Anyone for Shiraz?

Put yourself in the position of an irregular or occasional beer drinker. How do you differentiate between the masses of products available? I touched before on factors that might make us (writers, readers and twitterers of the beer world) decide what to buy, but what about the yet to be converted, those we'd hope would find the joys of the interesting flavours on offer?

Informative?

Much of the boom in wine sales since the seventies can be attributed to simple, clear, varietal labelling. Even if many wine consumers aren't able to pinpoint the characteristics of, say, Cabernet Sauvignon, it's easy enough for them to remember that they've enjoyed one before, and so look for it again. Despite the rise and rise of hop varieties appearing on beer labels it's nowhere near as prevalent as you see in the wine industry.

I think it's a great thing that stylistic boundaries are stretched, sometimes to the point where the original meaning of a style becomes almost irrelevant, but it does mean that it's difficult for someone to decide whether or not they're going to like a beer when they're considering what to buy. If I like Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA am I going to like Greene King IPA? A similar point can be made about colour in that it doesn't dictate flavour - all though much of the time if you read the label it tries to do exactly that. 'Delicious amber ale?' Maybe my palate is faulty because I can't taste colours? Malty and hoppy are useful terms as at first glance but they're no more helpful for narrowing down the choice than say 'red or white' when it comes to wine. Country? Well, looking at the winners list from the recent World Beer Cup makes it fairly obvious that flavours generally have nothing to do with geographical origin.

Obviously in pubs this is less of a problem, any decent pub will offer samples before sale, although bear in mind (you're still in irregular drinker mode remember) many people will find it difficult to describe what beer it is they like - even to the point where they are intimidated my being asked. Add to this that, like it or not, more drinking is being done at home, and therefore from the bottle (poured into an appropriate glass of course). It seems to me that many of the beers in the 'Speciality' section (and I hate that term) of your local supermarket are going to struggle to stand out from one another, and that might send people right back to the familiar.

Comments appreciated - the blog post was long enough without me rattling out more of my thoughts!

Oak Aged

In the wine world there are loads of meaningless phrases bandied about that are not tied down by regulation. Some of them are actually useful in context but others less so; old vine (how old?), reserva (only legally defined in certain countries so meaningless elsewhere), cuvée (on Champagne, meaning a blend - which all Champagne is.)

What has all this got to do with beer? Well the phrase 'oak aged,' as pops up from time to time on beer labels, strikes me as being a particularly good example. It is so vague it becomes simply another tool of the advertisers, used to infer some sort of adherence to tradition. How big is the barrel? How heavy is the toasting? How many times has it been used previously? Even the species of oak used can make a difference. The barrel on the right is from the cellars of Concha Y Toro in Chile. If you can't make out the detail it's specified as American Oak, medium toast.

On the left is a rather different Italian botti, this one's from the Petrolo estate in Tuscany. A huge container that may well have been used time and time again, vintage after vintage, to the point where any flavours gleaned from the oak are negligible. The wine could be described as oak-aged, but equally, if a similar container were used, you could refrain from using that description and it's doubtful anyone would be the wiser.

I'm running the danger of this becoming a post about the basics of oak's influence on wine, so I'll get back to the point. If a phrase which, at first glance, might appear to be quite a useful consumer guide* can be so easily shown to be so vague, or confusing, as to be almost meaningless, then could that happen with others as they are used more and more? I can certainly think of one example where the fact that the beer comes from an oak cask is only useful as an advertising slogan.

Craft beer anyone?

* Somewhat ironically, un-oaked has actually become rather more useful.

Bottle Variations

It strikes me as odd that there isn't more variation in bottle sizes.

I worked for a while in pubs in Queensland, where the tradition is to drink pots; about a third of a pint - so the beer doesn't get warm - as the pseudo-Australian rubbish lager ad says 'well you wouldn't want a warm beer' and, in the case of XXXX 'Gold', you probably wouldn't want it cold either. I can only imagine how horrible it would be warm. Brakspear 'Oxford Gold' is a decent enough beer but if you sold it in wee stubby bottles, like French picnic beers I reckon it'd go down a treat in the summer. Just a thought.

It was the  Oxford Gold that lead me off on this tangent, which might suggest that the beer itself wasn't all that exciting. Perhaps a bit unfair, it's not exactly a beer particularly suited to a November evening.  However my point was more one of whether tradition sometimes interferes with selling a summery-style beer in a different way that might appeal to new drinkers. The same applies to the Cotleigh 'Golden Seahawk' I tried recently too - a beer I've seen described as bland - which I would say is unlikely to appeal to many beer geeks who've seen it all before. Do we need more mid-strength pale ales with a bit of a hop-kick in the finish? They might though be good beers to entice lager drinkers away from their favourite fizz. But would the the packaging help or hinder that?

 

Brakspear 'Oxford Gold' Organic Beer 4.6% abv $1.87 from Waitrose (50cl)
Cotleigh 'Golden Seahawk' 4.2% abv £1.89 from Sainsbury's  (50cl)

Oakham Ales 'Bishops Farewell'

The spectacle of beer advertising aimed at women came up again today courtesy of Greg at The Pour Curator and an innocent question about Sunday dinner from Emma Cole on Twitter. I have mentioned it before and frankly the whole thing is hardly worth dredging up again because it should be fairly obvious to anyone with even half a brain how patronising most of this stuff is, but hat-tip to Melissa Cole, not so much dripping sarcasm as standing in quite a deep puddle of it. I've yet to try Chick Beer or Uptown Girl - don't hold your breath.

I have, however, tried Bishops Farewell (sic) from Oakham. It's a pale blonde, hoppy beer, along similar lines to many that I tried at the Nottingham Beer Festival recently. Floral and pithy on the nose. Lots of citrus on the palate, and with a slight soapiness that I felt knocked the clean edge off the finish. Although this is probably bordering on the sacrilegious I think I might have been better off drinking this one cold rather than at cellar temperature, and I'm pretty sure it'd come across better on tap. Still, one of the more interesting pale ales that's generally available at the moment.



5% abv, £1.99 (50cl) from Sainsbury's