Category: News

In recent times, we have seen a few breweries taking the decision to stop producing beer in cask format, Brewdog, Cloudwater, Buxton to name but a few.  Whilst I like bottled and keg beer, this is a worrying trend for sure. You may ask why brewers are making this choice when cask conditioned beer is so popular and with the proliferation of microbreweries?  The more insightful view might be that younger drinkers like the new experimental keg beers with hipster style branding. The more cynical of you may think that brewers are simply charging the earth for what they call ‘craft keg’ After all, we have all seen a 5% keg beer priced up at over £5/£6 a pint. Could it be that simple?  I don’t think so as there are many factors to consider in product placement and pricing and these are a just but a few: Cask v Keg – a traditional cask beer was by its very nature a British product, full of English ingredients, with hops predominantly from Herefordshire, Kent and Worcestershire. The yeast came from old stock via Fullers, Thwaites & Whitbread or Nottingham ale yeast. Beer had developed into a small range of styles that were all very traditional like Pale Ales, Golden Ales, Dark Bitters, Stouts and Porters and English IPA’s. The last 6 years or so has seen an explosion of new brewers experimenting with styles and ingredients, developing new hybrid styles and using all sorts of ingredients from across the globe. This has lead, and to a certain extent, driven the market for these new exciting beers which has meant a price differential between old and new. Brewing with English hop varieties such as Fuggles would cost as little as £4 per kilo, these taste grassy and herbal, which is ok if that’s what you want to drink but demand shows us that people like the new flavours associated with American or New Zealand hops with powerful flavoured varieties such as Mosaic, Citra, Centennial, Simcoe and Nelson Sauvin providing citrus, grapefruit, mango, lychee, pear and passionfruit flavours. These hops cost upwards of £30 a kilo. The amount of time it also takes to create such intensely flavoursome beer also impacts on cost.  An American style IPA will probably be dry hopped in a conditioning tank to add extra flavour and aroma.  The finished beer may well take another 3 weeks to produce. So, I guess a 30L key keg of beer would probably cost 40% more per litre than its cask version and that is where the disparity of understanding comes in. It now seems common place to charge a higher amount for keg versus cask. Even if the brewer has spent a small fortune on ingredients, branding and marketing cask beer is viewed as the cheaper option and it appears that both the trade and consumers are only prepared to support cask as long as it comes in at a good price.  Which of course would mean that us brewers will have to react and return to brewing traditional ales with little in the way of enticement. None of this is helped by the myriad of brewers underselling their product in a very competitive over stocked market place.  They won’t last but they will do lasting damage to the industry. So, what is the future?  It appears a little unstable now and I know several brewers who have either scaled back their operations or have shut the doors and mothballed the kit until easier times are back. As there appears to be no end in sight to the tied house model, Punch Taverns selling their estate to Heineken won’t improve the situation, we can only hope more small brewers get their own outlets and keep making beers that appeal to a growing cask ale consumer base. Cheap bottles in the supermarkets also help drive footfall away from pubs and is another reason CAMRA should carry on championing the pub and cask ale. Pubs also need to ‘get it right’  Good cellar management and trained bar staff are key to the customer experience.  As Pete Brown eluded to in his recent comments about poor quality cask ale in some pubs. Although I think he’s simply going in the wrong pubs! Pete Roberts Founder & Brewer at Exit 33 Brewing

