Irresponsible marketing?

While tapping away at my keyboard with Classic FM on in the background, an advert catches my ear. Now, lots has been written about the broad subject of this ad, in this case the selling of 20 cans of Stella Artois at the bargain price of £8.99. The wrongs and rights of such pricing has been debated widely. But it was the next part of this Sainsburys ad which really, in my opinion, took this sort of advertising to a new low: "Kick the pub into touch and scrum down to your house to watch the rugby." Not content with flogging Stella at 45p a can, this supermarket is now adding insult to injury by suggesting we cut out the pub altogether and invite our mates round to our house instead! An end to the practice of cut-price alcohol in supermarkets will help so many problems - not least ads like Sainsburys'.

Wishful thinking?

I see a beer called Rugby Victorious has appeared in the Star cellar. Surely a beer named more in hope than expectation …

Ventnor Brewery Sand Rock Smoked Ale

I brought back a bottle of Ventor Brewery Sand Rock Smoked Ale (5.6%) from the Isle of Wight, on the recommendation of the brewery’s Airon Baker, with whom I’d drunk a couple of pints of their Golden Bitter (4%) at Afton Apple Day, where they had a stand. The Sand Rock is a heady winter brew, and when it says smoked it means smoked – in the style of Islay whisky, as one would expect from the use of peated malt. Enjoyable, but only to be taken now and again, and then only at the end of a session!

Recent stand-out pints

One of my best experiences was drinking Yates’ Undercliff Experience (4.1%) in the Prince of Wales at Freshwater, on the Isle of Wight. This unpretentious back-street pub has clearly changed little over the years and comprises fundamentally a long bar where conversation is king among friendly locals who are, I can testify, particularly welcoming to strangers. The Yates was superb: a classic combination of Goldings and Fuggles hops, but with a twist – the former are the primary hops in the boil, whereas many brewers add them late on for aroma.

Wetherspoon’s, in Truro, in common, I believe, with many other branches, continue to lurch from the hugely disappointing to the frankly sensational in terms of beer quality. Two great examples of the latter recently. Lizard Ales’ An Gof (5.2%) has loads of great malty flavour, but with some good fruit too, similar in style to Ringwood’s classic Old Thumper. Then, last week, a sublime Orkney Red MacGregor (4%), a polished red ale but with great, not too sweet, depth of malt flavour, and some peppery hop on the finish.

Good points, well made

As ever, Durham Brewery's Steve Gibbs raises interesting points in his newsletter. Firstly, do the newly-revealed top ten beer brands — Stella Artois, Carling, Foster's, Carlsberg, Budweiser, Kronenbourg 1664, Carlsberg Export, Grolsch, Becks and John Smith's — sell so well because people genuinely love them or because they are brainwashed by very expensive advertising? Knowing how, last summer, every other drinker seemed to be sloshing back pints of Magners on ice, I think I know the answer to that one. Secondly, if cider is made from apples and perry from pears, why call some versions of the latter pear cider? Answers to Steve (via his good friend and associate Sir John Barleycorn) at sirjohn@durham-brewery.co.uk

Hobson's Mild is a worthy champion

One of the first beers to run out at the Great British Beer Festival was, of course, was Champion Beer of Britain, Hobson's Mild (3.2%). When an extra cask appeared on Thursday one saw a rare sight — a GBBF queue for one beer. And well worth the queue it was, too. This is a worthy winner, packed with flavour for its ABV, a good, not too sweet mild, dark copper in colour.

Hats off to Marston's

With India stacking up the runs on the first day of the Third Test, it was perhaps an unfortunate time for Marston's to be promoting their new light, summery offering, the 3.8% Hoggy's Night Watchman (referring to England player Matthew Hoggard). The stand was packed out, though, not just because the beer was good but also because Marston's were giving away very good quality cricket hats.

Anniversary brew

The Caledonian stand had among its fine offerings (such as the ever-reliable Deuchars) Rebus 20, celebrating the anniversary of Ian Rankin's famous Edinburgh detective, Inspector John Rebus. The beer has a mystery added ingredient of Ian Rankin's suggestion - at £3 a pint I wonder whether it was gold leaf?!

T time

The usual selection of amusing — and sometimes downright rude — t-shirts at the Great British Beer Festival. One I particularly liked offered the philosophy: "Drunk men say what sober men think." CAMRA's own staff t-shirts, sponsored by Wychwood, employed the phrase: "L'Real Ale — because you're worth it."

Ringwood beers — loved in Dorset, too!

