theleicesterdrinker www.leicestercamra.org.uk FREE Issue 99 June / July 2015 The Newsletter of Leicester CAMRA Branch Circulation 5,000 throughout Leicestershire & Rutland Leicester Beer Festival 2015 Belvoir Brewery Turns 20! p6 www.leicestercamra.org.uk Trip to Bolton & Wigan Burton Overy, Illston on Facebook/leicestercamra p12 the Hill & Billesdon p24 @LeicesterCAMRA 11 - 14 MARCH CHAROTAR PATIDAR SAMAJ, BAY STREET, LEICESTER LEICESTER BEER FESTIVAL 2015 1 Leicester Beer Festival Special Report From p15 INSIDE Tim Webb on Craft Beer . p4-5 Leicester CAMRA Wins Council Award . p7 Pub of the Year . p9 Czech Beer Trip . from p19 1852 Wins May Pub of the Month . p22 Facebook/leicestercamra @LeicesterCAMRA CAMRA Card Discounts . p30 Designed & Printed by AnchorPrint · www.anchorprint.co.uk EDITOR Rob Macardle Please send contributions to [email protected] FROM THE EDITOR Website: www.leicestercamra.org.uk Welcome to the June/July edition of Facebook: Leicester Campaign for Real Ale The Leicester Drinker. The Drinker welcomes letters, news, views and articles It’s been a busy time of late for many within the for possible publication. Please keep it brief and to the branch. With the aftermath of the Beer Festival, point and supply your name and address (this will the Mild in May trail, Pub of the Month and Pub of only be published with your permission). The opinions the Year celebrations and a shiny new certificate expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of presented by the City of Leicester (details on page the Editor, Leicester Branch, or CAMRA. 7) hardly a week has gone by without something to do. If you are a CAMRA member (or prospective ADVERTISING RATES 1 member) and would like to help in some way (and /6 page £ 35 + VAT 1 some jobs only require an hour or so a month) please /4 page £ 50 + VAT 1 /3 page £ 66 + VAT contact Shawn Collier ([email protected]) 1 /2 page £ 85 + VAT Pressure of space means that several items have 1 page £160 + VAT again had to be held over, but we are hoping to be Back Page £190 + VAT in a position to have a few extra pages available for Series Discounts available on 1/4 page and above what will be our 100th issue. In addition to a few VAT Registration Number: 102 0964 57 special features I’m currently trawling the archives CAMRA Recommends that if you are in any way for articles that deserve a “second outing” but dissatisfied with the measure of your pint in any of would be more than grateful to hear from Leicestershire & Rutland’s pubs, contact the Trading anybody who has reminiscences or stories to share Standards. Details below. regarding all things beer-related in Leicester. • City of Leicester Council has now moved from Please contact me via e-mail in the first instance. New Walk. All Weights & Measures enquiries should ([email protected]) R.M. be referred to Citizens Advice 03454040506 or www.citizensadvice.org.uk • Leicestershire County Council 2000, E-mail: [email protected] • Rutland County Council Offices, Catmose, ADVERTISE IN THE Oakham, Rutland, LE15 6HP. LEICESTER DRINKER! • Trading Standards are part of Environmental With a circulation of 5,000 and an estimated Health. All initial enquiries to Rutland County Council can be made through the customer readership of three times that number, services team. 01572 722577 The Drinker reaches licensees and pubgoers alike and is available free of charge in almost Leicester CAMRA makes every effort to publish the Leicester Drinker on time, however sometimes due to 200 outlets. The newsletter is published every lack of copy being received it may be a few days later two months by The Campaign for Real Ale, than advertised. Leicester CAMRA cannot accept any prices to advertise start from £35 plus VAT. responsibility for advertisements taken that feature Contact [email protected] in a dated event that has occurred before publication is the first instance. published. Postal Copies can be obtained from S. Collier on 07504 829830 LEICESTER DRINKER ADVERTISING/COPY DEADLINES 2015 or email: [email protected] 16 South Drive, Leicester LE5 1AN Recommended Absolute (Please supply stamps) LD100 Aug/Sep 15/07/2015 22/07/2015 www.camra.org.uk LD101 Oct/Nov 09/09/2015 16/09/2015 LD102 Dec/Jan 11/11/2015 18/11/2015 2 June - July 2015 The Newsletter of Leicester CAMRA Branch The Leicester Drinker www.leicestercamra.org.uk 3 and 50p off a pint in some pubs . The basic rule of WE HAVE TO ‘adapt or die’ is deemed irrelevant . Uniquely among beer consumer groups it fails to promote or campaign for better beer, preferring to TALK ABOUT favour one tightly defined sub-type . A beer group that promotes a rival and unrelated drink, cider, but CRAFT BEER cannot extend such favours to other beer styles, has a problem . Beware of