This is a golden age for British beer
...but if you read this story on BBC News Online yesterday, you might not think so. I was going to write a lengthy piece pointing out why we shouldn't worry about the British Beer & Pub Association's dismal report. However, after being forwarded an article from today's Guardian by reader Michael, I don't need to. Roger Protz has it covered:
"The BBPA, which reported that pubs are selling 14 million fewer pints a day than they were in 1979, doesn't speak for all Britain's brewers. Excluded from its ranks are the bulk of Britain's 500-plus microbreweries, most of whom are enjoying a boom in sales. They concentrate almost entirely on real ale: living, natural, cask-conditioned beer. It's the producers of global lager brands - Stella Artois, Carling, Carlsberg and so on - that are witnessing a catastrophic decline in demand."Here's the full article.
Frankly, if people aren't going to choose quality beer, I don't care whether they choose Smirnoff Ice over Stella Artois. As far as I can see, that's the big shift in the market: people who'd otherwise drink bad lager are simply choosing other ways to get smashed. Meanwhile, the quality end of the beer market is growing stronger.
18 comments:
I wrote over at Stan that I see something of a disconnect in the craft beer gloatery based in part by the US experience. A few short decades ago 75% of beer in the US was consumed in taverns but now it is less than 25%. The UK could be going the same way. It matters little I would think if craft beer sales go up 1% if the pub culture collapses and craft beer has no replacement market infrastructure. If the collapse of big macrocrap leads to an increased loss of pubs, where will craft beer stand with a much larger part of it's cask audience gone?
Oh shit. Maybe Alan is right.
Some people would rather talk on a mobile phone instead of directly to the people around them. They'd rather block out their surroundings by hooking up their ears to an iPod. They'd rather drink behind closed doors with close friends as opposed to mixing more informally in public places. They'd rather isolate themselves in a car than use public transport and risk rubbing shoulders with people they don't know. It depresses me greatly.
Alan, you are right that pub culture in Britain is taking a battering. The sad thing is, too many of the wretched people I refer to above don't care because frankly they've become socially retarded. I suspect that a large number of the politicians and their hangers on fall into that category - and they're the ones that can make a difference.
How do they do that? Well, they need to realise that in the UK the blame for binge drinking lies primarily with the cheap drinks deals offered by off licenses and supermarkets on one hand, and city centre boozing dens on the other. I'm talking about places like Yates' bars and Walkabouts, where (largely young) people go to get off their face having already tanked up on cheap cans of Stella before they left the house.
If the government were able to see where the problem actually lay, and reduced the burden of punitive taxation on pubs, it would be a start.
As for reversing the social alienation of large numbers of weak-minded people due to the replacement of human interaction with techonological gadgets, I think it's too late.
bloody hell stonch, lighten up mate!
You're right. It's time for me to post about this photo competition... get your cameras ready, peeps.
Agreed on policy over binge drinking in bars. It's knee jerk piss-poor legislating that they use here in the US as well to satisfy the prohibition moms.
On the topic of craft brew market though, I would submit that there is a MAJOR problem brewing on the horizon. The hops shortage. I go into a lot of detail on my blog, but the long and short of it is that the craft brewing niche is the only aspect of beer that is growing. The yellow fizz producers are fighting for market share.
This shortage could serve to slow or possibly stop that growth which is a big problem. It's not the prices that are going to cause this, it's the shortages and need to ration and shift from the hoppy American versions of traditional styles that have become so popular (IPA, Red Ale ext.) here in the US. This shift from flavor that many a beer enthusiasts have come to love to a more refined high end lager/low hop profile ale will cost the craft brewing business customers.
Cutting back the hops profiles on brew like these that are the linchpin of many micro-breweries will cause many to change or close their doors. There are a lot of micro breweries that will have to TOTALLY reevaluate their approach to making and selling beer.
I've suggested a hop growing coop is required to be run by state or provincial craft brewer associations. Places like CNY and Ontario are exactly the places where hop fields could flourish to respond to the shortages.
Travis, thanks for your comment. It's a very succinct explanation of precisely why the US craft beer scene fears being hit particularly hard by the hop shortage.
British palates aren't as accustomed to hop bombs, so perhaps brewers here won't suffer quite as much? Or is that far too simplistic?
Alan,
The North Eastern US was a hops powerhouse in the early 20th century. The problem was fungal infection that infected crops all over the region and killed the industry all together.
There are still farmers that grow the hops in CNY here and there, but never as a cash crop. Like Yakima Valley in the NW is currently experiencing, when a snafu hits the industry in an area, it's too inexpensive and too costly of crop to justify not changing gears to either sell out of farming, or farm something different.
Stonch -
Thanks. As far as British palates compared to US palates (IMHO) there are several categories of craft brew drinkers. I am not sure how they break in different countries, especially ones with a richer and more deep beer history than the US. But in the US, to simplify things, I would say there are three categories of craft beer drinkers:
1)Beer geeks - They will pay whatever and just like good beer. No chance of loosing them.
