CBR: Sharp words on Doom Bar and Stout

“The hardest thing to do as a brewer is to make a beer that makes people come back for more.” That's Stuart Howe, then the director of brewing for Sharp's Brewery, talking in London on the first day of Craft Beer Rising, where Sharp's was a major sponsor. Barely two weeks later it was revealed that he was leaving Molson Coor's-owned Sharp's to join another West Country stalwart, Butcombe Brewery, itself recently bought by Liberation Group from the Channel Islands.

The folk at Sharp's get a lot of stick in certain quarters for the blandness of Doom Bar, which may well now be the UK's top ale brand. I admit I'm one of those who sigh inwardly if I enter a pub and the only handpump visible is a Doom Bar one – because poorly-served pints have made it a sign for me of a pub that sells on branding, not beer quality.

That reaction's unfair to the brewers though, because as Stuart continued: “I kill myself to make the same beer every week, I come in and taste it, and if it's different I blend it back until it's the same.” I guess the truth is that I am not the target market for Doom Bar – people who want something familiar, who might occasionally try something else but then go back to the known quantity.

And of course one of Stuart's successes at Sharp's after the Molson Coor's take-over was to carry on producing innovative beers alongside the bigger brands, most notably his Connoisseur's Choice range of specialist styles and spiced beers. It was always Doom Bar though that got the marketing.

His recruitment by Butcombe (again as brewing director) will therefore feed the fears of those who always thought the Molson-Coors takeover would see Sharp's become part of a corporate machine driven primarily by branding. In contrast, the Butcome/Liberation combination is very much a craft and real ale-driven business. Then again, it could also be that Stuart wants to get back to brewing, having moved to more of an oversight role within MC where he had overall responsibility for three breweries: Sharp's, Franciscan Well in Cork, and the currently mothballed William Worthington's brewery in Burton.

“William Worthington closed two months after I took over,” he said, adding that it was due to problems getting the plant to meet MC's health and safety standards. Reading between the lines, it seems it was a victim (although of course the hope is that it will eventually re-open) of the collision between big brewery costs and small brewery economics, due to it being an integral part of a much bigger factory. 

The dark beer revolution

We often read now that Porters and Stouts are back in fashion – they're certainly my favourites, and it's become almost a mark of self-respect for a craft brewery to add a distinctive dark beer to its range. So it was interesting to hear Stuart express a contrary view when I asked what plans Sharp's had in that direction.

“Stouts don't sell,” he said. “Year on year, Guinness sales in the UK go down 10% to 15%. Dubbel Coffee Stout is the worst seller in our Connoisseur range.”

The problem for me is the definition of Stout. Plenty of microbrewers have tried to produce beers to compete with Guinness, but few have succeeded, perhaps because Guinness is not really part of the growing Stout & Porter market – in many ways it is a market all of its own. It could simply be that macrobrewed Stout is being affected by the same changes in taste and fashion as macro-lager.

However, that doesn't explain why Molson Coor's with all its expertise can't sell Dubbel Coffee Stout. Perhaps once again it is back to the collision between big and small, with sales strategies that are designed to sell big brands being entirely unsuited to selling small-scale craft products. If so, it could bode badly for the big brewers' crafty plans in general. Interesting times, eh?

This is the fourth in a series of write-ups from London's Craft Beer Rising, which took place on 19th-22nd February 2015 at the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. There's one or two more to come, when time permits.

A tasty slice of tart: Hardknott's Æther Blæc 2011 Sigma

Inspired among others by Belgian classics such as Lambic, Gueuze and Rodenbach, and more recently by experimental American craft brewers, there is a barrel-aged and sour beer revolution underway. It won't be on everyone's radar - or to everyone's taste - but if you enjoy drinking something a bit different then it is definitely something to look into.

This example, from Cumbria's Hardknott Brewery which has been building itself an outstanding reputation for powerful, flavoursome ales, came to me as a very kind leaving gift when we were moving from London to northern Germany last month. Now we're mostly unpacked, I thought it was about time for something a bit different from the Pilsener, Weizen and Dunkel that pretty much sums up the local beer culture here.

