Bear with me on this one as I’m going to explain why I think it’s fair to apply the concept of “form” to brewers, extrapolated from horse racing, and thus – as long as you know what you’re talking about – it’s possible to have a fairly good idea of what a beer from a particular brewer will be like by applying this concept to the brewer’s previous beers you’ve tasted.
It annoys me when “normals” complain about “real ale” pubs as if they were a different concept entirely in drinking culture; after all, most of them sell industrial piss for the numptys as well as the good stuff for me, so what's the problem? They're happy, we're happy, everyone's happy, right?
Well, apparently not. Try taking a “normal” into, say, the Cask & Welly in Sheffield and you'll soon start hearing complaints that it's full of old people, it's boring, there's no music, where's the jukebox, where's the TV, everyone's fat and/or a trainspotter and so on... you get the idea. When you look at it with impartial eyes, a big ask for those immersed in any hobby, you suddenly realise that almost all “scooping pubs” – meaning those which offer a large range of micro-brewed beer – are vastly different from your everyday local.
Take, for example, your standard pub. It has huge TVs showing sports, a jukebox or piped music, a bartop crowded with retina-scorching lager founts and an “armchair general” clientele enthusiastically swilling industrial piss whilst shouting about football, horse racing, immigration and the like, whereas the average scooping pub has... well, lots of beer, and that's about it! No sports, no industrial lager, no football talk, no improbably-sized TV's... as you can see there's a massive difference between the two.
Is this really a bad thing? Do we really want our scooping pubs to change so they attract boorish, football-obsessive idiots with a bad line in sports attire? I certainly don't and think there's room for all types of pubs from neon-lit vodka joints to traditional locals and that includes scooping pubs, too; after all, I don't expect nightclubs to sell a range of micro-brewed beers so why should brand-obsessed normals expect to see the same shite in every single pub in the country? Why should every pub be compelled to show Billingham Synthonia versus Flight Refuelling Wimborne on a ginormous plasma screen when no-one actually comes from either place or cares who wins?
Homogenisation, in whatever guise it takes, is always a bad thing. Think of it as “dumbing down” to the level of the lowest common denominator of whatever it is and you can imagine the results in most cases. Although this notion wouldn't bother the drones who frequent lager pubs and consume what the TV tells them to it certainly does me and, if you consider yourself to be a craft beer lover, it should you too. Homogenisation of beer is one thing we must categorically resist, but how about the same thing happening to pubs? Do we really want every pub to be the same bland, corporate identikit barn serving the same bland, identikit industrial beer and microwaved pre-portioned food? I bloody hope not for, if that's the case, I'm emigrating!
Even if we dislike certain styles of pubs and like others the fact is there's room for all in the marketplace as the success of bars such as the Cask & Welly demonstrate; I'd much rather have a choice than no choice and long may this remain so. Real-ale scooping pubs must stand their ground and offer what their customers want which, in most cases, is what they are already giving them; after all, that’s why the customers are there…
Proper craft beer bars, those which showcase local brewing talent and eschew industrial beer, are still – despite the well-known ones being justly famous – a very small proportion of pubs. Whilst out scooping these 'proper' craft beer bars it's very easy to get carried away, the beery euphoria takes over and you conveniently forget about the other 99.999% of cask ale pubs which offer nowt but mediocre cask ales from dinosaur-like regionals or, if you’re lucky, the odd LocAle from a micro.
Recently I ventured to a very neutral land, a simple search for more 'foreign muck'. That's an affection term used to denote "foreign beers that I scoop". Anyway, one such “proper” bar I visited was the Pibar in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is one of this rare breed which gives the finger to big brewers and goes it's own way in solidarity with the very few other bars selling quality beer. This list reads like a roll-call of excellence in the beer world: Ma Che Siete Venuti A Fa' in Rome, BQ in Milan, Český Ráj in Wroclaw, Kulminator in Antwerp, Harlequin in Sheffield, Star in Huddersfield plus many more I'm sure you could name. The fundamental point is that all these bars are regularly packed with people enjoying the beer exposing the lies from the 'multinational's' that “There's no demand for quality beer”. Pull the other one.
So, if there's a demand for quality beer and only a few bars supply this demand, is it really surprising that they are constantly rammed with happy customers? No, but what amazes me more is that other pubs and their owners either can't or won't acknowledge the reason for the success and continue with the latest themed concept – be it Australian, Irish, Martian, whatever – in a futile attempt to make their bars successful.
Yes, these re-brandings may work in the short-term, but the targeted 18-30's with disposable income are a fickle bunch and will soon tire of “McReilly's” and move on to the next shiny-shiny new thing leaving it in need of yet another expensive refurb into the latest theme to try and tempt back those fickle customers who patronised it for a few weeks before they got bored and moved on to the “Kalashnikov lounge” down the road.
Surely these regular guttings and re-openings can't make economic sense? Surely what went before, the local pub which catered for all – not a small segment of society who don't mind paying over the odds for “imported” beer concocted in Northampton – didn't need thousands spent on them every couple of years? Why do the new breed of pub owners deny centuries of pub history and butcher their charges as if they were some plaything and not an important part of the community?
With the focus on short-term gain endemic in the pub trade I can't see anything changing which is why we must support those pubs and bars which cater for us contrary bastards who crave quality beer. In our example of Lausanne there are a mere half-dozen bars which supply local, craft-brewed beer. Pibar has the largest range plus possesses a palpable beery appreciation in both the staff and customers. Happily, it was packed every night I visited and those people weren't there to be seen, they were there because the bar supplied what they wanted: a good choice of quality beer which was lacking in almost every other bar in town and they’d made the effort to go there and drink the stuff.
True craft beer bars aren't numerous enough. We must support those we find, as without them, we'd be drinking what Argentineans call “Cerveza Industriales”... and I trust I don't need to translate that for you?
Pibar, Rue du Valentin 62, Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland. Tiny bar with half a dozen Swiss craft brewers featured in the bottle range and a lot of beery appreciation inside.