Peter Hampton e-mails from Poole re the Ringwood Brewery takeover by Marstons. "I'd like to point out that Ringwood is on the Hampshire-Dorset border and very many freehouses in Dorset, too, stock the wonderful Ringwood beers; the majority of the tied houses are in Dorset, too, in Westbourne, Poole, Gussage All Saints, Winterborne Stickland and Weymouth. All excellent pubs. John Buckley (CAMRA Wessex regional director) should not restrict his regret and references to Hampshire — Ringwood's fine ales are valued highly in Dorset too!" Peter adds: "I grew up in Gales country (many good memories of the Chairmakers at World's End, the Robin Hood in Havant, the Ship at Langstone, & the Maypole on Hayling Island) and would not want to see Ringwood go the same way as Gales Brewery. Although it's unlikely, I guess, in view of the investment by Ringwood in modern equipment — something Gales didn't do much!"

Tasting round-up

Coastal Summer Gold (3.7%) is the archetypal modern, golden, session bitter, lovely and refreshing and with a good citrussy hop — yet another new brew from the naturally talented Alan Hinde, based at Redruth. Woodlands IPA (4.3%) is well worth seeking out, being true to the IPA style, yet having a lower ABV than the usual proper examples (such as Marston's Old Empire, 5.7%, of which there is a cask in the Star cellar — excellent!). The beer dried out nicely towards the end of the cask. Carlow's Molings Red (4.3%) proved very popular, although it was a little too malty for my taste. Great example of a good Irish beer that isn't you-know-what, though.

Brakspear's Triple

I thoroughly enjoyed a bottle of Brakspear's Triple. At a whacking 7.2% it's a late evening unwinder of a beer, with plenty of flavour, but presented in a subtle way. The beer gets its name from the addition of hops at three different stages in the production process. Bottle conditioning means it matures nicely before reaching the glass, and is a nicely rounded pint. As an extra gimmick, each bottle is numbered and you can look at the Brakspear website to find out when your particular bottle was filled.

Nice quote...

... from the Summerskills website, and so true: "Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder." Plenty of other good stuff on this site, too.

As good in the bottle as the cask ... almost

Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted is one of those rare beers that stands up pretty well to being bottled. At 4.2% ABV it is 0.4% stronger than its cask counterpart. Both beers are superb, refreshing, zesty pints (well, 500ml in bottles!), benefiting greatly from an hour in the fridge. I bought a bottle as it has been on special offer in Sainsbury's (tight? moi?), but it'll be on my shopping list again back at full price.

Natural talent

To the Coastal Brewery, at Redruth, where I meet Alan Hinde and discover that the brewer of the Star's beer of the year so far (Coastal Angelina, 4.2%) is a relative novice. He was originally a joiner by trade, working for British Rail, until getting into brewing while managing pubs. A newcomer to Cornwall, he moved down from his lifelong home of Crewe at the end of of 2005, and didn't start brewing full-time until the end of last year, although he had been involved in brew pubs around the Crewe area. And yet, to taste the beers he's producing - especially the light, golden, hoppy ones, you'd think he'd been doing it for years. Amazing.

Clear winner

Some advise to steer clear of beers in clear bottles, but Sharp's Doom Bar (4.3%) is bottled thus, and one I had recently was excellent. I chilled it in the fridge for an hour beforehand and this really boosts the nutty hop aroma in this Cornish brew. This is balanced by medium sweet malts.

Protection racket

I see train conductors on First Great Western no longer appear to be called train conductors. Their job has been re-described as 'revenue protection'. Except some days I can get on at un-manned Hayle station and travel to Truro without seeing them once. So not protecting that revenue too well, then. And we wonder why the train companies keep asking for more subsidy ... Speaking of trains, have to chuckle that the new buffet at Camborne station, presumably specialising in cold meat sandwiches, is called the Beef Hen Counter.

Archers - a fast-moving story

One of the disadvantages of print over online content is the longer deadlines, as the team behind CAMRA's What's Brewing newspaper will tell you. In a centrespread depicting 17 different microbreweries "to watch" it listed Archers, of Swindon. Archers, it said, "is currently seeing a renaissance under its current management team". When the paper reached the CAMRA members the "current management team" was administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers. Better news, though. It seems that the company that works so fast it doesn't have time to puts spaces in its name has managed to keep the company going with much of its existing staff and managed to put right some of the things that were so obviously wrong. Like having a portfolio of beers that ran into the hundreds, with a dozen or so new brews each month. The distribution was a puzzle, too. This was a company that would think nothing of sending four nines of beer in the back of a van from Swindon to just one pub near Penzance. Economic? I think not. Archer's does, however, deserve to succeed in its rebuilt form. It produces some cracking beers, notably its IPA (4.2%) which was SIBA South West champion in 2006.

