Beer Punx

Leave Britney Alone!!!!!

Actually not Britney, but Impy Malting. It seems people have been giving her shit about something, probably related to her love of beer, and lack of beard. I missed the controversy, but can imagine the scenario. A Troll attack questioning her legitimacy to claim knowledge of beer, probably related to a trivial detail, like misquoting the specific gravity of some thing or other. I’m guessing, but you know the type. 

It’s not just the like of Impy that get this sort of thing, though the sexist stuff she refers to probably doesn’t apply to the guy that writes the Barclay Perkins blog. The fact that this guy is a walking encyclopedia of beer trivia doesn’t make him immune to fanatics and beer fundamentalists getting on his case. There was a nasty flamewar with BeerAdvocate form dwellers recently that both amazed and (sorry) mildly amused me. 

One of the most vicious flame wars I’ve seen, one that appeared to put somebody’s career in jeopardy, was seen on a Scrap Booking forum. I should mention I was directed to the flame war, rather than just hanging out there. But it was the most dirty dragged out fight I’ve ever seen on the Internet. 

But that’s the nature of meeting places that can be visited anonymously. People, usually young people, crave attention so kick off like utter nutjobs. In online games, their creativity appears in penis-showers and tea-bagging, in blogs it’s this nonsense. 

Unfortunately I don’t have any solutions for Impy, or anybody else. I’m sad that she’s getting this grief. Just leave Impy ALONE!!!!

Tags: Britney, Impy Malting

Not available at your local off-license either

Alex Salmond, Scottish First Minister, today announced a raft of new legislation planned for those north of the border. One, aimed at the problem of alcohol-fuelled violence, will ban under-21s from buying booze at off-licences. 

Now I’m as concerned at alcohol-fuelled violence as anybody, but this measure seems doomed to be ineffective and counter productive. I don’t have the answer to the problem, but I can’t see this helping. 

A friend of mine is a roadie, and regularly tours the US with various bands. One time, while on the road in the US, Mitch headed to a liquor store to stock up on some booze. In the parking lot he was approached by a few kids who were hankering after some beer. Being only 20, they didn’t meet the age requirements to buy beer, even american beer! Sure they could vote, have sex, go to war, get married, but buying 4% beer was a no-no. Mitch, being of a punky persuasion, was easily convinced to buy them beer and stick it to the man. They were nice kids, and they had the cash, so he went ahead and bought them beers. 

They guys were very grateful, they explained the trouble they had buying beer, and how stupid the law was. But they wanted to reward Mitch for his heroic beer buying. Hey Mitch, they said, do you want some of our crack?

Yep, that’s right, it was easier for kids to buy crack than to buy beer. The kids wanted beer, but they had to make do with crack most of the time. I’m sure young people in Scotland have enough problems being criminalised for doing what kids do. Does this bill push them towards finding a buzz in more dangerous ways?

I agree that teen street-drinking is a problem, and I would like there to be a solution, but this isn’t it. It isn’t an easy problem to solve, it’s a difficult and complex problem, and there will be no quick or simple fix. This is too simplistic to be of any benefit.

Tags: Crack, Scotland

If you were to drink a Guinness, where do you picture yourself? In a pub enjoying a Sunday roast, on St Patrick’s day with a bunch of rowdy mates, perhaps by the pub christmas tree, singing carols. Guinness to me seems to be a drink that is pretty closely linked to drinking in a pub. Not least for it’s exacting pouring requirements. 

This clock clearly didn't get the memo

The problem for Guinness (Diageo) is that more people are drinking at home, and it’s losing out. To remedy that Diageo is dropping £5,000,000 on convincing you to drink Guinness at home. 

The new campaign called “17:59, it’s Guinness time” is a reference to the year Guinness was first brewed in Dublin. Diageo is sponsoring TV ads, Channel 4 movies, DVD rentals and more. So it will be interesting to see how well millions of pounds can change our minds. Probably more than you would care to think. It’s an interesting experiment, to see how suggestible we all are. 
This post is from September 2nd, if you are reading thing on or after mid-October 2008, ask yourself how you feel about bringing cans of Guinness home to drink while watching a DVD. If that seems obvious, then the millions were well spent.

