A Different View From London

A couple of days ago, I posted a piece on All About Beer wherein I mentioned with some alarm the ubiquity of American-style beers in London.  I specifically name-checked The Kernel, and yesterday one of the brewers, Toby Munn, left a really thoughtful comment on the blog.  With his permission, I'm reprinting it in full.

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I commented on your All About Beer page, but I like repeating myself. This is just regarding point 1. These are all valid points, and your concern over the health of British cask beer is not insignificant. But, I would like to point out that, although there are a few breweries and a few beers that are attracting headlines, there are still a huge amount of beers produced that are quintessentially British.

This is just my tiny little opinion, but I happen to think that the influx of outside influence is good for traditional beers and breweries. I think that the younger/newer drinkers are bringing with them a different, critical look to beers. On the one hand, traditional brewers are concerned that newer drinkers are just after a 'grapefruit hit' in their beers, and concerned with only IBUs and intensity of flavours. In the short term, this may be true, sadly. Long term, I think that these newer drinkers will understand more about the technicalities about what makes beer great, and the subtleties that makes beer great. To reference a post that I think is perhaps relevant, and almost certainly true.  [Note: Toby added that link, not me.]

I think that the introduction of these different styles and new flavours is only a good thing. These modern drinkers will have a fuller and more rounded view and opinion of beers, and are more critical in general. If we are to follow trends of the US, we will see that producers of truly great beer are in demand. This, I think, will happen here in the UK, and elsewhere. Actually, it is evident already.

The problem with many indigenous beers, whether in Britain, Germany, or, especially, Belgium, is that, after years and years of little progression, the only point of difference has been price point, and the only change has been a deterioration in standard. There are many traditional beers and breweries that are truly awful. And there are many that have stuck to their principals and are outstanding. I think with the newer drinkers, armed with more discerning taste buds, will raise the expectation of what good beer should be, irrespective of style, and make our tiny little world of beer a better place. Other opinions are, of course, available.

When you came to Britain in 2011, I am sure that you found many beers that were dreadful. Just because it is served from a cask does not make it good. Similarly, just because a beer is doused in Mosaic is no guarantee that it is any good.

Your concern for traditional styles is valid. It is not insignificant. But I believe that your concern will be proved to be moot.

Respectfully
Toby

Three Countries in 22 Photos

What follows is not a proper photo essay because my journey through England, France, and the Basque Country took me to some eddies and side-tours not strictly focused on cider. But maybe that's a feature of this post and not a bug. I'll put most of them below the fold so they don't run forever down the page.   They proceed in chronological order and although I took about the same number of photos of each place on my good camera these, on my phone's, seem to be unevenly distributed.  Sorry, Normandie!  Also, I tried not to repeat photos I used in earlier posts about Herefordshire, wild fermentation, Normandy, Txotx season, or perry. 

The Grain Barge in Bristol had the best tap cider I found, but Ashton
Press, which I liked, is owned by Butcombe Brewery.

Sometimes the hedgerows seemed menacing.

Perry

From time to time, you hear someone refer to "pear cider."  Given that many American ciders are now made with other fruit, I suppose you could say that a cider made with some portion of pear juice is a pear cider. But the stuff made wholly from pear juice: that's perry (or, in France, poire).  

It's a pretty rare beast in the US, either available only as an import or something made from eating pears.  But in England, many of the traditional cider makers also make perry. Indeed, the one late pressing I happened to witness was of pears at Hecks in Somerset. (The aroma of pressed pears is sweet and lush. If you could bottle the scent, you'd quickly get rich.)

Like apples, perry pears (they're always called "perry pears," never just pears) are grown because they contain the sugars, acids, and especially tannins that make a good perry.  Because of their rarity at home, I have rarely even had them. That was rectified in my swing through England, because the cideries all had more than one available.  They're more rare in Normandy, but still roaming about. In fact that Calvados you love may well contain a small amount of pear. 

Perries are the red-headed step-children in the cider world--neglected and misunderstood, an afterthought. But some cider makers are devoted to them and produce beverages as elegant and complex as cider. Indeed, Tom Oliver recently won best in show for a perry at a national contest where they were outnumbered by ciders three to one.  

Oliver's perries are elegant and finely-wrought little creatures, characteristic as much for their pillowy softness as their flavor. I noticed it on our first pour, of the Draft Perry. The word that sprang into mind was "meringue"--both for the bright flavors and mousse-like texture. Red Pear Cocktail perry had a poached pear flavor and light delicacy.  (Both completely concealed their alcohol spines.)  By contrast the bottle-conditioned medium had tons of tannin, a bit of herb in the nose, and a touch of blue cheese. It reminded me more of Mike Johnson's perries at Ross-on-Wye; those have a sturdier farmhouse quality, with burnished tannins (they seem softer in pears than apples), more alcohol warmth, and a hint of wild yeast. Those who love smacking tannins found in English ciders would approve of them. 