Quality is all, say Steve and Sir John

If you don't already, subscribe to the Durham Brewery newsletter and you'll be treated to the often right-on-the-money musings of brewer Steve and the totally unimaginery Sir John Barleycorn.

Recently, their not inconsiderable worry was the future of the pub, and they drew a perfectly reasonable conclusion that one of the ways a hostelry can give itself a good chance of survival is through the serving of top-notch beer.

"A report by Brulines indicates that beer quality has a significant effect on the success of the business," wrote Steve. "Pubs that cleaned their lines weekly increased sales by 2% against a 9% decline for those who cleaned their lines quarterly. I would suggest that the quarterly cleaners should not even be in the business! Pubs offering more than four cask ales experienced a growth of 1.8% while those with none saw a decline of 6.25%. Furthermore, previous studies have shown that over 50% of drinkers leave a pub when served poor quality beer, and over 60% never return or go less often."

Hear, hear. Oh, and congratulations too to Steve and his team for having Magus and White Centennial named joint Durham CAMRA beers of the year.

Er, no thanks ...

An e-mail in my inbox offers me the chance to buy alesonline.co.uk at the reduced price of £465 plus VAT. Curious enough in itself. Then, a few days later the same e-mail from the same address, the only difference being that the price has now been "reduced" to ... £1,000! No, I'm still not biting.

So much for the new year resolution ...

I have been berated in the pub by Pete H for the lack of attention I am giving to the blog. He is an unforgiving soul, but rightly recognises that I whinge on often enough about other people not keeping their websites up to date when I have difficulty maintaining my own momentum. Fair play.

What I should have been enthusing about lately was the quality of the Coastal Brewery's (Redruth, Cornwall) Angelina (4.1%). This is a terrific golden hoppy beer that disappeared in six hours when It made an appearance at the Star during a CAMRA branch meeting in the last week of January. A second cask from the same guile has just been seen off with similar rapidity. Brewer Alan Hinde clearly has a magic touch with hops.

Last night I was delighted to see Lizard Brewery partner Richard Martin turn up for a couple of pints with his better half, Tone. He was able to sample a snifter of Lizard Helford River (3.6%), one of those rare session beers that packs a huge amount of flavour into a low-ABV brew. And it was in excellent condition.

If you get a chance to try a Lizard beer, do so: I rate them very highly.

Courage on the move

The acquisition of the Courage brands by Wells & Young's seems a good move that should preserve two of Britain's best known cask ales, Courage Best and Directors.

Courage Best drinkers, in particular, are fiercely loyal to their pint and seem, in my experience, to stick with it whatever fine alternative attractions adorn neighbouring handpumps.

Scottish & Newcastle's decision to concentrate on brewing the fizzy yellow stuff is understandable. It has never given its cask brands the care and attention they need, whereas Wells & Young's have the capacity and the marketing wherewithall to make Courage a major name again.

I await their interpretations of the classic courage brews with interest.

So farewell, then, Chalky the dog

Rick Stein's beloved pooch was one of a few canines to have a beer named after him. I was one of the last journalists to see him alive. This was when Chalky's Bite (6.8%) was launched by Sharp's in November, working to a recipe developed in conjunction with Rick. By then the little chap was blind, deaf and not too steady on his paws. But at 17 he'd had a good innings and must have been one of the best-fed dogs in the land. We must toast him with a bottle of the eponymous brew.

The Golden's hot

My beer of the weekend at the Star was Archer's Golden, a 4.7% mainstay of their portfolio and a fine golden beer with a smooth blend of hops and malt that is just too easy-drinking. Prior to that two session beers of different character. Frog Island Best Bitter (3.8%) is a hoppy beer that looks as though it should be a slightly malty number. Indeed, it starts a bit malty but strong hop flavour soon kicks in and lingers. Keystone Bedrock (3.6%) was much more subtle and golden, and seemed a bit of a let-down after the Frog Island, but it grew on me as I adapted to the less hoppy, smoother taste and it proved the ideal warm-up act for the Archer's.

Incidentally, the Star's regularly-changing beer menu is now live on Beer Today - click and have a check of what's on before you leave home!