2)Beer moderates - Not beer geeks, but they have moved beyond Magic Hat, Dog Fish Head and Great Divide and on to more niche brews. There is a risk of changes like this curbing their opinions about the beer and about how interested they are in being identified as a "craft beer" type. In the end though, I think we don't loose many of these.
3)Newbies - Just scratching the surface of good beer including sampler packs of Sams, Saranac, New Belgium (Fat Tire is a gateway brew), Otter Creek ext. This is the group at risk. One of the most identifiable differences for an early drinker is bitterness and hops (second only to color). It's their ability to say "this is really hoppy" that makes them identify themselves as a "beer connoisseur".
The biggest and most important group out of all those listed, to me anyway, is the last. The newbies are the argument for breweries to start, expand, or invest. The growth in the market is what has allowed the market to grow. Without them, we could have problems.
What's your take on the British palates based on that.
I think the global rises in Malt prices and the risk posed by land use change from barley to bio fuel crops is a bigger threat to all of us than the hop shortage.
Once the malt is to expensive we are all left drinking sake-weiser.
Kieran-
Not sure if I agree. At least not here in the US. Bio Fuel will most likely be a replacement for a lot of the dwindling ag markets of the Midwest. There are so many uses of the grains that make malt and even the malt itself (scotch, bourbon, whisky ext) that I think there will always be a good dollar there for people to make.
As I said before, prices are going to effect the market, but as gasoline prices have shown, we will continue to seek out these items. Hops is pretty unique and beyond beer has limited usefulness.
hop shampoo??
Travis , I hope you are right.
Hops we can do with less, once the malt is gone we're screwed.
I love gadgets
A fair point, Stonch but the jury's still out. The fact is that sales of wife-beater, murderer and slag-juice help subsidise our favourite pubs, keeping them open so that we can enjoy our pints. Even the great pubs in my part of the world are struggling because of various factors - anti-pub legislation (the main subject of my blog) and eye-watering taxes being the main ones. If the lager goons stop paying over the odds for their drinks, us real ale fans are in trouble.
Really interesting stuff. Poor old Stonch about to hang himself from the shower rod... (!)
A couple of things occur to me. Does beer really need to be that expensive in pubs? I am not sure that the prices are not from the big companies trying to make money, and then once profits are not 'enough' - or worse - just 'growing', then they will sell the property to developers rather than as a going concern because they can make more money that way and have a larger market, and because it is so easy to do so (as mentioned elsewhere in this blog it is relatively easy to get change of use planning permission for old pubs) I suspect that free houses would do a lot better if restrictions were placed upon change of use permission on old pubs.
As far as hoppiness is concerned, I have drunk Deuchers IPA since it first appeared in bottles in London back in 1995 (-ish) and it is a LOT less hoppy than it was. I presume this is to make it appeal to a broader market within the UK.
The gradual disappearance of pub culture has lead to the growth of drinking barns and home bingeing. It is not acceptable in a decent local to be pissed and out of order - it is more than the licencee's job is worth. However at home no-one is watching, and in the drinking barns I have no idea how they get away with it without licences being lost.
But what the hell can be done? You are dictator. Taxes on 'off' sales, reduction in 'on' sale taxes? More restrictive licencing requirements on places with capacity over, say, 250? Reduction in taxes on breweries below a certain production capacity?
Forgive unstructured train of thought written in haste when I should be working...
Your statement "As far as I can see, that's the big shift in the market: people who'd otherwise drink bad lager are simply choosing other ways to get smashed. Meanwhile, the quality end of the beer market is growing stronger" is absolutely right, but it simply doesn't, as others have pointed out, recognise that the vast majority of pubs need the sales of lager to ensure viability. We can do all we can to convert them to "good beer" but the pub needs drinkers and throughput. It would also be helpful if we could have some decent lager for them to drink but the sad fact is that a can of cheap Stella tastes the same as an expensive pub bought pint of same. Another point is that to me, at the younger end of the market, there seems to be little regard for quality. That is worying too for the futute, though taste and discernment may (hopefully)follow with maturity.
Us real ale drinkers don't have these problems - you can't really and readily buy a cask pint for home use - but we still have the dependency on the shit beer drinkers or even Smirnoff Ice drinkers to make pubs viable.
For me, drinking is synonymous with the pub. That culture and perspective is less common now. It is a time bomb for the British pub and for our drinking culture.
Of course pub owning groups have much blame for this with market segmentation and venue pubs etc. etc. and the drinks industry for destroying for producing the low quality stuff they generally promote.
The pub used to be for everyone and the best ones still are. Can we get back to that? As our Southport friend says on another point, "the jury is still out".
Sorry for not proof reading my response above. This was written in haste before I dash off to fettle the pub I am temporarily looking after!
Guinness sales in the UK have been going down in the last few years, so its the whole beer market.
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