Listed as a 7.8% Imperial Stout, this particular batch of Æther Blæc spent six months maturing in a 1982 Inchgower malt whisky cask - I had bottle 520 of 540. The result is fascinating - a black beer with a coffee crema that's not sour as such, but it has a light fruity tartness on both the nose and in the mouth. Also on the nose are vanilla, peach, treacle toffee and wood, all of which are to be expected from the barrel.

Then in the mouth there is an initial dry lemony tartness, followed by a touch of roast coffee and a sort of tart peach note with hints of strawberry and plain chocolate. Finally, the finish brings the treacle toffee and lemon flavours back, before sliding into an unusual dry smoky fruit character.

Perhaps it’s not ’style’ for an Imperial Stout, but it’s delicious and fascinating stuff. Interestingly, for me it comes across more as sour than barrel-aged, although it's clear that the former derives from the latter. In contrast, many other barrel-aged beers, especially branded ones such as Innis & Gunn, are more about getting wood flavours into an otherwise regular (ie. non-sour!) beer.

Perhaps tart beer won't be to your liking - but perhaps it will, if you give it a chance. Belgian Lambics already have a keen following, while in the US so many drinkers have acquired the taste that brewing giant Molson Coors has allocated a chunk of its giant facility in Golden, Colorado to producing sour and barrel-aged beers. Who knows, maybe its UK operation Sharp's, which is already doing Belgian-inspired Tripels & Quadrupels, might follow suit.

Stealth beer!

What's in a brand? Well, quite a lot for some people – and it's not always positive. I can't think how else can you explain the trend among brewers towards beers that don't have their real names on – instead they either have a stealth brand, or in some cases no brand at all.

So yesterday when I came across some rather nice new-to-me beers at the European Beer Bloggers Conference – a fruity golden ale called Sunbeam, and a couple of single-hop beers, one using Polish Marynka and the other English Sovereign – I was intrigued because it wasn't obvious who brewed them. They were on the table of conference sponsor Marston's, but the Marston's guys only referred to them coming from Wolverhampton – eventually I spotted "Banks's" on the clip, but in tiny, tiny print.

I'm no branding expert, but it did make me think some more about the subject – especially as I saw something similar a few weeks ago, when I spotted an unfamiliar pumpclip in a Greene King pub. Of course GK uses several sub-brands, some for breweries it has bought and closed – eg. Morlands, Ridleys. Ruddles – and some simply to differentiate, such as Westgate, but this clip simply gave the beer's name (The Sorcerer) with no indication at all of its origin.

Stealth beer first caught my attention several years ago at the huge Coors – or fellow conference sponsor MolsonCoors, as it now is – brewery in Golden, Colorado. In the brewery tap were glass trophy cases, and also in there was a bottle of a beer I'd never seen before: Blue Moon. Just to look at the label I'd never have known it was a Coors product. I could only guess that the aim was to reach the kind of drinkers who avoid the mega-brewers.

It was also around that time that Anheuser-Busch – now AB-InBev – bought a slice of RedHook Brewery. Talking to AB people I realised that their motive was similar to Blue Moon's: if you're going to lose market share to craft beer, it's much better to lose it to your own craft beer. AB-InBev now owns several other craft breweries and sub-brands, of course.

I guess the lesson is that not everything that looks new and independent actually is. On the other hand, it's also that the old names are perfectly capable of doing something new and wonderful, as with the Banks's project, which is to explore hops by brewing twelve identical beers, one a month, and flavouring each with a single different hop variety.

What do you think – should Banks's and Greene King use (one of) their own brands, or would that create the wrong kind of expectations?

Seriously beery

Is MolsonCoors - which is the lead sponsor of this week's European Beer Bloggers Conference - serious about craft beer? It certainly looks that way. As well as its US witbeer Blue Moon, its suggested dinner beers included bottle-conditioned Worthington White Shield and Red Shield, and both bottled and cask-conditioned Honey Spice no.3 ale from Sharp's.

Also on the menu from Sharp's was its 10% Quadrupel Ale - made according to head brewer Stuart Howe with four hops, four malts, four yeasts and four fermentations. This was complex stuff, with a hoppy, musty wine-barrel aroma turning more syrupy in the mouth, with grapes and a hint of chocolate coming through. Somewhat odder was Stuart's Turbo Yeast IV, a 22% monster that as far as I could gather is a mix of non-alcoholic beer and a distilled spirit. It's more like a slightly soured treacley port, and will not be to everyone's taste...