Tags: Diageo, Guinness

The Paradox is, the Portman Group are attacking the good guys

One of our first posts on this site was related to the Brew Dog brewery, saluting the efforts of a small brewery that shares the aims and objectives of Beer Punx. We noted at the time that they were feeling a little heat from the Portman Group, who were concerned about the way they were marketing their premium beers.

As you may know, the Portman Group exists due to the boom in alcopops in the 90s. It’s an industry body created to self regulate the promotion of booze, to make sure it promotes drinking in a responsible manner. In the 90s you could buy cherry flavoured vodka shots in plastic syringes at your local off licence. Now thankfully that sort of marketing is largely gone. So now the Portman Group is turning its attention to brewers that sell strong beer, and market it in a way that might not appeal to the over 50s.

The Brew Dog brewery is a small, and very specialised outfit making relatively low volumes of very special beers, like Punk IPA, RipTide and Paradox. They are strong beers, up to 10% in the case of the whisky cask aged Paradox, and they have cool names. But are they promoting binge drinking, underage drinking, or general mayhem? Not when a bottle costs very nearly a fiver doesn’t. In fact the anniversary Paradox costs £40 a bottle, so even the opulent and wealthy Beer Punx couldn’t afford to get more than a mild buzz of that stuff. 

The Portman Group see things differently though, and are trying again to block Speed Ball (a beer infused with Gurana and Kola nuts) and Tokyo (a 12% stout) from being marketed. If you think these would appeal to young scallies out for some mischief then they had better be rich scallies. Because even scallies know there’s cheaper ways to get drunk than beer that costs £6 per pint. 

The irony is, as the Brew Dogs them selves point out on their blog, that the cheapest way to get drunk for a tenner is by buying a 24 can case of crappy mass-produced beer from a supermarket. Can you guess which kind of brewers fund the Portman Group? Well it isn’t Brew Dogs, that’s for sure.

So Portman Group, you should be applauding fine craft brewing, even if it has a little attitude, because nobody is going to be drinking this stuff, 24 cans at a time. No, these are beers to ponder and savour, not swill. If you want to promote sensible drinking, go after the supermarket swill, not the Brew Dogs or the Beer Punx of this world. Drink beer slowly, in halves, and kiss our collective punky asses.

Tags: Brew Dog, Portman Group

Politicians, especially US politicians that are groomed for public appearances, rarely do anything on the spur of the moment. So when you see them drinking beer, it’s no accident, they are saying something very loudly about themselves. It will have little to do with their actual preference in beverage, and everything to do with how they want to be seen.     

"I'd enjoy this more with a slice of orange"

Imagine if you will, Hillary Clinton kicking back with Bill after a hard day on the campaign trail. What choice of drink do you imagine she prefers, and expensive Californian wine, a G&T perhaps? Well she would have you (or at least the blue collar voters in the US) that she would love a beer and a shot. She has been captured (posed) drinking beer a couple of times, and on one occasional she even had a shot with it (an American antidote for weak tasteless beer). The beer in question was an american light beer, and the shot, a blended Canadian whisky. She’s all about the blue collar vote, at least when in front of the camera. She claims to drink Blue Moon, (the beer so unsure of itself it implores you to “try it with a slice of orange”), or according to a Washington waitress “Kir Royale or anything with Champagne in it”.  

Barack Obama seems more likely to be interested in more sophisticated brews, and maybe wines. But when in front of the camera recently he opted for a Yuengling, a local Pennsylvania beer. He was concerned that as he hadn’t heard of it it might be some sort of Liberal Elitist brew, but he was assured it wasn’t expensive (and would likely be indistinguishable from Budweiser). I can’t find anything confirming what he really drinks, or even IF he drinks, other than for the camera.     