Norman poire is to perry what Norman cidre is to English scrumpy--a lighter, sweeter, bubblier tipple. Pears naturally tend toward sweetness, not only in sugar content but pear flavor. In Normandy, where the philosophy is sweet and effervescent, they can seem almost evanescent in the mouth. I was surprised to find, however, that in a side-by-side pairing with different courses, the poire consistently matched and usually exceeded its counterpart, a cider. 

There's an adage among orchardists: "pears for your heirs."  Perry pear trees take a long time to begin producing (15 years), and even then they are harder to harvest. Cider makers say perry is harder to make, too; the flavors are more subtle and fermentation is for some reason more finicky. This may account for the reason there are fewer perries on the market--and I despair that perry pears will ever grow in our neck of the woods. (Though, positive note: in Rngland perry is now so popular that they're putting in acres of new fruit.)  But they are worth trying to track down.  They are not just a curiosity, but a wonderful beverage in their own right. 

In Herefordshire

The first stop on my cider odyssey is Herefordshire (English pn: HAIR-eh ford sheer) which, for those of you who don't have your Engliah counties memorized, is the the west, snuggled up next to Wales. Among cider nerds, Somerset is often invoked as the mystical center of English cider-making, but Herefordshire probably has more claim. This is the home of the famous cider pioneer, Bulmers, which is now generally spat out as an insult. It wasn't always the case, though, that the world's first industrial cider-maker was associated with lowbrow stuff. And it's not incidental that the Bulmers got their start in Herefordshire: this is where the apples are.

It's also where a number of the most-respected small-production cider makers work their craft. I have spent the last two days with two of them: Mike Johnson of Ross-on-Wye ciders (where, word to the wise, a B&B is located, just steps from the cider cellar, where Mike will pour you a taste or fourteen), and Tom Oliver of Oliver's Cider and Perry. 
As with any craft, cider makers each have a philosophy. I wondered, before arriving: do they tend to clump together philosophically, like the alt brewers of Dusseldorf and lambic brewers of Brussels?  My sample size is too small to count as definitive, but it was interesting to find real philosophical similarities between the two men. 

Both make their ciders naturally, which is to say without adding yeast, and left to ferment naturally in ambient outside temperatures. (That means the apples that come to press in September star fermenting warmer than those that linger til December.)  Both eschew technical fussiness--when I asked questions like "what's the pH?" Tom gave me a wide range with a shrug and both said they don't really care.  The cider takes care of itself, they believe. Both also make and are committed to perry (fermented pear juice). And perhaps most tellingly, both use the word "soft" a lot. 

English cider comes largely from bittersweet apples. The bitterness comes from tannins, which can be quite aggressive. (Their individual flavors are as varied as hops--some woody, others spicy, others tea-like and so on.)  Neither man likes them to have a harsh edge, and throughout the process they do things to sand them down to a smooth, supple bitterness.  Tannins are more pronounced in young fruit, so they wait until it's very ripe--they fear green apples more than rot--and sometimes let the apples sit awhile. Very slow natural fermentation (six weeks to six months) helps preserve flavors; chemical reactions are slow and the subtle aromatics aren't blown out by roiling carbonation from the kind of vigorous fermentation you see in beer. Then the ciders rest, and this seems to be the most important part. Depending on the variety, they may condition up to two years. Tom also encourages malolactic fermentation, which further softens things. 

The effect is most obvious in the dry still ciders they make. They are bone dry--gravities as low as 0.998. You'd imagine the lack of sugar and those tannins would create a very sharp, intense cider, but that's not the case. So much of the subtle flavor and aroma compounds remain that the palate is fooled into thinking some of the fruit notes are sweet. The bitterness becomes integrated with those flavors and is often so "soft" you don't realize how many tannins there are until that lip-smacking astringency alerts you after your swallow.

The other thing that really struck me--and this is partly because I'm a beer guy--is how much Mike and Tom follow their cider's lead. In brewing, you want as much control over the process as you can get. In Hereford, they let circumstances guide them.  The apple harvest is unpredictable and they work with the fruit they have. Since they ferment naturally, they work with the ambient temperatures around them. They take gravity readings, but they also just watch to monitor fermentation. And the cider is ready when it's ready. They taste as they go along, waiting for all those variable to line up to give them soft, complex ciders.
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Photos (from top): (1) Tom Oliver's barrels, in what was formerly a building devoted to processing hops; (2) the cider cellar at Ross-on-Wye; (3) when the ghostly hands deflate, the cider has stopped fermenting. 

In-Bud's Wreckage Begins (But It's Not Too Bad)

When I first saw this, I panicked:

LONDON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Anheuser-Busch InBev (INTB.BR), the world's largest brewer, said on Tuesday it would close its newly-acquired London Stag brewery in 2010, with the potential loss of 182 jobs.

The Belgium-based group acquired the Thames-side brewery at Mortlake as part of its takeover of Budweiser brewer Anheuser two months ago for $52 billion. It has targeted merger cost savings of at least $1.5 billion by 2011 to help pay for the world's largest ever cash takeover.

