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| From Fictionaddictions.com |
Aside from having an acronym unnervingly close to JK Rowling's "Society for Protection of Elvish Welfare" (SPEW), the Society for Preservation of Beers from the Wood (SPBW) had not really created a blip on my radar. That is until I picked up a membership leaflet in Belfast Bridge House (Wetherspoon pub) yesterday.
Apparently this venerable beer organisation is 50 this year, with almost 10 years on the better known Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). I perused at leisure whilst watching TV last night. At first I thought it might be quite fun to join (£4 for quaterly newsletters and a new social group), they are (self-admittedly) a lot like CAMRA. However when I got to the societies aims I stopped dead in my tracks. Point 3 states:
"To denigrate the manufacture and sale of keg beers and to discourage
the use of extraneous carbon-dioxide in the serving of beer.
"
Aside from severely limiting the number of pubs they can drink at* (even those pubs which specialise in cask invariably provide one or two keg products) they are giving the rest of us cask campaigners a bad name. Boak & Bailey seem not to have mentioned this in their analysis of UK beer groups (or maybe i missed it?) Could this be where the unjustified opinion that CAMRA are keg bashers stems from? Notice the wording, not just discourage, but denigrate that is "to belittle or disparage the character of".
A group with this as an aim isn't doing good beer any favours at all and just perpetuates the myth that keg=automatically bad beer and prolongs the bickering amongst different factions of the beer community. I don't need to point out the sea-change in beer available in keg since both organisations began.
So perhaps CAMRA members who want to talk of the "evil"s of kegs should leave and join SPBW instead to let the rest of us point out the positives of cask conditioning and let the beer do the talking in letting people make up their own minds.
*How The Northern Irish SPBW get around this I'm not sure, there are no cask-only outlets here!
I'd forgotten about SPBW. I've always found it a bit strange that they haven't managed to get a branch together in/near Devizes seeing as Wadworth still sell their beers in wooden casks.
ReplyDeleteI also thought about joining as it seemed liked a nice preservation thing to donate money to... until I saw point 3. Even if I didn't like any beers from keg I still wouldn't give any money to a society that appears to love beer but also seems to be vehemently opposed to many brewers.
Well it made me laugh, which I think might be their point.
ReplyDeletewhat a small world steve! I was in there yesterday too, saw the leaflet, and thought the exact same thing! what were you drinking?
ReplyDeleteI was driving; so just had three festival thirds, really enjoyed the hoptimus prime, marstons pacific gem and vivat red were so-so...missed out on good george black pearl though :(
DeleteI would hate to think you are defending John Smiths smooth, Carling Black Label et al, which are at best mediocre.
ReplyDeleteOf course not, I don't drink those beers but if people want to sell and drink those; its not up to us to tell them otherwise.
DeleteHowever there are a new wave of kegged beers from traditional and newer British brewers alike that are worthy of supporting as a complement to cask conditioned beers (which I generally drink in preference to keg, depending on what's available!)
Speaking on behalf of the SPBW as secretary of the NEC our position is that we favour and encourage traditionally brewed cask conditioned beers, however as you say it is not up to us to denigrate keg. We do in fact enjoy craft brewed products particularly German, Belgium & Czech ones, which are brewed using traditional ingredients, by traditional methods and not served with an excess of extraneous CO2. However the vast bulk of the keg products sold in the UK do not meet these criteria, so we would encourage consumers to try cask first or craft beers second as a prefererence and we would hope that they gain more satisfaction as a result.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting John. How easy/ what is the likelihood of point 3 being reworded in the future?
DeleteAlso how big is the Northern Ireland branch?
We used to have a branch (for many years) in Coate (near Devizes) based at the New Inn, which served Wadworths from the wood. The Wadworth's cooper Alastair has now set up his own business in Yorkshire and has close links with our (large) West Riding Branch. The Junction pub in Castleford is a wodd and real ale mecca.
ReplyDeleteSteve.
ReplyDeleteI brought this issue up with the NEC. It had been reworded in the constitution quite a while back, but for some reason did not get into all the texts it should have. This has been changed and new NI membership forms (which are just amended copies of the national form) are now being circulated. Sadly, the forms, and the holders, just "disappear" - this expense is out of my own pocket!
More info can be gleaned at www.spbwni.co.uk. What is not known is that I was a 1-2-1 carer for my diabetic mother for several years and anyone who has been in that position knows how time-consuming and very stressful it is, thus I was not able to devote the time to the branch in gaining members. However, the branch has been ticking over - more so than other branches with more members.
My mother passed away last year and I now have more time to devote to gaining more members. This is a hard job when another beer consumer group exists. Especially one that runs beer festivals.
As an ex-Chair of that group, and the person who created their Belfast beer festivals in the mid 1990's, I know how hard it is to get and keep members, especially in a group that is not high profile. Any help would be appreciated.
If you are in the Bridge House on a Friday, Steve, about 8-ish, ask the staff to point me out and we can have a beer and chat. My picture is on their wall anyway, LOL.
Mark Hutchinson
Chairmn
SPBW NI
You will find that CAMRA has a huge ongoing debate about its roots and current positions on beers in general - Real Ale in their name and the long lasting fight against keg. Quite heated debates at times. Craft is the culprit today, as many brewers are using "craft" as an advertising ploy for more sales.
ReplyDeleteSo, "SPBW - the source of keg bashing" may be a misnomer LOL. Or at least, not the sole culprit.
Mark, i see the wording has changed on the national website, which is certainly a good thing, I'll tweet to let my followers know. Thanks for dropping by and giving me an update.
DeleteAs with all large groups, CAMRA consists of numerous opinions, some people who do actively campaign against keg, but the important difference is its not national policy.
Will certainly look to catch up with you for a pint if I'm in Belfast on a Friday, though as I live in Cookstown its usually Saturdays/Sundays I'm in town.
As for use of the word craft I'm fairly ambivalent toward it, I've not seen so much of this "crafy" beer the American Brewer's association speaks about, but I have a post coming up soon on that topic
If you get a chance to get to the Ormeau Road have a look in the Vinyard offie. They have an excellent range, which changes weekly and have recently had a few US "craft" beers on the shelves.
ReplyDeleteyep, know it well and overdue a visit! I resort to getting most of my beer through the post because courier charges are cheaper than around trip to belfast!
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