One guy who you won’t see doing the beer drinking photo opp is John McCain. The reason is likely because he is almost literally in bed with the beer industry. His wife is the daughter of one of the biggest beer distributors in the country, worth $100,000,000 because of it, and McCain has been bankrolled by the family and the wider beer industry for a long time. In fact he was forced by the electoral commission to return some donations to Anheuser Busch and Hensley & Co, as they over did it on his run for congress in 1982.      

"The best beer I've tasted, and I've tasted a lot"

Of course no presidential beer discussions would be complete without a mention of Billy Carter. Such was his enthusiasm for beer, a brew was made for him, named after him and widely embarrassed President Carter. Billy Beer served as a nickname and brand name, and tins of Billy Beer still show up on ebay. On the can you’ll see a Billy carter quote “I had this beer brewed just for me. I think it’s the best I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve tasted a lot. I think you’ll like it, too.”    

Of course seeing a president drinking the same brand of beer as you might float your boat. But I’d be much more impressed if he or she was drinking something with flavour and depth, rather than swilling back bland light beers. 

Tags: Anheuser Busch, Billy Beer, Blue Moon, Clinton, Hensley, Obama

Glass half full

There is something of a stigma among young men, when it comes to drinking half pints. It’s considered fey, and unmanly, at least to the beer-swilling general public. I’d like that impression to change, I’d like halves to be considered a connoisseurs choice when drinking beer.    
 

There’s a few reasons deliberately drinking halves might denote that a more discerning drinker might be in attendance at the bar. First of all, an unfamiliar beer might not be to your taste, and you don’t want to be stuck gagging down a pint. This is especially true when you’re trying something quite heavy, or strongly flavoured. Second of all, some of the best beers have a high alcohol content, and drinking that sort of beer by the pint will mean you’ll be beyond tasting in no time at all.       

Drinking a half of something like Duvel Triple Hop is something to be savoured, lingered over, not gulped down. When dealing with beers of 8% or higher you shouldn’t be doing it to get drunk quicker, but to try a beer that has been crafted and and cared for.       

There is one final reason you might not want to get a round of pints when drinking fine beers like this. Invariably, they will be scarily expensive (think £7.50 a pint), and buying it by the pint would be similar to lighting your cigar with a five pound note. You will appear to have lots of money, and no taste.      

So for the price of a couple of pints of Fosters, you could (if you’re in the right sort of establishment) opt for a couple of halves of different awesome brews with say an 8% alcohol content. It’ll take you the same time to drink them, because you just can’t rush that stuff, you’ll get the same buzz. But you won’t find yourself bloated with gas and pissing like a racehorse after and evening in the pub. Most importantly, you’ll have experienced some real flavour, and paused to savour it, instead of gulping down cooking-lager in a race to get shitfaced. 

Tags: Halves

I see that the Golden Wave in Germany has reached the US, with Stampede Light Plus. Ticking all the boxes of being light, organic and includes “functional additives”, Stampede makes plenty of claims to be a healthy choice. The functional additives in question include being made with Vitamin Water. That is, water infused with B vitamins, including folic acid. Which, apart from the alcohol content, would make it ideal for pregnant women. Though I presume that’s not the target market. 

 

No Daisies on the adverts, except Daisy Duke

The company seems to have successfully maintained a gender neutral approach to the marketing, which is to be applauded. They have even recruited Jessica Simpson as a spokesmodel, who some may remember as the modern Daisy Duke. Presumably she attracts admirers both male and female.  

So far so good I suppose, except for one thing. I have a strong feeling that this beer will taste like shandy made with Fosters, sweet, refreshing perhaps, but ultimately bland. It might be challenging stereotypes, challenging mental models, challenging accepted wisdom, but it is unlikely to challenge our tastebuds. 

Tags: Daisy Duke, Functional Beer, Golden Wave, Jessica Simpson, Stampede Light Plus

I wish it was good for a sore throat

OK so it’s Bank Holiday Monday and I’ve got tonsillitis, which if you’ve never had it, resembles holding a burning hot coal in the back of your throat while eating broken glass. It hurts, it hurts bad. So I got to thinking about beer.

I know beer is known to have all kinds of magical properties, variously making me wise beyond my years, wittier than Seinfeld, and occasionally both invincible and invisible. But how about medical miracles? Can it help my tonsillitis?

