"Golden ale is a rapidly growing style of beer and one that will appeal to younger drinkers and women as well as real ale aficionados. It's a wonderfully refreshing beer - the ideal antidote to lager!"
These could very well be words taken from marketing material relating to any one of the huge number of golden ales that the industry has seen launched over the last three years or so; from Fuller's Discovery or Everard's Sunchaser to any number of microbrewers eager to latch onto a growing niche in the market.
But actually they are the words of Roger Protz, editor of the Good Beer Guide, after announcing the winner of the 2005 Champion Beer of Britain (CBOB) award.
The winner, rather than one of the bigger cask ale brewers on the circuit, was actually Crouch Vale, a microbrewer located in the heartland of Essex, and its golden ale, Brewers Gold.The victory seemed to be final confirmation that golden ale was the new fashionable flavour of the month - an idea from the marketing men to grab the attention of lager drinkers and entice them into sampling wonders of cask beer.
A long time coming
But the fact of the matter is that Crouch Vale had been at this golden ale game a lot longer than the rest of the industry - seven years in fact.
"We first produced Brewers Gold about seven years ago," says Ollie Graham, general manager of Crouch Vale, which was set up in 1981. And not only did it win CBOB in 2005 but it followed it up with victory last year - the first back-to-back winner since Timothy Taylor's Landlord in 1982 and 1983.
"We were so shocked to win it again. We weren't that surprised to be in the final because we'd been there five years out of the last six. But we didn't believe it was possible to win it a second time in a row," says Ollie.
So does everything change overnight for a winner of CBOB? "Oh absolutely," says Ollie. "You get back to the brewery and your answering machine is completely full! Breweries, wholesalers and pubs far and wide, from the Highlands of Scotland to the south of Cornwall, all want your beer. "You just get very good at saying 'no' because you simply cannot fulfil all of that demand."
Loyalty to long-standing supporters
He says what has been most important to all of the team at Crouch Vale has been staying loyal to the pubs and customers that were drinking Brewers Gold before the beer became so famous. "We want a direct relationship with our pubs and so we had to look after our local accounts first, before anyone else. That was very important to us.
"With all of this in mind, Ollie has concerns about a small, start-up brewery winning CBOB. "If a smaller brewer than us won I honestly think it could be murder for them," he says. This might sound melodramatic, but Ollie sounds like a man who has lived with the pressure of being part of the team that has had a two-time Champion beer. "Another problem," he adds, "is that people all over the country want the beer - but they only want it once. So you begin to have a serious issue with casks. Because you make a delivery to, say, Haverfordwest in Pembrokeshire, then you find casks sit there uncollected for two years. And the chances are you will never get them back again.
"However, there have obviously been immense positives to the CBOB success - in January Crouch Vale moved onto a new brewing site with increased capacity (around 120 barrels a week). Plus the award has enabled the brewer to keep building up its list of pubco and free trade accounts. This was something that was happening before 2005 but the awards have undoubtedly given Brewers Gold a real shot in the arm.
So what are Ollie's expectations for this year's GBBF? He says he is going there to enjoy himself - much like everybody else."I don't see the GBBF itself doing very much for the sales of our beer or that of other small brewers - it might be different for bigger brewers. Winning awards at the festival is what can do that."If you are a West Midlands brewer and have a few barrels at the festival, is that going to make much difference to sales in somewhere like Norwich? Probably not. But the festival is a wonderful opportunity to have a good time and see old friends in the industry and catch up and talk about brewing and share ideas."
You get the feeling that anyone meeting and chatting to Ollie and the guys from Crouch Vale might learn a thing two about brewing champion beers…