The news for my brewery is good. Bishops Finger, one of their traditional brands has been entered into a competition in Hong Kong and pronounced "Best Beer in the World". This is fantastic news. The brewers and management must be delighted.
Bishops Finger is a curious brand. Of the various cask beers Shepherd Neame produce this is their strongest. Indeed it is treated with some caution by many. For those of us who have been associated with Sheps beers for a long time Bishops Finger represents a slightly dark and menacing side of cask beer. You don't approach it lightly. It can hurt.
Its quirky name derives from the old local signposts. The local road signs had scalloped ends which looked vaguely like the finger, hand, cuff arrangement of a bishop giving absolution. Bishops Finger had a nice smutty connotation too. Its other name locally is Nun's Delight.
I've checked back on its strength over the years and realise that it has gradually been modified to bring it in line with other beers. Currently it runs at around 5%. It can now be ranked as "sensible". But few pubs around here stock it. I suspect this might be because it was regarded as so strong people would drink only a little. Turnover was slow. There was a greater risk that a cask would spoil.
For years I have cautiously approached pubs selling unfamiliar beer. If a pub offered more than two cask beers I would generally aim for the weakest. This was not because I like weak beer but, generally, the weakest beer sold the most. A person who could drink 10 pints of 3% beer would struggle to consume half of that if it were 5%. Often the strong beer sat in the cask because people didn't want strong beer. So the volume sales would often be low.
Conversely Mild sales used to be very high. Forty years ago it seemed completely natural for a manual worker to leave work and drink ten pints of Mild "to wash the dust out". Turnover was enormous and the Mild was in fabulous condition. Licensees loved it. That was the most profitable of times. But then many licensees got greedy. Because the Mild sold well and turned over rapidly some licensees would "filter-back" slops into the Mild. Mild became synonymous with slops. Sales hemorrhaged. Now Mild sales are a fraction of the past.
With Mild relegated to few pubs the dominant beer was a mainstream bitter falling in the 3%-4.5% bracket but generally the stronger "premium" beers filled a niche market found occasionally in eclectic outlets.
But now I can see an opportunity.
Now I am working on a cunning plan. As far as I am aware no other pub in town sells draught Bishops Finger. Sheps has a sensational opportunity to capitalise on this but I suspect, sadly, the opportunity will slip through their fingers.
So tomorrow I shall be working on posters along the lines of "Its official!! The Railway Hotel sells the best beer in the world". It might ruffle some feathers but I think I can steal the march on the others.
Unless, of course, they read this.