Well, beer has certainly saved many lives, back when water was a high risk beverage beer was the beverage of choice. It meant you could avoid the dangers of cholera, dysentery and of course the plague. In more modern times beer has proven to reduce the risk of heart failure in the elderly. It also contains silicon which mops up toxins like Aluminium, one of the suspected causal factors for Alzheimer’s.

The compound xanthohumol is known to help prevent cancer, and you know where you find xanthohumol don’t you? That’s right, it’s in hops. Although the amount of xanthohumol you get from your average beer might not make much difference. Boffins are developing beers with enhanced levels of the stuff, making it a beer to help avoid cancer. Yes, I’ll take that medicine.

Unfortunately though I couldn’t find anything to suggest beer might help with my tonsillitis.

Tags: Alzheimer's, beer, heart failure, Tonsillitis, xanthohumol

Karla, not the one from Cheers

It seems marketeers all around the world have figured out that men like beer and if they are to expand the market for their products, they have to sell it to animals, women or children. Of course animals tend to be cash poor, and children aren’t allowed (except for this). Which leaves women as an obvious untapped market for beer. 

Tags: Functional Beer, Golden Wave, Guinness, Guinness Red, Karla, Karlsberg, Marketing, Mellisa Cole, women

Does my Leuven Horn look big in this?

It’s funny isn’t it that a small independent brewery has to do something remarkable, like have a label banned or go out of business, to get into the press. Yet the good folks at multinational conglomerate InBev, with their near infinite marketing budgets can make a minor change to the Stella label and get wads of coverage. 

Listen to the journalists at TalkingRetail.com wax lyrical (or copy and paste a press release) about the new Stella packaging. They offer such insights as “The logo has also been enlarged to make it the packaging “hero” and create brand focus – replacing the oval cartouche.”

Yeah that oval cartouche has been bothering me for a while. And another thing, that horn, it’s a little small don’t you think. Worry not, “the famous Leuven horn symbol and the message “Anno 1366” is more prominently displayed – to emphasise the brand’s brewing credentials.”

Phew that’s a relief. You can start playing spot the difference at all bland outlets from September.

Tags: InBev, Marketing, Stella, Wife-beater

I’m not sure if this guy could handle a bottle of real beer, but anything that can speed bar service can’t be all bad. Though the claim to be the worlds first is obviously bogus for anybody that remembers the ill fated Cynthia’s Bar in London Bridge.

…However this stupid person does drink MIller Light. 

Worth doing (Miller) time for?

On Wednesday this week, in Aspen Colorado, a man stole a case of MIller Light and was apprehended waiting for his getaway bus. At this point, he’s merely a slow witted criminal. Thursday night, the same guy, stole another case of beer, from the same 7-Eleven, and chose the same cunning getaway plan.

You rarely hear of people stealing fine cask conditioned ales or Belgian bottled beer. Perhaps that kind of person wouldn’t steal, or perhaps they’re too clever yo get caught, you decide.

Tags: Miller Light

Another notch on the bedpost for Carlsberg as it takes over Estonia’s Saku Brewery. To be fair, they already owned 92.4% of the company anyway, which probably means they are already pumping out dreary lagers. But more of an interesting point is that according to Just-Drinks.com this is in line with Carlsberg’s strategy to consolidate it’s position in Eastern Europe’s emerging beer market.

Presumably this means as soon as Eastern European brewers with fine ales and a long history come up on the radar, Carlsberg intends to assimilate them. I suppose the upside is we might become familiar with some new names and new brews over the next few years. The downside is they might all taste like Carlsberg. 

Tags: Carlsberg, Saku

The Fark Photoshop post showed some funny fake beer adverts. These are apparently real adverts for an Irish Pub in Amsterdam. I would normally describe myself as a fairly liberal laid back kind of Beer Punk, but these ads just aren’t doing it for me. I would say this is one of many reasons Irish pubs are best visited in situe, in Ireland. 

