Gordon Browns Everyone Off

It had to happen eventually: Gordon Ramsey has (temporarily) put his face to a beer. Not because the agro-chef is a noted ale drinker, but because there are few surfaces left on this planet that don’t bear an image of his wrinkled map on them. From a couple of gastropubs and a handful of restaurants to hundreds of off-licenses, his empire spreads unseen like a fungal infection. And his pitted visage menaces passers-by from so many posters that many tourists probably leave Britain convinced that we live under a personality cult, equivalent of Stalin’s at the height of his pin-up powers. It must be only a matter of time before his investment group have the Martian canals re-bored to resemble a telescope-friendly version of the valley-like crinkles on his weatherworn head.

Mercifully the whole venture was mercifully confined to a segment on his F-Word TV show – a programme/brand extension that attempts to bring the Top Gear demographic to the world of cuisine – i.e. there is bellowing, there are celebrities and there are arguments so facile, so malformed and so ill-conceived that they must have stemmed from the slopping lobes of Clarkson himself.

And it was while Ramsay was presenting this tit-a-thon that the diva of dinnertime spat out Timmy Taylor's Landlord, Brooklyn Chocolate Stout and Meantime IPA claiming that only the most bland and flavourless beers could possibly be consumed with his food. So to create his own ale he decided to emulate Innis & Gunn's wonderful oak-aged beer, a brew that draws much of its flavour from Bourbon casks, except that Gordon’s brew was reportedly pale, sweet and about 8%.

So while his drink is mercifully not available in any shops, the question has to be asked. Do superstar chef endorsements enhance or embarrass the real ale movement? Is the publicity good for beer even when what they are saying is negative? Do Michelin stars mean you know anything about ale? Does Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall sneaking a bottle of a Hall & Woodhouse’s Stinger into shot make you want a face full of nettles or just ensure that at least the ITC are watching? And what about Neil Morrissey dabbling in brewing? Has he raised the profile of real ale or raised the unpleasant memory of the pitiful Men Behaving Badly?

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