Trouble Brewing

In message , Peter Alexander writes

Interesting indeed. Would anybody here care to support or oppose the view that 90% of the beers produced by Scottish microbrewers fall into the 'try once, never again' category? Because I live in the English Midlands my contact with Scottish micros is limited; but of the names I read in that article which I recognised, all but Belhaven (which isn't a micro in my book) made me shudder.

A couple of years ago a local mini-festival had a largely Scottish theme. As luck would have it Herself and I were going to the Highlands for a short holiday a couple of weeks later, so I homed in on the Scottish beers to see what to expect. It was without doubt the most disappointing session I've ever had at a festival. The cellarman was a professional of long experience and formidable reputation; the beers were in top condition. But awful. On the subsequent Scottish expedition the only beers I got near enjoying were Taylor's Landlord in an Inverness free house, Budvar (IIRC) in that rather curious 'Czech' place in Inverness, and a Belhaven keg beer in Ullapool.

The point of this ramble is that notwithstanding the obvious commercial pressure that the Scottish micros are suffering, would they do better if their products were better attuned to 'yer average beer drinker'. Yes, you might buy half a dozen from Tesco or Morrison's to try - but you've got to keep coming back for more if the supermarket is to sell enough to keep stocking it. The same goes for the pubs - if your regulars try it once and go back to their lager, down goes the volume, down goes the quality and it's the old, old story.

BTW I've no Sassenach axe to grind here - I'm of Scottish descent on my father's side and my real surname (which doesn't feature on Usenet) would be readily recognisable to anyone in the Highlands!

Well, off to get my flameproof overalls...

Dave

No, I don't think I had a single bad'un when in was in Edinboro

I don't recognise the picture painted by Peter either. I've had some terrific Harvistoun and Atlas beers in particular recently.

I can think of one brewer of regularly naff beer. I always wondered why people complained about the brewery until I met one of the staff (one of the partners I'm told) and found him to be a rather disagreeable character who had managed to produce a singularly bland beer and another that was plain bad. Three strikes. Oh, and he was a ticker.

Minor point, but it was Dave not me. I posted this without comment though I have to say, I too have some terrific Scottish beers and the odd bloody awful one.

No different in that respect to English micros

Peter

In message , Peter Alexander writes

Guilty m'lud. It was I wot posted it. Though for some reason Google thinks it was you.

And I quite agree that some English micros are capable of producing really dreadful beers. Really, really dreadful. It's just that in my experience of both, and I freely admit that's limited for all sorts of reasons, I've had a significantly higher proportion of really grim Scottish beers than English ones. But fear not, I'll keep trying. Surely things can't be *that* bad north of the Border? For instance, Harviestoun's Schiehallion didn't feature either at the local festival or the subsequent holiday, but I've had that several times and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also tried a couple of Inveralmond beers a couple of weeks back, and particularly enjoyed Thrappledouser.

However, to hark back to the original Sunday Herald article, the author was explaining what tough times the Scottish micros were having. Some English startups have really done very well over the years (Archers, Wye Valley for example). I doubt many here would argue that Golden and HPA are pretty good quality beers. And it's a funny thing, but checking in the GBG for the spellings on those two Scottish beers, lo and behold Harviestoun and Inveralmond both seem to be doing really well. Funny, that. Maybe I should market my services as a beer tester :-)

Dave

Our local micro-brewery owner said this today

"Last week, 7 of Britains largest regional brewers (Adnams, Caledonian, Charles Wells/Youngs, Everards, Fullers, Greene King and Wolverhampton & Dudley) formed a think tank and are working together to try and oust micro-breweries like us out of the market. They have also recruited sales people to visit certain pubs to try and educate publicans not to buy from micro-breweries and to only buy from larger breweries."

Anybody know more about this ? It's not just a Scottish issue then.

-- Grumps

I did read within some financial pages recently that Greene King's total profit from beer amounts to only 11% of their total profit and yet they like to purvey themselves mainly as a brewery.

On Thu, 15 Jun 2006 11:47:41 +0100, Saxman wrote (in message ):

I've said it many times on this NG that these companies are property companies/pubcos just like any other. Yet many still refuse to believe it.

See my post "Victory for beer lovers, Young's to stop!" 25/5/06

The 'Think-Tank' was set up a couple of years ago IIRC, and has recently published a report that suggests that pubs should focus on quality, not quantity. Which is not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is that the think tank suggests that quality means large brands, not small breweries beers.

And yes, reps from big breweries (and certain wholesalers it seems) have been bad-mouthing micros for a few years now, something that is becoming more prevalant of late, with Simon Loftus of Adnams publicly moaning about micros flooding the market with cheap badly brewed beer. A statement which has an element of truth about it to be fair.

It's all because micros, SIBA & CAMRA have been shouting about how they are seeing a rise in cask beer demand, and now the bigger boys are waking up to this, and trying to stop.

Given that the market is still shrinking (don't confuse demand with sales - folks might want a local beer, but they'll often be happy with a national/regional beer instead), the number of breweries is growing fast, you don't have to be ultra-clever to see that something is going to have to give.

So expect a rise in mergers & acquisitions (look how many this month or so already...), even 'strategic partnerships' between regionals. And in time, a raft of deceased micros - not all of whom will have brewing bad beer. But then I've been saying this for 2 years, and still nothing has starting imploding!

Steve Banfield