The other ones are worse, much worse

Tags: Advertising, Irish Pubs

Ah, the joys of marketing budgets. Imagine if you will, that you are the venerable British Beer and Pub Association, and you have noticed that your clientele are in general old, beardy and in general, no oil painting. You’d like to sell your beer to a younger crowd, better still a younger attractive crowd, hell, why not sell it to young attractive girls. How would you go about that?

The result of that master plan, plus a big fat marketing budget, is Beautiful Beer. If you haven’t already seen it, go check it out…

…OK back now? Do you see what they did. They took attractive pictures of attractive girls drinking attractive beer. They offer beer wisdom such as “Beer is great with food” and “beer doesn’t make you fat”. They missed “Beer can make you more attractive (to other people drinking it)”. 

I don’t know, I suppose their aims are no different than mine, but it all seems so glossy, condescending and doomed to fail. But then that’s what the Budweisers of this world do all the time, so I’m probably wrong. I’m not saying I have the answers, just that this doesn’t look like it.

Tags: Beautiful Beer, Girls

Tags: Impy Malting, Melissa ColeAllyson Shaw, Stonch

If you aren’t familiar with Fark.com then you should be. Although the comments forum tends not to favour the finer ales, it’s still funny. A famous Fark staple is its Photoshop competitions, and this one was all about beer, Fark Beer to be exact. 

Kudos to Total Farker Roger Mexico for this slice of genius. 

Tags: Fark

Faversham’s finest and Britains oldest brewer Shepherd Neame, appears to be joining us on our campaign to make beer more appealing to the under 50s. Canterbury Jack is launching across the UK as we speak, with the kind of advertising campaign that Budweiser would (perhaps sensibly) run a mile from.  

Yes the people that advertised Spitfire beer with slogans like “Downed all over Kent, just like the Luftwaffe” and “No Nazi aftertaste”, are up to their old tricks again. Though I’m not sure that this new campaign is really speaking the language of today’s youth. 

The new campaign features a monochrome picture of the kind of dusty old pub this blog (and most young people) would avoid. However, one of the dusty old folk in the picture has a massive chain around his neck, a baseball cap and two dogs (the dogs are important for the gag). The quote underneath says “Two pints and a bowl for my bitches”, with the tag line, well actually tagged graffiti style, The Hip Hop.

I’m not sure if this is quite getting the measure right for modern teens. I’m a little past my teenage years, and while I might feel street in my head, there’s a good chance I’m deluded. But I find it hard to picture B-Boys and rappers being swayed by this advert. It’s more of a piss take I suppose, of the bling bling lifestyle. Perhaps they should serve it in jewel encrusted goblets to keep it real. 

So if it’s a piss take, who is it appealing to, indy kids and emos, students perhaps? I’m not convinced it’s hitting the mark there either. No, I suspect it is amusing to 40-something advertising execs who used to be cool, but need to impress 50-something marketing directors at Shepherd Neame. 

I could be wrong, and I dare say the advertising agency did due diligence and performed the correct research and held focus groups etc. But it looks a lot like something you might think up during a long lunch on the Bishops Finger and convince yourself it will woo the youth of today. 

Would any youths care to comment, is this in any way going to encourage you to drink good beer?

Tags: Canterbury Jack, Marketing, Shepherd Neame, Spitfire, The Hip Hop

Can I just say that Budweiser is tasteless filth that barely deserves to be called beer of any type. Calling it the King of Beers is as honest as calling me the King of Siam. OK Now that I’ve got that off my chest, lets have a look at what you can do if you have endless marketing budget to sell this swill to the masses. 

1. Understand that you are not cool, and your beer lacks taste.
2. Find somebody who really is cool, and give them some of your beer
3. Now they’ve tasted your beer, give them some money to pretend they like it
4. Bask in the reflected glory of having your beer being the chosen beverage of somebody cool

A case in point, Dave Cloud and his Gospel of Power band, who by any measure are cool, is about to launch phase two of Busweisers “True Dedication” campaign. He and his merry band of hard rockin’ bluesy manic music makers are, for a price, don’t forget he’s getting paid, convincing the innocents that Budweiser is a good beer. 

