The real ale brewing industry is crippled..here's why

[setmash]

Bit of a rant.
Im a fairly new AG brewer (3 brews to date) and a mad lover of real ale. I travel a lot with my job so i get to stay in lots of hotels, some good, some bad. But all serve the standard corporate brewery bilge and i can honestly say Im utterly sick of it. You know the feeling when you walk in to a place and see the shiny chrome taps with 'Stella - Boddingtons - Becks' slapped on them, your stomach sinks. You know your in for an overpriced pile of watery tasteless crap. It came to a head for me tonight as I came down to the bar in the DeWhites hotel Bolton. To my surprise i saw a beer engine at the bar. I get excited, I'd heard they serve real ale once per week but it sells fast so they usually run out. Youd think that if something sells fast you buy more, basic business sense really. Is it my lucky night ?..... I look down at the beer engine and in to the drip tray. Dry as a bone....gulp. Maybe they have had a quiet night tonight and i imagine myself with a lovely ale in my hand. BANG - reality sets in, dry tray, dry keg. I gingerly ask the bar man, half not wanting to hear the answer, im in denial. The news is bad , its as expected. ' Yes we got the black sheep in yesterday afternoon and as usual it sold out before we shut the bar last night'. He adds ' the bad news is we have been told we wont be getting anymore ale in' at this stage the bar lady adds 'its crazy as it always sells so fast, lots of guests ask for the ale'. I inquire why on earth are they stopping selling it ? bar man answers 'we dont know, we have just been told we wont be doing it anymore, its a bit awkward to keep as we cant move the kegs very easily but its no problem and everyone seems to enjoy it'. He adds 'we will be getting a replacement'....my ears prick up ....'Peroni'

FFS

I give up.

[guypettigrew]

Sounds like you need to get hold of the CAMRA good beer guide and find good local pubs wherever you're travelling to.

Or look on the Cask marque sitefor similar info.

Hotels? If you don't want cold tasteless lager order a bottle of wine. You are on expenses, aren't you?!

Guy

[setmash]

Hi Guy your right of course, but my point (though i didnt make it clearly) is that these guys have demand. People want real ale. But the big brewers are stifling that demand, not allowing it to propagate. I have a fair few friends who walk in to a real ale pub and order Stella because they know no better. CAMRA are great but some of their rules are utterly stupid and dont help at all.

I guess its a sign of today's society, limited choice and poor quality. McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Costa - Stella , Boddingtons, Becks.

QED

[guypettigrew]

You should walk into a real ale pub with your uneducated friends and order on their behalf. You know they'll thank you for it!!

Don't know where you live, but there are small brewers all over the country these days. In fact, it's difficult where I am to find a pub which doesn't offer real beer from a local brewer!

Guy

[scuppeteer]

I've found most Holiday Inns tend to have a real ale on all the time. Failing that widen your hotel choice!

[setmash]

Right, Holiday inn it is !

[mozza]

I'm guessing it must be due to cost in these hotel chains. The small micro brewer has to charge that little bit more to get by whereas the McDonald's of beers, because they are so big, can sell a bit cheaper I'd have thought.
Also, real ales are local to certain areas and who want to stay in a hotel that's a little bit unique? (I'm joking there with that last part)

[boingy]

Real ales also need a bit more effort and skill to store/dispense. Maybe they've made the call that the hotel guests are a captive audience and most of them will just buy one of the beers that are available.

Do you get any say in the choice of hotel? Quite a few business travellers don't...

[AnthonyUK]

The thing is though there is obviously a demand for it. I can assume it is a corporate decision not to stock more.
There are signs that things are only going to get worse.

Molson Coors buys craft brewery - http://www.molsoncoors.co.uk/en/News/Un ... ision.aspx

Could this ever work? My gut instinct says no. It is just the start as well as once one start the others will be all over this.

It looks like the main media has finally picked up on this tidbit - http://www.standard.co.uk/business/busi ... 30868.html

All involved in the sale of beer need to turn a profit but I'm guessing the only casualty here is quality.

[neil smith]

hi, there is no excuse for running out of beer always have a spare ready cos if you aint got it you cant sell it and real ale drinkers will go elswere.
cheers Neil

[Matt12398]

Sounds like Molson Coors is on a microbrewery buying mission. They bought Sharps a year or two ago.

I think though that it's easy to find somewhere that serves real ale and considering the rise in number of microbreweries surely that is an indication of an increased appreciation for the more tasty and sometimes unusual beers. Wetherspoons may not serve the best conditioned real ale in the world but it's in all of their pubs. A lot of my local breweries are even moving towards a wider range of beer styles with several making pilsners, Belgian ales, altbiers, american IPAs, not just the same amber ales that every other real ale brewery in the country is making. All of these point towards a public demand for something other than watery mass produced lager. Added to that I feel that beer is no longer regarded a the everyman's drink, it's more highly regarded and with a lot of the special edition beers such as Fullers Vintage, Brewdog's Abstrakt range and the ever increasing range of expensive imported beers in our supermarket it is clearly also the reserve of the middle classes.

[Jocky]

Molson Coors are buying up 'craft' breweries simply because they're eating up their market at the moment, and the pubs they supply are finding their customers demand 'ale', and MC are responding in the only way they can - buy something to fit in their carefully manicured product portfolio.

A lot more people are drinking stuff other than lager now, although we're still at the point where most of them are just thinking about it in terms of 'beer that isn't lager' rather than actually tasting what they're drinking. That'll take some more time.

[cookoff]

went to my local spoons, did the meal deal, but i wanted the real ale they sold, the offer was a meal and drink, for £x. i perchased the meal deal, and tried to select the real ale.
not on the list, they wouldnt do a price adjustment either, i will pay for good beer there isnt no problem with that.

i ended up buying meal deal / drink and a real ale, because that was the cheapest way to do it, even though i didnt want it. i bought my ale and walked away, "sir, sir you forgot your drink." i kinda replied just chuck it. an walked off.

thats whats wrong !

[Horatio]

Up until very recently I would work away from home very often and, like, you, was absolutely sick and tired of the bland beverages lining very bland hotel bar. I started to stay in decent pubs and Inns instead and always researched where I would stay thoroughly before booking a room; good beer guide, good pub guide etc. I found the rooms to be cheaper, the establishments more homely, the food more wholesome and the real ales more welcome! My boss was pleased as my expenses went down due to the better room rates in pubs and inns as opposed to big chain hotels too.

[k1100t]

I know that RateBeer isn't everyone's pint of beer, but it does have a decent places section that you can use to try and find somewhere that will have decent beer on. It's especially useful if you go abroad a lot...

Cheers,

Bob.