I know this makes me very lucky — I live in a part of London where craft-focused beer pubs are rescuing the kind of tired, moribund boozers that would otherwise be closing for good, and an interested new generation is trying cask ales from an increasingly broad range of brewers and styles.
But if I should ever get smug that I’m living in a little pocket of beer utopia, my satisfaction is frequently dashed when I order a pint of beer.
Over the past few weeks I’ve had cloudy pints from the end of the barrel, pints that taste of line cleaner, ciders that have turned to vinegar, and, most often, pints that have not been given time to condition.
I’ve spoken to publicans who believe that when a cask ale has dropped bright it is ready to serve, who simply refuse to accept that a flat pint with no sparkle whatsoever and flavours that have not harmonised is not ready to serve.
On busy nights, I’ve frequently asked for a pint of something only to be told “the barrel’s just finished”. When I say, “It’s OK, I can wait till you change the barrel,” I’m told that there’s no one on duty who knows how to do that.
So often you see a range of four or five handpumps reduced to one by the end of the night, even though the cellar is full of wonderful beers. And even if someone does know how to change the barrel, we’re often back to that problem of the new barrel being under-conditioned.
Cask ale is trendy now. And the trouble with that is it’s being stocked by people who do not know how to keep it well.
Increasingly, half-drunk pints of ale multiply among the empties stacking up on tables. Most people don’t have the confidence to take an ale back — they’ve only just built up the confidence to order it in the first place. They don’t complain: they simply go somewhere else next time, or give up ale as a bad job.
It’s hardly surprising. When I do take my pint back, the response is familiar: “No one else has complained.” So it must be me being an arse then, is that what you’re saying?
(Thankfully, I tend not to hear other responses frequently reported back to me by others: “No mate, it’s real ale, it’s meant to taste like that.” Or “No, that chemical, detergent taste, that’s the American hops.” To be fair, mostly my pint is re-placed. But then we get onto the next level of difficulty: invariably, the beer I’ve complained about remains on sale.
When the bar person has disagreed with me about the state of the beer, this makes me angry, but it is at least understandable. He’s saying, “You didn’t like it, fine, have something else. But I can’t take a beer off every time some beardy git complains.”
What I really have a problem with is when the bar person either doesn’t even check the beer, or tastes it and says, “Oh no, that’s not right at all, is it?” And then still leaves it on sale!
I understand pubs have to make allowances for difficult customers. But if you wouldn’t be happy to be served a beer, how can you possibly be happy to serve it to someone else?
I appreciate that it’s difficult to train all bar staff to have a good working knowledge of cask, but pubs need a set policy for when someone complains.
If cask is a major part of your offering, you need to have one person on duty at any time who knows how to change a cask and taste common faults. If a customer complains about a pint, this ‘cask expert’ needs to be called to taste it and make a decision.
And if it’s not fit for sale, it needs to be taken off. If the expert disagrees with the customer and believes the beer is good enough to stay on sale, the customer deserves to be told why.
Without this, you’re creating pubs full of simmering resentment towards your staff. And you’re sabotaging your future cask ale sales.
If you don’t want to implement a policy like this for us mere punters, these are two very good reasons why you should do so for yourself.