aliens None of this would matter were CAMRA not in This is the last of four articles by prize-winning danger of alienating the new generation of beer beer writer Tim Webb, author of The World Atlas of enthusiasts, who fail to see how Greene King IPA Beer, Pocket Beer Book, Good Beer Guide Belgium, could possibly be considered superior to Punk IPA . LambicLand and others, in which he traces the It annoys many older supporters too, who wince progress of beer in the last 40 years; debunks some at statements on the nature of beer from senior myths about British brewing; picks out those parts or long-standing members who clearly know little of beer-making that create flavour; and challenges about their subject beyond spouting the dodgy CAMRA to retake its vow to improve beer in clichés of a bygone time . Britain . All four can be found on the website This is not entirely their fault . CAMRA nationally www .booksaboutbeer com. has de-prioritised beer knowledge and does little to encourage or enable members to discover and explore Part 4: Ensuring the future brewing beyond its narrow focus . The absence of In CAMRA’s early days, enjoying good beer meant understanding and expertise about beer, even in the knowing a lot about where to find it and a little about organisation’s higher echelons can be staggering . what it was . Beer drawn straight from a cask or Adapt or die pulled by hand to the bar was great; while that which came twinkling from a flick-switch fount was rubbish . “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, Electric pumps challenged our certainty, so had to go . nor the most intelligent .... it is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin That world disappeared, as all worlds do in time . Nowadays the eight pubs that lie within easy cycling The concept of craft beer came in part from the distance of my village home serve more cask ales typewriters of St Albans . It changed the nature of than I would have found in the whole million-strong commercial brewing globally . The idea that today’s city of Birmingham when younger . craft beer lovers have interests opposed to those of yesterday’s real ale campaigners is crackpot and Back then, ‘foreign beer’ meant one of a dozen needs exposing as such . CAMRA must talk about industrial lagers, few of which were imported . craft beer . Nowadays I can have over 3000 beers from round the world delivered to my door within a couple of Whatever ‘good beer’ should mean in 21st century days, most brewed to sound artisan principles . Britain, it is not a debate about cask versus keg . It is about flavour, diversity of styles and independent This has been an unimaginably impressive revolution . ownership, just like it has always been . A word from our sponsors Because of my generation’s efforts to save beer, So how does Britain’s beer consumer group react to today’s beer drinkers inherited a far better world of this extraordinary progress? opportunities . As such, they will form their opinions It deigns to be “not against” it . Support is based on today’s possibilities, not out-dated not forthcoming and it is happy to stand back assumptions . Old CAMRA must understand that or while older members who should know better it will become irrelevant to the future of brewing in make up facts to justify attacking the new and the UK . exciting . Meanwhile its annual flagshipGood The Campaign must grow with its times and Beer Guide is barred from mentioning many of extend its influence beyond the traditional pub Britain’s best beers . From a Government-approved sector, which is contracting . The growth area for ‘superconsumer’ this feels a tad cliquey . interesting beer is off sales, new-style cafés, hotels The excuse is that CAMRA’s membership continues and restaurants – or the places where decision to grow – benefits include free entry to beer festivals makers encounter beer, if you prefer . To influence 4 June - July 2015 The Newsletter of Leicester CAMRA Branch here CAMRA must roll back from its cask obsession CAMRA to talk about craft beer, British brewing and renew its vows to make beer better . has fallen far behind its less established rivals . Heartfelt opinion must start to be informed by Its export performance is pathetic and is likely to understanding . A basic level CAMRA activist should remain so unless it recaptures past greatness, with know how beer comes to taste the way it does and or without CAMRA support . how different types of good beer are best made . Light ales polluted by fruit syrup, poor imitations of And whatever expertise senior activists may have better-made foreign styles and old names revived to they should know what is happening in the wider fig leaf mediocrity simply will not cut it with modern world of well-made beer .