Two of the UK’s most famous beer cities are joining forces to share best practice and great beers to further enhance their respective city-wide festivals. Sheffield Beer Week takes place in the second week in March with more than 40 beer-focused pubs, bars and beer shops featured throughout Sheffield. Norwich City of Ale is a ten-day celebration at the end of May/beginning of June with 45 pubs and 40 local breweries taking part last year. Both festivals are distributed throughout each city: Norwich, the smaller and more compact city, has its pubs connected by walkable ale-trails devised by the local CAMRA branch whilst Sheffield has an excellent tram and bus network to speedily propel visitors round the venues. Dawn Leeder and Phil Cutter, Co-Chairs of Norwich City of Ale will be visiting Jules Gray, Chief Instigator of Sheffield Beer Week on Wednesday 8th February. Jules, who runs Sheffield’s Hop Hideout, was invited to Norwich for last year’s festival where all agreed to work closer together in future and this reciprocal visit intends to put that plan into action. Phil is the landlord at the Murderer’s Arms in central Norwich and will be sourcing Sheffield beers for the National Winter Ales Festival being held in Norwich for the first time at the end of February. He is tracking down Sheffield ales made with Norfolk malt to further highlight the beery connections between the two cities. A series of joint seminars and tutored tastings are also in the planning stages. Last year Norwich City of Ale held a number of widely acclaimed tasting sessions pairing some notable beer writers such as Roger Protz and Adrian Tierney Jones with local brewers. These sessions are both informative and entertaining and the organisers will be creating and sharing seminar templates so that the same events can be successfully delivered in various venues and at different times. The overall aim is to reinforce the two cities’ reputations as must-visit beer attractions. There will be a photo opportunity at 2pm on Wednesday 8 February at the Sheffield Tap where the organisers will be able to answer any questions about this exciting new synergistic alliance.

Cloudwater Brewery of Manchester has recently announced that they are to no longer brew cask ale, following a number of other fashionable ‘craft’ brewers that have either discontinued or scaled back cask production. Cloudwater’s business model going forward will be 60% bottles/cans and 40% keg. In 2016 their production split was 23% cask, 39% keg and 38% bottles. The reasons they give for no longer brewing cask is that real ale drinkers demand cheap beer – even when it is brewed with large quantities of quality, expensive ingredients; issues with both publicans and consumers not understanding what is good or bad beer causing demands for refunds on perfectly good beer – for example Cloudwater beers are sometimes served hazy as they are unfined (therefore vegan) plus more labour is involved racking cask beer, collecting empty casks and cleaning them for reuse – bottles, cans and keykegs are all one way containers. The statement from Cloudwater has led to calls from the usual online beer commentators for CAMRA to change attitudes and educate drinkers. They say it should be about promoting beer quality not members discounts or pubs with cheap ale. These same commentators are also forecasting that all the other brewers doing anything interesting are likely to follow suit and leave the cask market to simply be a load of boring, cheap brown swill. Beer writer Pete Brown has waded in to the debate in his Morning Advertiser column, criticising the pub trade for there being too many pubs serving badly kept beer and having staff not properly trained in the art of cask conditioned beer, with him suggesting he avoids drinking real ale in pubs unless he knows they have a good reputation for cask beer. Of course it is worth noting that breweries such as Cloudwater have limited brewing capacity and have made a success of producing one off beers that are well hyped and attract good prices for bottles plus of course bottles and cans are good for direct sales, which are more profitable. They are also doing well with export sales which one way containers such as bottles, cans and keykegs are good for. You cannot blame them for making decisions that are the best for their business – but it doesn’t mean the same decisions are necessarily right for other breweries around Britain. Tiny Rebel Brewery has recently also published a blog looking ahead with their plans for 2017 which sees them producing a lot more interesting and experimental beers – with cask being part of the plan. They say cask works best for certain styles of beer with the cask conditioning adding a certain something to the flavour. They are also opening a new bigger brewhouse. Here in Sheffield we have a long list of breweries based in the City with all but one producing cask beer. Some of them also sell beer in other formats (bottle and/or keg) but generally the cask beer is their biggest output. However not all brewers are aiming at the same market. Some produce simple but well crafted session beers that are good for pubs to have as an affordable house beer. Others produce premium beers that may be hop forward or contain interesting ingredients; some breweries do a combination of the two. Such diversity is necessary to stay in business otherwise the competition would be immense – it is also good for the drinking public too of course. Not all small breweries wish to go down the road of bottling – if you don’t have your own bottling plant – which is an expensive investment – the choices are hand bottling which is slow, tedious and labour intensive or contracting out which can see excessive wastage of beer as well as expense. Kegging also has its issues. The observations of the better pubs in the Sheffield area that have a large range of beers and quality cellarmanship by knowledgeable management and staff generally sees a beer range that includes a couple of cheaper house beers – usually a pale/blonde and a brown bitter along with more interesting (and expensive) changing guests, all of which sell well. It seems the death of real ale is being somewhat exaggerated….  