Yeah that’s pretty stupid isn’t it. But if it’s done right, and a limitless amount of marketing budget will make sure it is, it will work. People will see the cool people drinking your beer, and associate your beer with being cool. They will then drink you beer as if it is a magical potion that will bestow coolness to the unhip.

Of course you and I know that marketing won’t affect us (we don’t own anything with a known brand on it right…err, OK maybe a little). The thing is, the brand conscious youth of today want very much to be shown what is cool. If the choice is a pub where the all male clientele discuss specific gravity and pork scratching, or a rockin’ cool bar that girls and boys mingle and drink Budweiser, then it’s no choice at all. What we need to do is make sure the youth of today can have a rockin’ good time, and enjoy a genuinely tasty beverage of the beer variety.  

Time to change how we see beer

So, brewers of fine beers, perhaps you should consider putting some of your brews into the hands of some up and coming bands. You can even use my cunning marketing plan (skipping step 3 of course, because your beer doesn’t taste like flat Lucozade).. And if there are any budding musicians, perhaps you might consider approaching your favourite brewery to seek sponsorship. Imagine if the Arctic Monkeys were known to demand Riggwelter on their rider, or if Dizzee Rascal would drink nothing but Meantime Grand Cru? It would change the way a new generation thought about real, honest beer.

If you’ve seen any cool bands drinking fine beer (or at least want to start that rumour) let us know!

Tags: Arctic Monkeys, Budweiser, Dave Cloud, Dizzee Rascal, Meantime Grand Cru, Riggwelter

Raisin hopes of a buyout

It’s sad to see that Cains, the Liverpool brewers in such a desperate situation. Having gone into administration, Pricewaterhouse Coopers is apparently talking to upwards of a dozen parties with regards to buying all or part of the business. Thankfully the front runner is Marston’s a small brewer and pub chain owner, it could be worse. If one of the big brewers were to get hold of it, they would be bound to mess with a traditional brewer that dates back to 1850. 

Tags: Cains, Dusanj, Marston's

Despite being possibly the most disappointing branding exercises ever, Free Beer is actually a fun idea. The disappointment is based only in the fact that the beer itself is in no way free from cost. More accurately it is Open Source beer, meaning you are free to brew your own Free Beer so long as you publish the recipe and credit the Free Beer originators.

If you are not familiar with Open Source or the Creative Commons licence, it is more traditionally applied to software and other forms of publishing. Things like Linux were created by Open Source, but also Nine Inch Nails offer the ingredients to their music for fans to remix them.

So in a perfect homebrew fashion, the creators of Free Beer have sparked a worldwide movement for Free Beer and its derivatives. I have no idea what it tastes like, but I love the idea. 

Free Beer

Tags: Free Beer, Linux, Nine Inch Nails, Open Source

Also available for drinking

Tags: Beer Abuse, Beer Spa, Beer swimming pool

While I see why the Portman Group exists (to do a softer version of what the government might legislate badly), they appear to be taking the role of the nanny-state overlords a little far when they are actually threatening to ban a drink because it’s called Speedball. The Brew Dog boys will have to wait until September to find out if their beer and packaging might “encourage anti-social drinking”. Then they face the prospect of their products being banned.

Remember kids, don't drink beer m'kay

Apparently the Brew Dog guys are featured in the forthcoming Oz and James Big Beer Adventure BBC TV show. That’s Oz Clarke and James May sort of doing the reverse of the previous show where Oz tried to teach James about wine. The news about the Portman Groups stance on their beer apparently angered James May greatly, so an episode not to be missed. 

Whatever the Portman Groups findings, we at Beer Punx salute the young entrepreneurs of Brew Dog. If the right to sell 12% beer requires the bottle to be solemn, dusty and probably Belgian, then unique beers like that will remain in the hands of the beardy beer geek. Banning something like this to protect kids is ridiculous, not least because kids know wine is cheaper and stronger. Get that kids? Go give cheap wine a bad name and leave the fine beers for us. 

Tags: Brew Dog, James May, Oz Clarke, Portman Group, Speedball