Team talk issue raised by: Justin Hamilton.
Whitstable Bay, the club’s session ale
In a nutshell: The bar regularly has a single bitter on handpump – Shepherd Neame’s Whitstable Bay. Can we have some variety? Can we have guest beers so there is an alternative style of beer?
The answer: Yes we can have a different beer as our standard ale and we can have guest beers from different breweries. But the devil is in the detail.
Pauline the pints
We have a sponsorship deal with the local Kent brewery Shepherd Neame. The more we buy from them the better the deal we get. That means our main beer needs to be from Shepherd Neame. It could be Master Brew, Spitfire or Bishop’s Finger, for example. The reality if the main ale needs to be session ale that meets a wide variety of tastes.
Whitstable Bay is a pale ale at just 3.9%. The brewery’s other main session ale is Master Brew at just 3.7%. But the brewery describes Master Brew as: “A distinctive, mid-brown bitter ale, with all the hoppy aroma you would expect of a beer brewed in the heart of the hop country.”
Hoppy, dark in colour, these are both warning signs for some drinkers. While many of us might be happy with Master Brew, others wouldn’t. If there is a groundswell of opinion that the main beer in the bar should be a different Shepherd Neame beer, and sales did not drop off as a result, Pauline will happily switch the order.
Welcoming guests
Local brewers, such as Brockley Brewery, could be supported
Guest beers are a simpler matter. We can have any of the other Shepherd Neame beers as a guest ale. But we are not tied to one brewery. We could get a guest beer from any brewery providing we can find a distributor to get it to us.
The issue here is volume sales. We need to guarantee the club drinks all the guest beer in the short space of time before it goes off. Realistically that restricts it to weekends when we have event or guaranteed large turnouts, such as VP lunches. If it is not drunk it will go off and that will be a waste. During the week there is simply not enough demand to have two cask ales on draft.
So, expect to see a guest beer at the next VP lunch on 29 February. If you have suggestion for a beer you’d like to see, comment below.
If you have a question, a compliment or suggestions for improvement, contact team talk
Any Kent Brewery Beer. For starters Session Pale is what it says on the label and comes in at 3.7%. Its big brother Brewers Reserve is a very drinkable 5%. If you like American hops Prohibition is a must at 4.8%.
Speckled Hen is very nice, Shepherd Neame & not as distinctive as Master Brew (one of my own favourites). I also like Beau’s suggestion od Doombar.
Harvey’s would be pleasurable or if we are intending to support local breweries Fusilier
While we’re at it, to take the pressure off themselves at the final whistle would it not be a good idea for the bar staff to prepour some pints – especially Guinness- so that the initial herd of thirsty punters can be served quickly and reduce waiting times for those not quite so quick off the mark
London Pride or Doombar would work for me…..
Bitte ein Bitt! That’s Bittburger if possible. Otherwise, I’m very comfortable with Amstel – from the Dutch highlands. Happy to discuss options over a pint or two later.
Can we also get a/some decent lager in please. Happy to provide suggestions. Many thanks.
Please do, John. Suggestions always welcome. Just to manage expectations, if you want some exotic, 12.5% fruit lager brewed by hand by a small group of Trappist monks in a mountain retreat on the Belgian/Luxembourg border, we might struggle. https://www.beermerchants.com/features/worlds-rarest-beers/
I had a headache after the last guest beer
Why can’t we just stick with Whitstable bay? Perfectly good session beer in my opinion.
If there was guest beer left at the end, could it be raffled off, or wouldn’t that cover the cost? Maybe there are other reasons that’s not viable.
The problem with auctioning off the unsold beer cheap is it means charging more for the beer sold, which makes it more likely we won’t sell it. Here’s simplified maths:
If the bar expects to sell 100 pints and needs to make £350 it can charge £3.50 a pint. If, however, it thinks it might only sell 75 pints and then auction off the last 25 pints at £1 a pint, it needs to make £325 from the 75 pints it sells. That means each pint of guest beer would be £4.30. At that price even fewer might be sold.
What will more than likely happen, if a guest beer is not sold out, is that if that the “house’ beer will be withdrawn temporarily so that the last of the guest beer gets sold.
The good news is, it looks like we will be getting some guest beers, starting with the VP lunch on 29 February.