he leadership of one of Europe’s most successful consumer organisations is considering refocusing its future purpose after being presented with a wide-ranging review into its aims and activities – but is clear campaigning for real ale, pubs, clubs, cider and perry will remain core. The volunteers heading up the Campaign for Real Ale were presented with a report and proposals by the Revitalisation Project at a meeting in early December. The Revitalisation Project has proposed that the Campaign remains committed to its core aims of promoting real ale, real cider, perry and campaigning for pubs and clubs – but has suggested CAMRA needs to widen its vision and mission to reflect changing consumer needs and developments in the drinks industry. In summary the Revitalisation Project has recommended that:

• Campaigning for real ale, cider and perry and protecting community pubs and clubs will remain core to CAMRA activities.
• CAMRA widens its mission and purpose to reflect changing consumer needs and developments that have taken place across the sector since CAMRA’s foundation in 1971. The Revitalisation Project found that there is much CAMRA does well, so its proposals principally relate to opportunities for the organisation to remain relevant and effective in the future.
• CAMRA broadens its focus to play a “leading role in informing and representing all those with an interest in good beer of any type”.
• CAMRA promotes the “virtues of well-produced, well-kept cask-conditioned beers as the pinnacle of the brewer’s craft” while also promoting greater awareness and understanding to help drinkers judge for themselves what “quality” beer is.
• Celebrating and protecting well-run community pubs and clubs should also remain core to CAMRA’s purpose, but the Campaign should do more to improve the range and quality of beer, cider and perry in “communal drinking” venues across the on-trade.
• In response to the attacks on responsible drinkers by health campaigners, the organisation plays a leading role in speaking on behalf of all UK beer, cider and perry drinkers, and pub and club-goers.

The Revitalisation Project was officially launched in April 2016, to carry out a review of CAMRA’s purpose and activities and to ensure it was positioned to reflect changes in the pub and brewing industry. The Revitalisation Project considered the views of tens of thousands of CAMRA members who responded to three surveys and the opinions of thousands who attended consultation meetings across the country. Its findings also take into account feedback from numerous industry stakeholders including politicians, brewers, cider producers, publicans and journalists. The Revitalisation Project has now agreed a series of proposals which it presented to CAMRA’s National Executive – the most senior elected volunteers in the organisation – at a meeting in early December. The National Executive will now take ownership of the report and will be responsible for deciding whether, how and when, to implement the Revitalisation Project’s proposals. CAMRA members will continue to be fully involved in the process and will be invited to discuss the Revitalisation Project proposals at the CAMRA Members’ Weekend and AGM to be held in Bournemouth in April 2017. A final decision on adopting the proposals will be taken at the Members’ Weekend and AGM in Coventry 2018. Michael Hardman MBE, one of CAMRA’s founders and Chairman of the Revitalisation Project said: “Our proposals were agreed after eight months of hard work and include strengthening some of CAMRA’s best campaigns and practices as well as confirming our 45-year-long commitment to real ale and our long-standing support for pubs and clubs.  Colin Valentine, Chairman of the Campaign for Real Ale, said: “I’d like to thank Michael and the Revitalisation Project for the work they have put in over the summer to survey tens of thousands of CAMRA members and meet thousands in person to ask them what they think. “The Revitalisation Project has helped us to understand what our members want for the organisation in the future and the direction they believe we should take to respond to the changes in the pub and beer world. “My fellow National Directors and I will now take the time to fully understand the Revitalisation Project report and the proposals which have been made to us. It’s now our job to decide what we will recommend to our members and seek their approval to changes, if appropriate, to our purpose and strategies and the activities we carry out to achieve them. “While the work of the Revitalisation Project is now finished, this is really only the start of the process for the National Executive and CAMRA members. We need to make sure that members continue to be at the heart of the decisions we take and we will ensure they get a full opportunity to discuss the proposals at our Conference in April and then have the final vote on any changes to CAMRA’s purpose at the Members’ Weekend and AGM in 2018.” As well as presenting its proposals to the National Executive, the Revitalisation Project published the findings of the third and final survey into the views of CAMRA members. The survey findings are available at: https://revitalisation.camra.org.uk/blog/revitalisation-project-survey-three-results A full copy of the Revitalisation Project Proposal document is available here: https://revitalisation.camra.org.uk/blog/revitalisation-project-report-published

