Tuesday 7 June 2011

Conspicuous by its absence

Interesting to read that amongst the points of attraction at BrewDog’s Alternative Aberdeen Beer Festival is…

…No cask beer.

Now when has that been a selling point for an event aimed at people with an interest in beer? It is now, though.

Can you feel those tectonic plates shifting?

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16 comments:

  1. Birkonian7 June 2011 at 18:45

    Although I may wish to see craft beer recognised as worthy this is just being peverse for the sake of it.

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  2. Neville Grundy7 June 2011 at 19:50

    Perhaps a few tectonic grains of sand, Curmudgeon.

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  3. Curmudgeon7 June 2011 at 20:56

    Of course they're doing it for effect in their usual unsubtle stirring manner. But we used to joke that "they never have keg beer festivals, do they?" They do now.

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  4. Owen7 June 2011 at 21:58

    This is only a "festival" if calling a normal weekend in the pub a festival makes it a festival.

    They don't have any more beer on than they normally would. The only difference appears to be that they have live music, so if anything it's a (very small scale) music festival and not a beer festival at all.

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  5. Phil7 June 2011 at 22:38

    File under standard BrewDog pot-stirring, and forget.

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  6. John Clarke8 June 2011 at 08:07

    Yes - I don't think you can really hang anything on this one at all. As Owen has said this doesn't appear to be a "beer festival" at all - just the normal range along with a few "special releases" at various timed intervals (oh, please) with additional music.

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  7. Sat In A Pub8 June 2011 at 19:12

    Yes, good try, but as others have pointed out, it's not actually a beer festival. So, no tremors felt-yet.

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  8. Martin, Cambridge9 June 2011 at 00:02

    I'd be there this weekend if flights to Aberdeen (and beer prices) were cheaper - bet the beers taste fantastic.

    I thought the issue was about tasty, well-made beer v bland industrial beer - does conditioning really matter as much ?

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  9. Mark9 June 2011 at 12:15

    As others have said, this is just a blog article, a bit of entertainment for their regular followers, and obviously inspired by the fact that it's the CAMRA Aberdeen beer festival this weekend.

    I'm not sure where they get the idea that cask ale in a beer festival is bland and boring. Although we did get a few Brew Dog beers (in cask) at Southampton a few years ago and they were rather dull despite their stupid strength.

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  10. Curmudgeon10 June 2011 at 12:47

    And now, apparently, BrewDog are planning to serve keg beer at the CAMRA GBBF ;-D

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  11. John Clarke10 June 2011 at 20:23

    Well, no they're not actually Peter. Time to stop flogging this notably dead horse perhaps?

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  12. Curmudgeon10 June 2011 at 20:55

    I did say "apparently" - all was made clear later on. But if KeyKeg is approved by CAMRA it will be an interesting development.

    And who's this "Peter"? You know very well my first name is Jeremiah :p

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  13. John Clarke10 June 2011 at 23:39

    Sorry J. As you say interesting point re Keykeg. I also note that the requirement is that the beer contains enough live yeast cells to permit a secondary fermentation and not that the secondary fermentation actually takes place (which I am pretty sure it won't -as I think is the case with most cask beer sold at most beer festivals, although I admit my knowledge is imperfect here).

    However this is an important development as a lot of so called "craft keg" is much the same - basically good old fashioned re-racked in 21st century clothes.

    The thing I'm not looking forward to is the inevitable torrent of posturing (can you have a torrent of posturing? I'm sure you know what I mean) that will accompany and follow this event. Has no-one ever taken James Watt to one side and tols him that he's coming across as a bit of a twat? Cue howls of outrage for the Brewdog blogger fanboys...

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  14. John Clarke13 June 2011 at 08:21

    I wonder if Brew Dog's anti cask stance is starting to work against them. This http://www.aswiftone.com/ might imply it is. Another slight tectonic wobble perhaps? Presumably if the "cratf keg revolution" was all it's made out to be, the answer for the Grove would be to instal more keg fonts....

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  15. Anonymous13 June 2011 at 10:39

    CAMRA's "leaders" must be loving this. Everyone squabbling about a silly little brewery making a rather poor keg beer makes a great smokescreen for the fact that CAMRA is failing in so many other, more important, ways. Forget "craft keg" Brewdog are just taking (and in this case making) the piss

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  16. Curmudgeon13 June 2011 at 10:52

    Well, yes, this whole "craft keg" thing is very much a storm in a nip glass when we consider the wider issues facing the drinks industry. How many people have ever even heard of craft keg? It's a typical "inside the Beltway" issue. But it's quite amusing at times ;-)

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