IPA v GTA, Punk v Portman, Hype v Indifference

Roger Protz smells faintly of dill, all Fuller’s beers contain string and the Portman Group don’t wash their hands properly after flushing. These words are lies, utterly transparent lies that I won’t standby in court and apologise for right now. Sorry.

But these blatant falsehoods also prove how easy it is to kick against the Aunt Sally that is ‘Establishment’, especially when the ‘Establishment’ is as orthodox and conservative as the world of real ale can seem. After all, this is a world in which apparently you can seem to stand out in simply by being under 30 or having a vagina. Or both.

Which is a roundabout way of bringing us to Scottish brewers Brewdog and their self-styled rebellion against all that is traditional, all that is dull, all that is predictable about British beer. Yeah, they’re rebels, they’re renegades and they’re punks – just like Johnny Lydon and Iggy Pop are.

They also remind me of professional controversialists, fellow residents of Scotland and part-time video game developer Rockstar. So much of their infamy has been built on poking and twizzling a Grand Theft Auto-shaped stick up the censor’s nose and then surfing the resulting streams of condemnation straight into the hearts and wallets of the spotty-serial killer market.

It’s a model that Brewdog seem keen to follow in their recent well publicised scuffling with the Portman Group. Lots of sound and fury and lots of publicity. With a sneer Brewdog are manning the barricades in a war against the conventional and the bland. Well that’s only true if you replace the word ‘barricades’ with the words ‘shelves of Tesco’ and the word ‘sneer’ with ‘carefully considered marketing strategy’.

Because it was through that retail giant and Brewdog’s carefully considered marketing strategy that a bottle of Punk IPA appeared in my cupboard. That and the messy spurtings of praise lavished by so many bloggers, tenting their trousers in delight at this beer.

“On my first tasting my tongue exploded, followed by most of my skull and three of my four young children. As my liver was immolated in pure delight, I tasted hops and the kind of joy only experienced when all your Easters, Christmases and Bar Mitvahs come together at once” wrote Liverabuser.com.

“The experience of drinking Brewdog IPA was akin to draining 330ml of The Lord’s own tears, distilled in the mouth of an angel and carbonated by mafipulation through all seven stomachs of the holy cow. My second bottle also gave me eternal life”. Tastingnotesfromasmallisland@wordpress,com

Again these are lies but the truth isn’t so distance this time. Ahead of even last year’s favourite, Thornbridge Hall, Brewdog seem to be the chosen ones. Beer writers and forumites seem to love their chutzpah, their beer and some even seem to like the design of their bottles. Which is strange because moderation must be the new anarchy if these unsatisfyingly small 330ml bottles with their dated ‘stamp’ design are impressive.

After all the bluster and all the blogging, hopes were high for the beer, but this yellowy brew isn’t exciting enough to justify this much alcohol. The citrus and grapefruit bitterness bludgeon while the aroma and oiliness of pine needles and alcohol gives it a bleachy, clean toilet aroma. Sure it’s smooth, hoppy and grassy but it is also rather average compared to the American bitterbomb which have inspired it.

Obviously we could put this indifference down to personal taste - that I like beers with balance, with perhaps just a tiny smidge of malty flavour, with depth - but as their own bottle sneers “We don’t care if you don’t like it.” Except they do care, deeply.

Here For 'Beer'

Congratulations to CAMRA - Now there are three words that go together as naturally as bacon, lettuce and tomato, or high, blood and pressure. But the newly redesigned membership magazine of the organisation, Beer, is a lovely thing.

The old Beer was as dour as a union newssheet, designed in Pagemaker and written with the pace and sparkle of a last will and testament. Not only did it reinforce the image of ale drinking as tweedy and relevant to ‘the yout’ as The Archers, but it actively reeked of fust.

Now all that has been swept away by the glamour, gloss and gloriously tactile paper stock of a newsstand magazine. But there is more than just full-page photography and cheery illustrations to this redesign because finally, the features have become both engaging and relevant.

The main reason for the change is down to the new contributors. Bloggers Melissa Cole and Stonch have been brought in to debate gastropubs, Guardian noob Ben McFarland chips in with a tidy piece about pubs and Martyn Cornell again demonstrates that having a vast knowledge of beer doesn’t automatically have to mean produce copy that borders on the hypnotically dull.

All the old faces also remain though: Protz, Nowak and Moor. But with their word counts judiciously reduced, their columns no longer meander and shamble. The only truly false note is a beer-science piece that instead of giving us a slice of Heston-like insight into brewing descends into a rant about denying Australians work-permits.

Full credit for this mini-revolution must go to editor Tom Stainer for giving Think Publishing the time, the budget, and the words, to turn the publication from an embarrassment to an asset. Now if only they can do the same for the monthly mortification that is What’s Brewing…