All members are entitled to attend the national AGM to listen to the annual reports from the Chief Executive and national Directors on the National Executive Committee, debate and vote on motions, participate in policy discussion groups and attend volunteer support workshops. The AGM is also part of a wider members weekend which includes a private beer festival, coach trips to breweries and the opportunity to visit some of the pubs in the area. This year the Members Weekend & AGM is being held in Bournemouth from the 7th to 9th April. Conference business takes place Saturday and Sunday daytime with the Members Bar and registration desk open from Friday evening, coach trips depart on Friday and Saturday evening. You can register in advance online and simply collect your conference pack on arrival, alternatively sign up at the registration desk at the venue on the day. For more on the members weekend visit camra.org.uk. Direct Cross Country trains run from Sheffield to Bournemouth and it is usually cheaper to book in advance. Check crosscountrytrains.co.uk for times and fares.

Since the copy deadline for the December issue of Beer Matters, there have been a number of local developments:

1. On 21^st.November, the Chair of Sheffield CAMRA and myself met with Ccl.Jack Scott in order to discuss ACV applications to Sheffield City Council (SCC). At that meeting, he promised a further meeting, ‘early in 2017,’ in order to discuss the establishment of a city-wide pub promotion/protection and beer destination/tourism strategy. Since then, despite a number of email reminders, there has been no suggestion of a date/venue for such a meeting from SCC.
2. The Plough –  on 10th.January, SCC Planning committee unanimously rejected an application by Sainsburys to turn the Plough into a ‘convenience store’ – the next step is up to Enterprise Inns. Ideally, they will sell the pub (at a sensible price) to a local pub, brewery or community group.
3. The Cherry Tree – An ACV application was submitted by a local group on 21^st.October. The Co-op have since put in a planning application to demolish the building and replace it by a shop. A forthcoming Planning Committee (14th.February) will make the planning decision. We understand that the ACV decision will be made before that date (the decision was due on 2nd.December).
4. The White Lion achieved ACV status on 21^st.November. Congratulations to all concerned.
5. Sheffield CAMRA submitted an ACV application for The University Arms on 23^rd.December. A decision from SCC is due by 17^th.February. An acknowledgement letter from SCC confirms this date.
6. Paul Ainsworth, the Chair of the National CAMRA Pub Campaigns Group has written to SCC expressing disquiet regarding their procedures and practices

To summarise, we:

• have little confidence in the way SCC are managing the ACV process. The process is non-uniform and deadlines are not met
• feel that SCC are expecting Sheffield Citizens to jump higher than Parliament requires (regarding ACV applications). It is over-reaching itself by demanding higher tests than those required by Parliament.
• have a serious concern that in applying higher hurdles than those required by the Localism Act 2011, SCC is acting Ultra Vires.

