern-day insistence that all beers are put on as soon as the festival opens. If that’s Thursday, there are going to be some pretty tired pints by Saturday evening.

Erlangernick said...

Never, ever go to a beer festival on a Saturday.

Except to work, of course.