Drinking in the UK, featuring a skateboarding priest!

"I am an antichrist... I am a beer drinker..."

Not quite a sex pistols classic this, more a stream of conciousness musing on what can be done to improve the liquid in pint glasses around the country.

Like many people with a passion, I am a pedant. I like things to be done well. I am fussy about certain standards. And, when I end up in an argument, when I think I'm right- boy, do I argue.

The joyous world of beer blogging is much the same. People have opinions, whether it be a raging debate about sparklers, CAMRA over representing dull session beer, how many jalepeno's should be on the average plate of nachos (my employer specifies 6. I'd eat them from a jar with a spoon!) - these foibles cause us to act. People complain when they're not happy, hopefully by doing so we get change.

CAMRA and the online squad of concerned and conscientious drinkers have implemented an amazing and wonderful change in the way people drink. What we drink, how we think about drink... it's wonderful. And it is continuing. It is something I am passionate and proud of.

But, a lot of it has been achieved through pedantic efforts. Labouring a point that Cask ale is the only real beer, refusing to stop selling and making beers the way we want them. And, importantly, attacking the squalid squirrels piss that passes as beer from many macro breweries.

The problem is, I feel however, that the pedantry required to gain ground for a progressive drinkership, or to restore quality for a traditional drinkership, can also off put as many casual drinkers as it wins round. A lot of people do not care, all they know is kegged lager and Guinness. To try and convince such drinkers to sample other beverages, we need to compete with their interests, price range and make products available. Education, is also required.

The problem is, however, to say "we're going to educate the consumer", is a phrase which rather patronises many consumers. A lot of people, no matter how right or wrong they are, know what they like. Taste is subjective. working in my pub everyday, I know the regulars. "John Smiths, in a Guinness glass."

Next to the John Smiths, we have a huge range of guest ales. Some are much, much better pints.

But, will these people drink it? Know. They like what they know- and try to campaign to them, or educate them, and you'll be told to shove off. Fair enough, it is the consumers choice.

But many people are more angry by the fact we try to change tastes and are passionate and pedantic than will admit. For many people, it's just beer. It's not quite so good, so what. It's 5%, it's cheap, and I get wankered. Whey.

The only way to change this, I feel, is to go down a gentler route. We need to be exciting and sexy, as opposed to sounding out a message of doom laden woe. I think there are several key factors that the concerned UK beerhead ought to sort out. Here they are...

1) Home drinking. CAMRA is pub focused, but a lot of people can only afford to drink regularly at home, and prefer to. Good beer needs to be available in Supermarkets cheaply, and the vacuum in good beer in many off licences and corner shops must change as well. Truly, then, most peoples early off premises education in alcohol will be less dominated by mass produced bile. People would discover what they want to drink in a truly open market, rather than by what they are dictated to drink.

2) Boring session bitters need to be less protected. The campaign for real ale, and the progressive school of "we want exciting, interesting and good beer" ought to get in bed more and produce a more focused approach to things. More exciting beers, in my mind, need to be pushed by CAMRA, and perhaps those of us who like the weird stuff should be a bit happier to see mild on the shelf next to other stuff. Likewise, we need to be exciting, and to produce more session beers. I love Imperial Stout, but man, I can't go for a night out on the stuff!

(Well maybe not mild. I do hate it so.)

3) We need to entice and excite drinkers. Keep it simple, market well, change the image. Make beer a cold, sexy summer thing. Make it a warming, rich, winter thing. Make it sexy. Make it traditional. Make it honest. Make it British. Make it exotic. Make it comforting. Make it good.


4) Keg beer does not have to be bad, and here I would say CAMRA will never give ground. I too feel that secondarily fermented beer is better, in cask. But, to get odder product more widely available, force carbonated beer, brewed to be kegged with a flavour that works for it, can be sold in more outlets. I love Budvar, it is a good draught beer. I have no shame in saying so. As beer lovers, exciting beers brewed to taste great, designed for draught, pressurised dispense could be amazing. It'll be easier for the consumer to get, as a foot in the door of the world of good beer.

5) I need to shut up and stop typing. A very random and rambling post, under developed, but hopefully it touches on some issues. I've got to start planning these posts to actually write well, to be incisive, critical and all those other things writers should be. But, until then, here is a video of a skateboarding priest.

Skateboarding Priest