Dave Pickersgill, Pub Heritage Officer

University Arms ACV rejection – no meeting with SCC In late September, Sheffield City Council (SCC) refused our application to register the University Arms (UA) as an Asset of Community Value (ACV).   The decision then was ‘called-in.’ Our Chair and myself attended the Scrutiny Committee 20th.October, during SCBF42. The ACV rejection decision remained unchanged. However, we posed a series of six questions. In the meeting Ccl.Jack Scott, the SCC Cabinet Member for Community Services and Libraries, agreed to respond to our questions, in writing, within a week and also agreed to meet with ourselves. Such a meeting was originally promised in an email to ourselves dated 3rd.October. A written response from SCC finally arrived on 9th.November. However, despite reminders, at the time of writing, almost five weeks after the initial promise, no meeting has been arranged.  SCC have not suggested  a date/time or venue. They seem reluctant to meet with ourselves. There are currently two other ACV applications for pubs with SCC: both lodged by local community groups: White Lion, London Road – a decision was due on 3rd.November. Cherry Tree, Carterknowle Road – decision due 2nd.December The planning application to alter the ACV-listed Plough (Crosspool) into a Sainsburys received 157 responses from the public (151 against the plan). SCC have yet to make a formal decision, although this was due in late October In short, SCC are not keeping to legal deadlines, seem to be interpreting the rules in their own manner and do not seem to wish to meet with interested parties.                                   – Dave Pickersgill – Pub Heritage Officer, Sheffield and District CAMRA  

University Arms ACV rejection is ‘called-in’  On 27th.September, Sheffield City Council (SCC) refused our application to register the University Arms (UA) as an Asset of Community Value (ACV).   However, a week later, the decision was ‘called-in’ by the opposition. As soon as the decision was made public, the Sheffield CAMRA Chair and myself agreed to meet with Ccl.Jack Scott, the SCC Cabinet Member for Community Services and Libraries, who made the ACV rejection decision. However, before this meeting could take place, we learnt that the decision had been ‘called-in.’ A ‘call-in’ is intended to be used in exceptional circumstances when councillors believe that a decision has been taken in a way that is contrary to the council’s principles of decision making. It is not intended to be used to appeal a decision that is simply disagreed with. The Scrutiny Panel for the call-in’ will take place at Sheffield Town Hall on Thursday 20^th.October (16:00-19:00). Members of the public can attend and ask questions. The ACV rejection ‘reason for decision,’ includes:  ‘ The owner describes it as a ‘student pub’ suggesting that its patronage is only a section of the community. …. No evidence has been provided to the contrary.’ This statement is simply incorrect, a ‘student pub’ states that access is restricted to students: this is not the case. The pub is a long-standing entry in the  Good Beer Guide: hence, many visitors visit from far-afield. The number of successful ACV pub applications which has been approved by SCC is pitifully small:  seven from a total of (only) 19 applications (5/15 from CAMRA). This compares unfavourably with the record of many other councils. For example, all pubs in Otley have ACV status and Aylesbury and Wycombe have listed over 150 pubs as ACV. CAMRA sees ACV status as a clear badge of honour for both owners and licensees. It is a clear indication that the pub matters to the community. Our UA ACV application was submitted on 16th.May. Advice from CAMRA HQ was followed throughout the nomination process. In our opinion, and that of our colleagues in St.Albans, the application clearly reached the statutory test outlined by the Government. A decision should then arrive within 8 weeks of the application – it took SCC over 4 months …. unfortunately such a delay seems to be the local norm. As part of this process, in late July, we received a six-page objection from a legal company, Pinsent Masons, employed by the owners of the UA, the University of Sheffield.  A number of items which ‘could be used to support the application’ are suggested by Pinsent Masons. However, legally, these are unnecessary. In our opinion, these comments were deliberately added in order to confuse the situation. We were given seven days to respond (which we did). We were surprised to receive an objection from the University as we believe that ACV status is something of which any pub would be proud, especially as, judging from 2016 publications, the University and ourselves do seem to have many common aims and ideas. However, it seems that their long-term ambitions for the site outweigh other considerations. As previously reported, the University development masterplan, includes an option in which the pub is demolished. Dave Pickersgill – Pub Heritage Officer, Sheffield and District CAMRA