Industry News
Congratulations to Nethergate Brewery (Clare, Suffolk):
Old Growler was voted Supreme CAMRA Champion Winter Beer of Britain 2003.
The 5% ABV porter is described in the Good Beer Guide as
a "complex and satisfying porter, smooth and distinctive. Sweetness, roast
malt and fruit feature in the palate, with bitter chocolate lingering. The
finish is powerfully hoppy".
The silver prize went to Horndean-based Gales with their superb Festival,
and the Bronze award went to Wentworth brewery from Rotherham for their Oat Meal Stout.
Local brewery news
Milton Brewery's first pub, the Coalheavers Arms in Peterborough, now has a Web site:
www.individualpubs.co.uk/coalheavers/.
Refurbishment of their second pub, in Hackney Downs, is progressing.
Meanwhile the brewing side is flourishing, with recent awards also including
Champion Beer of East Anglia 2002 for Pegasus,
SIBA's Champion Mild for Minotaur
and Cyclops was the beer of the festival at a local beer festival.
Cap'n Grumpy's seems to have ceased brewing altogether, having
left the Ship at Brandon Creek a few months ago
and been brewing at Iceni for a while.
The JD Wetherspoon pub chain has been successful in obtaining licences to
serve alcohol from 10am for about half its 629 pubs.
Many of the pubs already opened then for breakfast
and coffee, in a bid to rival the likes of Starbucks.
Meanwhile it's still opening new pubs but also selling off a few - mainly
ones bought from other pubcos.
Another sign of things to come is that some JDW pubs now
charge entry in late evenings.
For instance the new Lloyds No. 1 in Croydon is
charging as a condition of licence:
£2 after 11pm Sun-Thu;
£4 after 9pm Fri-Sat.
In a startling ruling, the House of Lords has decided
Czech brewer Budejovicky Budvar has the rights to the "Bud" trademark
in the UK, not the giant US Anheuser-Busch company, the world's largest brewer.
The UK is the only country where both Anheuser-Busch and Budvar can sell their beer products using the
"Budweiser" brand.
(In Cambridge, draught Budweiser Budvar is available in the Free Press.)
Charles Wells' Banana Bread Beer (4.5%)
returned this February as a seasonal beer, after an award-winning tryout last year.
It's described as "a dark-golden coloured ale which hugs the palate with
great intensity. Its malty aroma is complemented by the gentle nose of Banana".
One media accolade was from the Michael "Beer Hunter" Jackson in
The Independent:
it has a "... fruity roughness of winter barley and toffeeish
sweetness of crystal malt... hugely tempting aroma of bananas; creamy head,
firm silky body."
Banana Bread Beer won the Beer of the Festival Award at CAMRA's
London Drinker Beer Festival in March 2002.
A key point is that it's targeted as attracting female drinkers,
previously a hard audience to reach for real ale.
A further point is its use of
fair-trade ingredients.
The March What's Brewing reports that the Laurel pubco is tweaking its Hogshead
branded pubs even more, having already
cut beer choice drastically.
Now staff known as "hoggers" will wait on tables to serve alcopops and shots and the logo
will change from a barrel to a hog's head. Real ale choice will be cut down to just Fuller's
London Pride and Caledonian Deuchars IPA (already widely available in other pub chains).
Return of M&B
Six Continents (formerly Bass) has split off
its pubs & restaurants division (2100 freehold sites)
as Mitchells & Butlers, keeping its hotels.
M&B was established in 1898 and taken over in 1961.
(An aside: the
Moody Blues tried to get sponsorship from their
local brewer M&B by choosing the name "M&B 5" but the deal never came through.)
Guinness alternative
Lord Iveagh, the head of the Guinness dynasty,
has launched a stout bearing an uncanny resemblance to the `black stuff'.
He's never worked for the family business, preferring
farming on his estate on the Norfolk/Suffolk border.
He is quoted in the London Evening Standard
as saying: "There is nothing like a
bit of choice. I love Guinness as it has an
excellent recipe and therefore my alliegance
will now be split between Guinness and the
new brew."
(Perhaps if he tried some of the excellent
stouts produced in the area he would
discover what 'the black stuff' should
taste like - Stout-drinking Ed.)
Elveden Stout will be produced and sold from a micro-brewery on the estate.
ALE Spring 2003 No. 309
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