The kicker is that Stag predates Shakespeare, going back to the 15th Century. However, a bit of research reveals that it's currently just a faceless, industrial facility opposite a Young's pub, producing only packaged macro. Whew--call off the outrage.

The Tied House Pub System in England

As a follow-up to the post below about the dying English pubs, it's worth expanding on a point Joe made in comments. English pubs compete in a dramatically different regulatory environment than those in the US. Our system, as you know, ensures that pubs are wholly independent--US law mandates that a distributor act as a middle-man between the brewery and the pub. These rules were created as a protection against the English system, where breweries directly owned pubs--a system known as "tied house."

That system is still in place, and it may be a major reason pubs are in trouble. Beer sales are dropping precipitously in the UK--down 22% since 1979. The largest drop is among the "premium lager" segment. Sound familiar? (Cause and effect are not easy to tease apart here. Some blame the drop-off in pub sales as the cause, and cite a recent smoking ban and the rise in prices. But that isn't convincing, either--sales have been dropping for at least a decade. Long before last year's smoking ban and recent spike in taxes on draft pints.) But what to make of the simultaneous, contrasting trend of the boom in English craft breweries, who saw sales increase 11% last year?

This is one of those times when regulation may be a problem. Since the tied-house system has been in place, it has stymied competition. In the 1980s, a government commission looked into the situation and unanimously concluded "a monopoly exists in favour of those brewers who own tied houses." Furthermore:

"Brewers are protected from competition in supplying their managed and tenanted estates because other brewers do not have access to them. Even in the free trade many brewers prefer to compete by offering low-interest loans, which then tie the outlet to them, rather than by offering beer at lower prices. Wholesale prices are higher than they would be in the absence of the tie. This inevitably feeds through into high retail prices."

In other words, the vicious cycle of high prices and dropping sales is a result of non-competition. The result of the commission was the Supply of Beer law, an apparently successful effort at opening the market. It was subsequently repealed. (Interesting question for follow-up: what effect did the Supply of Beer law have on provoking the rise of small craft-breweries in England, and what has been the result of its repeal on them?)

I am, as you all know, both a foe of the power of US distributors as well as a pinko commie. I am therefore leery of blind boosterism of free markets. In this case, it seems like a no-brainer, however. As long as the UK keeps the tied-house system in place, the market is going to suffer a more violent reckoning as a result of changing consumer tastes that it would if it were more open.

The Dying British Pub?

There is little dispute that one of the reasons Portland is the country's best beer town is because we have such a vibrant pub culture. It creates a community of beer drinkers whose appreciation grows geometrically, rather than in bottle-by-bottle increments. Although I haven't run the data, I suspect a strong correlation exists between density of pubs and craft beer sales. Maybe it's just a matter of being an Oregonian, where local is best.

In any case, my spidey senses are going crazy over recent reports that pubs are dying off:

Pub closures have soared to a record high – 36 a week – as drinkers choose to buy cut-price alcohol for consumption at home.

The British Beer and Pub Association said 936 pubs ceased trading in the first six months of 2008. Pubs are shutting nine times faster than in 2006 and 18 times faster than in 2005.

The BBPA fears closures will gather pace, with the imposition of above-inflation rises in beer duty. Almost 2,000 pubs are expected to close by the end of the year. "There will be many thousands of closures – probably 6,000 in the next three or four years," warned Mark Brumby, a City analyst with Blue Oar Securities.

The reason, according to British beer writer Roger Protz, is supermarket discounts. His just-released Good Beer Guide suggests that they're actually selling beer at a loss to get new shoppers.

Since 2002 beer prices at off licenses and supermarkets have fallen by seven per cent, while pub prices have increased by 24 per cent, because of increased beer duties and red tape, the guide says...

"When a pub closes the community's heart is ripped out and dies," Protz said. "It's a particular problem in rural areas, where the village pub is the heart of the community. People go to pubs for friendship, conversation, to enjoy an affordable meal, or just quietly read a newspaper."

The Bright Side
Much like in America, there seem to be two beer cultures. The one that's being threatened appears to be the mass-market variety. The Sun reports that "punters" stay at home to save money and also to smoke (which has been banned in pubs). Most of the deep supermarket discounts are on big national brands or imports like Foster's. (Another factor: there also may be a glut of pubs now, as well--there are more pubs at any time since WWII.)

On the craft side of the slate, however, things are looking rosier:

More than 70 new small brewers have opened in the past year, according to 2009 Camra Good Beer Guide published today. Such is the proliferation that the UK now has 550 breweries – more than at any point since 1945. And while lager sales are falling, with a 10 per cent plunge for the leading lager Stella Artois, bitter ale brewed by members of the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) rose 11 per cent in 2007.

So maybe things are just coming into equilibrium, as British beer drinkers trade in their Foster's and pick up some tasty draft cask.