Back once again with the Ale behaviour....

Last week I spoke about Cask beer, and noted some of the issues that exist in the market for cask beers, and so this week I'm going to be braver again, and suggest some ways that the overall trend of decline in the market can be addressed. Now, I'm not in the business of teaching elderly ladies how to suck eggs, so I'm not going to be addressing all of those Publicans who sell Doombar and are quite happy with it. I'm all about the ways that we might start to celebrate the Cask beer tradition of the UK, whilst not necessarily being hidebound by that tradition and continuing to circle around the big plughole of extinction.

The first thing that we need to address is the elephant in the room: Beer quality. Reams have been written about the decline in cellar skills, perhaps the best known being Paul Jones' Blog for Cloudwater brewery explaining why they had decided to cease cask production (https://cloudwaterbrew.co/blog/looking-back-whilst-pushing-forward) focused strongly on the quality issue. Pete Brown said much the same in the Morning Advertiser (https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2017/01/16/Pete-Brown-why-it-s-time-to-say-no-to-bad-cask-ale) and there are lots of similarities in the language being used: Diacetyl, hazy and Flat so lets look at those.

Diacetyl is a natural byproduct of the fermentation process, and as cask beer at its best undergoes it's secondary fermentation in its cask there is going to be Diacetyl involved. The BJCP (Beer Judges Certification Program, the gold standard of beer judging) describes Diacetyl as 'artificial butter flavour like movie popcorn, leaving an oily texture in the mouth'. Not good. The thing is though, the beer will clear up that Diacetyl all on its own if it's left to complete its fermentation process. At Moor Beer we sampled all beers before release to ensure this process was complete, but other brewers have an approach that puts the onus on the Publican, to ensure freshness (or conversely to ensure the beer is out of the door as quickly as humanly possible). The solution had to be be two part, with the Brewer providing better information sheets with their product rather than assuming that the Publican will know what to do with it via osmosis or telepathy, and the cellarman has to do that simple thing of tapping the beer and using skill and experience to define when that particular beer is going to be ready.

The opposite side of the same card are the other two common complaints, Flat and dull. Cask beer should be a vibrant living thing, it has a narrow band in which it has, if everything else is right, a beautiful soft carbonation that sparkles and zings in the mouth, and is simply divine. If your cellar is up to scratch, and you have a method of serve like a well maintained beer engine, that doesn't smash all the CO2 and life out of it, then your customers should be enjoying this natural sparkle and meshing of flavours that make cask beer sublime. Once it looses that perfect condition, for the love of God take it off sale. If you haven't sold the whole cask by then, perhaps you have too many cask beers on the bar, or perhaps it's just not right for your pub.

The obvious issue with this is that there are huge differences in quality between cellar staff across the Industry, from the old boy Landlord who knows his beer inside out but won't stock anything that doesn't 'drop clear' in 20 minutes and doesn't have Fuggles in it, to the minimum wage employee in the chain pub who simply doesn't care as long as it pours. It harks back to my last article where I suggested that training and respect for the barman is missing in so much of the UK Pub industry. Invest in your people, pay them well, and your sales will increase, it's not a difficult case to make, that better staff who are interested in the product they sell will end up selling more of that thing.

Cleaning is another thing that goes without saying, but your lines need cleaning at least once a week, beer line doesn't last forever, and taps need dissembling and proper deep cleaning from time to time. read the articles by Clearbrew or Avani Services for the horrors that they find out on the road, and ask yourself 'is my cellar clean enough'??

There are some amazing cellars about, I particularly liked the wall chart of progress in conditioning in the Cellar at Pint Shop in Oxford (along with the big cupboard of spare parts and proper tools) that listed each beer on the racks and it's milestones toward being in perfect condition, and the other that springs instantly to mind is Akkurat in Stockholm. This bar has won Rate Beer's 'Pub of the Year' more than once, against all comers globally, and it serves several cask beers, both on gravity from a chilled enclosure behind the bar, and from three cold rooms set to different temperatures downstairs, so that the temperature matches the style of beer. (no, room temperature isn't good enough) Tell me about yours if you think that what you do is outstanding.

Did I chat about haze? Yeah, its fine for modern beer to be hazy. grow up. But don't pretend that the fined beer with the horrible infection is supposed to be like that, it's not. Have some self respect.

Right, that's the backroom stuff sorted. what else do we do?

See that photo at the top? that's not going to attract many new drinkers to your Cask offer. If you are stuck with standard beer engines like that, then at least make sure that they work properly, and that the beers you choose have attractive and well designed pump clips supplied, that don't feature sexist images, bad cartoons, or lousy puns. Make sure your staff are up to speed on what they are serving (remember we spoke about the Cicerone thing last time? do that. or do something like it, treat them as professionals). But you aren't limited to the big handle and polished brass. Half the joy of cask beer is showing off. Maybe use a chilled back bar servery to sell beer on gravity, build something that shows the workings of those beer engines and use something cooler as a pump arm, I like the handlebar tube and BMX grips that 'Beard' in Bristol have, make the serve interesting.

And tell people about it. If you are hip enough to use flat screen monitors to list your available beers like 'The Rake' who nicked the idea off 'BierCab' in Barcelona then include some information about the beer, tell people what Hops are in it, where the Malt is from, any special information on flavour or allergens that sort of thing, if you are more old school then you might want to think about some way to display the colour and appearance of the beer at least (I've seen sight glasses in visible Stainless pipework, that's pretty cool...bit of brewery in the pub) attract people to the beer. Write tasting notes, the ones on the pump clip will be hopeless, and for goodness sake don't go back to Cyclops, its dreadful.

So there we go, we have beer kept brilliantly, being poured by experts with a bit of theater about it. We are going to charge a bit more for it, because we've brought superb beer from interesting brewers (we might even tempt Cloudwater back into cask with this level of quality) and our customers are happy, because it tastes great and you have a good quality, clean, glass in your hand that suits the beer you chose (another bugbear of mine is inappropriate glassware. NO! That's a Lager glass, its designed to dissipate aroma!) happy drinker!

I'm expecting to be deluged with replies telling me that they already do cask beer brilliantly, that cloudy beer is wrong, that you can't charge more than ￡3.00 a pint and all the other things that I've heard before. But before you type that thing about Doombar being brilliant and your best seller, have a short think. In a reducing market is that enough?