Yes, I had a sauna. Now these are places where a peculiar practice often takes place. It’s called conversation with perfect strangers. Just like in the pub really, but without the beer and clothes malarkey. It is, of course, the nakedness that bonds you. Hard to sit there, as pink and vulnerable as a shelled prawn, and be too shy to chat.
And what chats. Suffering temperatures that would challenge a roaming Bedouin we sort out the world. Well, at least the England football squad, state of the NHS and Mr Brown. Of course, I usually steer the conversation to something I imagine I know a little more about – pubs and beer.
So it was that I fell into conversation about beer with quite an elderly chap. Apparently he hadn’t got out much for a pint in a good many years. Something called marriage, he said, had put the mockers on his more youthful drinking habits.
However, recently he had been exploring pubs again. And he was amazed to find he couldn’t get hold of a pint of Red Barrel for love nor money. What he could find though, he enthused, was a terrific choice of cask beers from small brewers. And he was enjoying them all.
When I told him that I write about breweries he was again amazed - that there is a call for it. We had a good chat and I would have liked to have brought him the very latest big beer news; that there are now more breweries in the UK than at anytime since 1945 – when he was probably about ten. This news is very welcome at a time when the beer industry is much beleaguered; pubs are closing at a rate of around 35 a week and the industry has lost some 43,000 jobs in recent years with about the same again under threat. If that situation prevailed in the banking world a national emergency would be declared
But mustn't digress.This latest good news comes to us courtesy of the newly published Campaign for Real Ale Good Beer Guide 2009 and its soothsaying editor Roger Protz. Roger scrawled the original writing on the wall for the revival of British craft brewing several years ago. The guide is a much awaited highlight of the year for beer drinkers and publicans alike. Some landlords would cut off the left bit of their private anatomy to get in.
It’s full of interesting stuff about hop farmers, malsters and ale styles and this year includes no less than 4,500 pubs.
But the really remarkable story, Roger reveals, is that there are now 550 independent breweries in the country, from the very small brew-pubs up to substantial ‘regional’ outfits. Seventy launched this last year alone. So that’s a lot of good reasons why my friend couldn't find his erstwhile ubiquitous, but perfectly dire, Watneys chuck-up.
Younger drinkers just have no idea how the older generation has suffered to bring about today’s cornucopia of beers - ungrateful lot. But much has happened since those dark days of the sixties and seventies. Not least, the Campaign for Real Ale’s remarkably successful David and Goliath style struggle against those big brewing battalions that would have consigned cask ale to the bin.
Now, as I may have touched upon in the past, Brunning & Price, sparing blushes, has made something of a contribution here. Years ago founders Jerry Brunning and Graham Price eschewed the big keg beer brands to pioneer cask-conditioned ales, often from smaller brewers.
Jerry moved on to pastures new last year, when The Restaurant Group made him an offer he couldn't refuse, but Graham, meanwhile, has remained at the helm and the multi entries for B&P in this year’s Good Beer Guide are testimony enough to how the company remains true to its soul. Harkers - a regular haunt of mine since opening day - has been a hardy annual in the guide for years.
As the GBG illustrates, of the pubs that remain in business there are many across the UK also doing a terrific job of bringing these beer delights to market. Clearly good ale plays a big part in survival for pubs - it's a positive selling point and often marks a hostelry as a quality player.
While sales of global brand Stella have fallen by 10 per cent, small brewers have seen an average rise of 11 per cent. Some good examples of this success are quoted: Bateman’s in Lincolnshire – a substantial family owned regional brewer that has fought to survive while others have vanished – saw the best year ever in 2007 and with sales of cask ale rise by 10 per cent; the award winning Moorhouse’s - ailing just a few years ago - enjoyed the highest sales of its life last Christmas and is poised for a £3m investment to boost brewing capacity to some 40,000 barrels a year.
Yes, I would love to break this news to my old sauna mate over a beer. But I don’t think I would recognise him with his clothes on.
But the really remarkable story, Roger reveals, is that there are now 550 independent breweries in the country, from the very small brew-pubs up to substantial ‘regional’ outfits. Seventy launched this last year alone. So that’s a lot of good reasons why my friend couldn't find his erstwhile ubiquitous, but perfectly dire, Watneys chuck-up.
Younger drinkers just have no idea how the older generation has suffered to bring about today’s cornucopia of beers - ungrateful lot. But much has happened since those dark days of the sixties and seventies. Not least, the Campaign for Real Ale’s remarkably successful David and Goliath style struggle against those big brewing battalions that would have consigned cask ale to the bin.
Now, as I may have touched upon in the past, Brunning & Price, sparing blushes, has made something of a contribution here. Years ago founders Jerry Brunning and Graham Price eschewed the big keg beer brands to pioneer cask-conditioned ales, often from smaller brewers.
Jerry moved on to pastures new last year, when The Restaurant Group made him an offer he couldn't refuse, but Graham, meanwhile, has remained at the helm and the multi entries for B&P in this year’s Good Beer Guide are testimony enough to how the company remains true to its soul. Harkers - a regular haunt of mine since opening day - has been a hardy annual in the guide for years.
As the GBG illustrates, of the pubs that remain in business there are many across the UK also doing a terrific job of bringing these beer delights to market. Clearly good ale plays a big part in survival for pubs - it's a positive selling point and often marks a hostelry as a quality player.
While sales of global brand Stella have fallen by 10 per cent, small brewers have seen an average rise of 11 per cent. Some good examples of this success are quoted: Bateman’s in Lincolnshire – a substantial family owned regional brewer that has fought to survive while others have vanished – saw the best year ever in 2007 and with sales of cask ale rise by 10 per cent; the award winning Moorhouse’s - ailing just a few years ago - enjoyed the highest sales of its life last Christmas and is poised for a £3m investment to boost brewing capacity to some 40,000 barrels a year.
Yes, I would love to break this news to my old sauna mate over a beer. But I don’t think I would recognise him with his clothes on.
