There's been talk on the internet about craft beer running out of steam.
Of enthusiasm lost and an ageing group of enthusiasts. As an early
CAMRA member, I say welcome to the club.
There are so many
parallels with the real ale movement. Kicking off with, mostly, very
excited young people who want to change the (beer) world. Slow
beginnings, followed by intoxicating, seemingly never-ending, growth.
Then
you look around and you're all in your forties. And those young people,
they just don't understand what good beer is. They like some new
nonsense, that isn't proper beer. Not like the stuff you love.
"Your beer is boring." Youth says. "We want something new and exciting. Not that old man beer."
And so it endlessly goes.
I say this as an old bloke in the corner nursing a half pint of Dark Mild.
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6 comments:
"Your beer is boring." Youth says. "We want something new and exciting. Not that old man beer."
I was in a pub in Manchester city centre a few months back with a mate who's ten years older than me, drinking a cask stout. A couple of lads in their early twenties came into the back room of the pub where we were and sat down at the next table with their pints of Guinness. It was around the time that the news about Guinness overtaking Carling Black Label in sales revenues had broken and attempting to bridge the age gap my mate struck up a conversation with them and asked them why they drank it rather than lager or cask beer. They answered that it was because lager was reliable but dull, cask beer something they occasionally drank and enjoyed, but was often unreliable, whereas Guinness tasted of something and was pretty much the same everywhere.
So it seems that lager in Britain has gone, or is at least going, from being seen as a woman's drink to one drunk by old men with no taste buds.
The only way you have a half pint of dark mild is because all the full pint glasses are dirty because you and I drank them all first.
I guess I don't care how large the craft market it. I can buy almost anything I like and homebrew the rest. I feel bad for the people losing their jobs, and I question the tastes of someone who thinks a milkshake IPA is way better than Anchor Steam or a classic craft beer American pale ale. But so be it.
If CAMRA members are beer conservatives, then the author of this blog is a Jacobite. Restore XXXX with 100 IBUs to the throne!
They got it right at Guinness tastes of something sour very tangy three week old office black coffee and fresh tarmac.
I prefer the stouts of the small independent (yes Porterhouse,Rye river,Whitefield,White water and O’ Hara’s are still small producing in a year what Guinness and Heineken Ireland make in most of the working week) even if most are not bottle/can conditioned and in kegs on draught they are still characterful and distinct. Would love to try the stout you had.
Oscar
Dear God it would be tongue wreckers.
Oscar
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