The sad loss of our Queen last month will have affected different people in different ways.
For me, it brought about a rather shameful realisation. Specifically, about the Corgis.
You see, I had assumed, for my entire life, that having Corgis as pets was just what the monarch did - a bit like sitting on a throne or owning the Crown Jewels. Corgis went with the job.
Queen. Throne. Jewels. Corgis.
This I learned from an early age, probably about four or five, but it was never explained to me that liking a certain breed of dog just happened to be a personal preference of the individual who was currently the Queen, and given that the reigning monarch never actually changed, I carried on with this assumption until, quite literally, just the other day.
I genuinely didn't realise that they were unique to Elizabeth II.
And so is Landlord
Thinking about it logically, the idea seems fairly preposterous, but I'd had no reason to question or challenge the belief, so there it sat, at the back of my mind, until fate intervened and I read somewhere that the new King isn't actually that keen on Corgis at all. I mean, why should he be?
(It was a lot like the occasion when I realised that I had always been pronouncing the word 'facsimile' incorrectly, at the age of 32.)
So, yes, a bit of a face-palm moment for me there. But then people do have very strong preferences for things. Irrationally strong at times. Her majesty had her Corgis and Dorgis. Strongman Geoff Capes keeps budgerigars. Former Steeleye Span bass player Rick Kemp always drives Saab cars. I buy Corsair components for my computer so they match up with the other Corsair kit I already have. And so on.
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| Just another twat drinking just another beer |
Draught Bass. Timothy Taylor Landlord. Harvey's Best.
All perfectly decent beers. But all far from unique. All nothing particularly special. Am I missing something? There are numerous equivalent beers out there that I suspect the aficionados wouldn't be able to differentiate in a blind taste test.
And Citra
Oakham Citra too, in more recent years. I mean, yes, it's great. Smashably hoppy and refreshing at a modest ABV. But just about every fucking brewery does a Citra-hopped beer these days. A lot of them are also very good and, yes, very similar. So why single out one example for all the adulation? Why?
I just don't get it.
(Oakham are one of my favourite breweries, but the standard Citra is far from the best beer they've ever put out - that would be Akhenaten, Cryptic or possibly Enough Rope!)
Strangely a lot of those who (rightly) decry the absolute rubbish that is Sharp's Doom Bar, turn out to be the fan boys of these other beers that aren't a million miles away from Doom, in both popularity and bland genericness.
The thing is, there are genuinely special, unique and interesting beers out there. There are a few beers that can legitimately be considered exceptional and that have no comparable peers. But these tend to go under the radar of most people precisely because of their scarcity.
I'll give a few examples:
Brentwood BBC1 - it's a hoppy table beer style, with a similar flavour profile to certain other beers, but is almost completely unique at being 1.5% ABV. There's nothing else like that on the market as far as I can ascertain.
Arbor Faked Alaska is a hoppy, sweet, Vanilla milkshake IPA. It's extremely tasty, but there isn't a whole lot of other stuff out there like it. In my view that's far more worthy of cult fandom than, say, Harvey's Best, with its legions of fans.
Tiny Rebel ThaIPA, the best beer I've had this year, with its almost sexual combination of lemongrass and coconut, stands out on a bar where everything else tastes like everything else.
And indeed just about any 10%+ Imperial dessert stout with bread and butter pudding, or gingerbread and marshmallow, or whatever other unique flavours they choose to introduce. Yes, these beers might be gimmicky. Yes, they might not be to your taste. But they have a genuine stand-out factor that so many beers do not.
The same goes for strongly-fruited sours and indeed fruit ciders. Schezuan pepper saison, Absinthe porter, whisky cask-aged Barley Wine with added loganberries. There is so much possibility out there. Fuck the purists - let's have some genuine choice in what we drink rather than a range of stuff that is all very similar to itself.
I get that there will always be some people who 'just want beer to taste like beer', and who seek out the best examples of that. Fine. But you can't have it both ways and claim that one 4.2% 'traditional' best bitter with Fuggles and EKG hops is somehow massively distinct from, and far better than, another 4.2% 'traditional' best bitter with Fuggles and EKGs.
Personally I think that a beer should be memorable because of what it is (and indeed what it isn't) not just because you've drunk it so many times you've been seconded into some sort of emotional loyalty scheme!
Lots of common sense, of course, but I reckon there's 2 things about Bass that attract the devotees (including me). The red triangle, particularly on a branded glass, and the sheer variability of what passes as Bass, even in pubs of a high standard. Flat Bass from the jug in Bath's Star (nectar) is completely different from the better known Bass with a tight head in the Midlands, while the banked Bass in the Sun in Stockton is just weird, in a good way.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of anything else that tastes like good Bass, either. And unlike the 3 no doubt brilliant beers you mention, you can at least still get Bass on draught with a bit of effort !
Cheers
Some interesting thoughts here Ben, especially the concept of emotional attachment to a particular beer. For me, that attachment is with Harvey’s Sussex Best, one of the beers you decry for its “cult fandom,” but it’s a beer that I have been drinking, for as long as I care to remember. Consistently good, but even better given proper care and attention in the pub cellar – tip for licensees, don’t serve it too young, it’s “cask-conditioned,” and the clue is in the name.
ReplyDeleteDraught Bass is another beer that comes in for criticism, as in the rather dismissive title you attach to this piece. On form, as alluded to by Retired Martin, it still hits the spot, although unfortunately over the years the beer has been shamefully neglected. Current owners, Anheuser- Busch InBev, have little interest in the brand, despite its pedigree as one of the most famous beers in the world, and regrettably, that situation is unlikely to change.
As with Harvey’s Best, I have been enjoying Draught Bass since my early twenties, although unlike the former, Bass is rather scarce these days, especially here, in the south east – a region where it was once very common. The beer did go downhill when Bass scrapped their Burton Union sets, as a cost-saving exercise. This traditional method of fermentation also didn’t sit well with the modern image that the company wished to promote for itself.
Over the years though, the beer gradually returned to form, but the neglect of the brand, as mentioned above, saw the production of Draught Bass being shunted over to the neighbouring Marston’s Brewery. Marston’s still retain their union sets but are said not to use them for fermenting Bass. Make of that what you will.
Obviously, the appreciation of good beer, boils down to a matter of personal taste, but to disparage beers such as Bass, Harvey’s, and Oakham Citra, because of what you describe as their cult/fandom status is more than a little dishonest. Your position also fails to stack up when you come out with three, rather obscure beers, at the extreme ends of the taste spectrum, and then insist they are more worthy candidates for fandom and/or cult status.