In the Beginning

I think we've enough beer for the first hour

I remember well my first beer festival. It was1974 I think, or maybe 1975. A friend turned up in the pub one night and handed each of us a small card and demanded £2 each or whatever the price was. It was a long time ago.

He told us that his work colleagues had put him under pressure to buy them and he was now doing the same to us. “What’s an ‘Exhibition of Fine Ales?” I asked cautiously. The premise was explained as comprising lots of beer served in a big hall. Good enough for me.

The venue was the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. At the time it was no different to many auditoriums up and down the country. Slightly down-at-heel, investment was much needed to enable it to survive. It was lucky in that the investment would arrive a few years later and it now enjoys a well-earned reputation (and sells good beer in the downstairs bar).

As a beer festival venue it wouldn’t pass muster in a Health & Safety inspection nowadays. The casks were down the left and right hand side of the stalls, where the seats remained intact. There was no circulation area, so when a scrum formed at the bars we had to pick our way across the rows, glasses in hand to find a seat as if we were about to watch a production. Many spillages took place as punters continually had to stand up to allow others to pass.

My knowledge at the time consisted of two facts. Beer in pub ‘A’ might taste different to that in pub ‘B’. Secondly, it was difficult to find Mild down south. I was hardly a budding Michael Jackson. This was different though, a Road to Damascus. The beers had taste. I hadn’t know that real ale existed or that there were so many breweries. Higson’s, Wilson’s and Burtonwood were my new heroes. I became a convert on the spot.

Those early beer festivals seemed very different from now. Each was an opportunity to try something new, to blag bar towels and ash trays from the brewery reps, to get very, very, drunk by 10:30 closing time. I still remember the pride at meeting Bill Tidy (another Birkonian) and persuading him to draw a Kegbuster cartoon on my CAMRA membership card. I still treasure it.

My first Membership card. I'm not telling you which year.

Present day beer festivals mostly preach to the converted. Their purpose is to raise funds for CAMRA or charitys and the focus is on obscure beers to attract the train-spotting wing of beer drinkings. We all know a lot more about beer than we did then, or at least we think we do. I don’t go to many beer festivals in Britain now. The quality isn’t always great. Unproven beers and poor practices by some wholesalers may be to blame. I have an idea for a good beer festival. Decide on the best breweries and offer only one beer from each. The one judged to be their best. Simple!





 

Wirral Whisperings

I live in Wirral. There is perception in Liverpool that the peninsula is a leafy oasis inhabited by posh types who look down their noses at the scousers over the water. Well, the well-heeled residents on the Deeside may think like that but the conurbations of Birkenhead, New Ferry and Seacombe on the banks of the Mersey form one of the most deprived areas in the country.

This divide impinges on the beer scene. Conservative West Wirral has numerous country inns and suburban pubs offering real ale, although it is only since the emergence of Brimstage brewery in 2007 that that the market for beers from micros has taken off. Peerless brewery in Birkenhead followed and is expanding its market while breweries from the Liverpool and Chester areas are starting to make their presence felt.

The working class conurbation centered around Birkenhead is a different matter. 10-15 years ago there was a decent real ale crawl to be had in Birkenhead town centre The long term decline of the area has resulted in the sad state of affairs whereby this town of over 80,000 people has no pubs in the 2010 or 2011 GBGs. Hope may be on the horizon with the re-opening of a couple of pubs offering a choice of beers (see Cock & Pullet) but the overall situation is still bad.

Wirral suffers in beer choice for two main reasons. Historically, Wirral pubs were owned a few large players. Birkenhead Brewery was the largest player but was swallowed up by Threlfall’s in the early 60s which was itself already a part of the Whitbread ‘Umbrella’. These keg and tank beer pubs resisted the march of real ale in the late 70’s and early 80s longer than most.

The remaining pubs were mostly former Bent’s and Yates’ houses which eventually became part of the Bass and Allied-Tetley empire. Real ale was hard to track down in these pubs. The only shining light was Higson’s which had a smattering of pubs throughout Wirral, mostly with good beer. Unfortunately, Higson’s were taken over by Boddington’s who themselves were swallowed up by Whitbread, delivering a further portfolio to the bloated behemoth.

Although sales of pubs in the 80’s introduced pockets of exotic beer from Wilson’s and Wolverhampton & Dudley, the dismantling of the big breweries left most of Wirral’s pubs in the hands of the new pub companies. To this day there are few true free houses in Wirral, restricting the choice of real ale.

The lack of good beer in Birkenhead and parts of Wallasey may also be down to the proximity of Liverpool. There are any number of excellent pubs on the other side of the Mersey with superb rangers of beer. A five minute train journey from Birkenhead means that the town is by-passed by drinkers looking for a good pint. Not until critical mass is reached with enough good pubs in a small area for a night out will Birkenhead have reason to be proud of its beer culture.