As I write, I am boozing a bottle of drink.
To some, this will come as little surprise – indeed I’m certain most of this column’s readers presume the haphazard guff contained within is usually drafted by an imbecile with a Special Brew dependency (actually, replace ‘Special Brew’ with ‘Ribena’, and those readers would be proven right).
Personally, the surprise is that it’s taken as long as two years of writing for the Birmingham Post before it’s driven me to alcohol.
However, looking at my metaphorically half-full glass, my recourse to prose and a pint means I’m practically a fully-fledged hack. All I now need to go ‘full journo’ is a despairing view of humanity – easily achieved with a couple of back-to-back Jeremy Kyle Shows and a subway walk past Birmingham’s wonky Chinese pagoda.
So yes. I’m drinking. It’s Bristol Beer Company’s ‘Southville Hop’ should you care. But, in my woozy defence, it is for research. Honeshtly. It’s for research into a burgeoning craft beer movement originating in South Birmingham, but with the potential to make a mark across the region’s retail, nightlife and brewery sectors.
Craft beer does admittedly sound like one of those nebulous marketing phrases retailers attach to products that are otherwise painfully unexotic - hence homemade wholemeal loaves becoming more frequently known as the altogether more seductive ‘artisan bread’. But get past the modish phrasing, and you can see the ethos behind a different approach to the production and marketing of beer.
Whilst traditional breweries mass-produce minor variations of blandly-flavoured, aggressively-carbonated bladder-fillers, producers of craft beer work creatively on a smaller scale. The emphasis at this level is about flavour, experimentation and an abiding passion for what they do. It’s this mentality that’s become increasingly popular across a nation that has an increasing desire for its collective tastebuds to be challenged.
For whatever reason, Birmingham has lagged behind the rest of the nation in this respect. In the likes of Huddersfield, Manchester, Bristol or London, sales of India Pale Ales, Barley Wines and many others are booming. Away from the heart of England, new breweries are popping up to capitalise on the growing trend.
New UK bars are increasingly likely to display an extensive range of beers from locales across Europe and the USA, not gaudy sales promotions on fluorescent toxic intoxicants.
But, unusually for an area with an already active CAMRA group, and a pub-crawl-friendly range of convivial drinking haunts, that trend hasn’t made the same impact in the Midlands... yet.
But things are gradually starting to change here, and it’ll be interesting to see which individuals and businesses capitalise on this ponderous bandwagon.
The seeds of change can be found in South Birmingham. You could argue that the seeds were specifically planted on the Pershore Road, when Stirchley Wines and Spirits became a focal point for canny consumers to educate their palates.
Run by Krishan Rajput (as passionate about beer as any craft brewer), Stirchley Wines has been around since the 70s, and started importing beer in the mid-80s. By the year 2000, and especially in the last three years, the market really began to shift.
Customers were more likely to visit the shop to try something new, or taste something recommended by friends – not simply pick up a six-pack of a fizzy whistle-whetter so bland, you could give it a blonde wig, put it alongside Simon Cowell on Britain’s Got Talent and call it ‘Amanda Holden’. My more clued-up friends would intentionally go out of their way to Pershore Road to pick up the latest Nøgne beer, instead of joining me to see what’s on special at Kings Heath’s Sainsburys.
Those clued-up friends have been, um, picking up their clues from hyperlocal social media, another key factor to the increasing momentum of the craft beer movement. Social media has been pivotal to sharing opinions on taste and to informing Birmingham’s beer-drinking community about the exciting developments happening… outside of Birmingham.
One of the city’s foremost beer bloggers is Danny Brown. Danny’s a prolific online advocate of beer, whose self-effacing Twitter and blogging demeanour – his blog’s titled ‘Mediocre Beer Adventures’ – has made him the ideal representative for Brum’s craft beer contingent: savvy yet unassuming.
By contrast, Marverine Cole operates on a glitzier lever (‘Beer Beauty’ is her online nom de plume), as demonstrated by her YouTube clip on This Morning, getting Holly and Phil lightly lubricated on accessible ales. Like Danny though, her efforts have helped widen the interest in beer appreciation, taking it beyond the claustrophobic confines of a Digbeth beer den.
It’s that fresh outlook on what a beer drinker should look like (i.e. anyone – young, old, male, female, good personal hygiene, a tramp’s personal hygiene) that’s helped the rise of Birmingham’s craft beer scene: in no way does it evoke the traditional image of hairy real ale enthusiasts, fuzzily gathered around a sticky pub table, deep in impenetrable conversation as if performing a deleted scene from Caravan Of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.
So there are enthusiasts, taking to the web to cheerlead for beer sold by Stirchley Wines and its rivals (Cotteridge Wines and, more recently, Kings Heath’s Ruprai). There is also an enterprising cafe bar in the bijou shape of Kings Heath’s Cherry Reds, with its necessarily select range of craft beers (it’s the dinkiest of venues). Momentum is evidently building, though at the considered pace of a Spanish tika-taka footballing move, not the ‘quick, knock it up to the big man up front’ English mentality.
Except the big man has now arrived, bringing the specialist beer offering to city centre revellers unfamiliar to the No.50 bus route. BrewDog is the hottest name on the brewery scene, with an anticipated 2012 turnover of £12 million and successful bars in major Scottish cities, London and Manchester.
The sweary brand is expected to mother-fupping arrive in Birmingham towards the end of our sodden summer. It joins the Post Office Vaults, the Pinfold Street bar which has been gently building its profile and beer collection (nearly 300 of them) since very late last year.
So let’s see what happens. BrewDog’s appearance on the local scene is, to some, expected to be the tipping point. The cult beer following in the city should edge its way further into the mainstream. Entrepreneurs may pick up on this trend, and perhaps bring life to some of the (many) unoccupied entertainment premises around the city. Inventive brewers may return to the area and pioneer a new golden age of Birmingham breweries.
There’s certainly an opportunity, as there’s certainly a market. Take the recent Santander Business Banking survey as evidence: this found that nearly half (46 per cent) of people questioned valued the pub as their most important local amenity.
Not the takeaway, not the newsagent. The pub.
It’s time to get the beers in.
* Keith Gabriel is a Birmingham-based PR account manager
