A tough gig with the Nutty Boys

I think that I’ve probably had enough of bands launching new beers to last me a little while.

In my last column, I wrote of my interview with Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson at the launch of his new beer with Robinsons. I’ve also written about Elbow, Professor Green and others doing the same thing. Already, commissioning editors are saying: “Not another band doing a beer.”

The ’90s teen blond hair wearers Hanson re-emerged into our consciousness for the first time in more than a decade recently, launching a beer called Mmmhops. I suppose they must be old enough to drink by now, so good luck to them.

And last week, I was asked to host a press launch for a new beer from Madness. Their 1980 album Absolutely was the first record I bought. In my teens, the nation would unite to watch the launch of a video from the ‘Nutty Boys’ on Top of the Pops.

Despite the possibility of band beer fatigue, I couldn’t say no.

The beer has been brewed with the Growler Brewery, formerly Nethergate, based in Pentlow, Essex. The project was conceived by the manager of the Dublin Castle pub in Camden, north London — the pub that gave the band its first break. There’s definitely integrity here — this is no marketing department wheeze.

The beer itself, Gladness, is described as ‘a lager that’s an ale’. On cask it’s quite sweet, with a honeyish note that I’m guessing comes from brewing lager ingredients with an ale yeast. It’s a good session beer at 4.2% ABV and Growler’s Rob Flanagan is rightly pleased with the result.

Fez and shades​
The callsheet said we were expecting lead singer Suggs — normally the official spokesperson for the band — and keyboard player Mike Barson, who was the driving force behind the beer, visiting the brewery many times and carefully tasting scores of brews to arrive at the profile the band wanted.

Just before we started, we were also joined by an unscheduled third member, the sax player Thommo —the one from the videos who was always flying around on wires wearing a Fez and shades — the nuttiest Nutty Boy.

Thommo sat down with a pint next to Suggs, chatting away for a while before he seemed to notice the projector screen and attractive point-of-sale material around the room.

“What we doing here?” he asked.

“We’re launching the beer,” said Mike.

“Are we?” He looked surprised. “OK, I’m up for that.”

You’ve got to love a bit of spontaneous enthusiasm.

The plan was to show a minute-long video that had been carefully set up and rigorously checked, then I was to interview the band for about 15 minutes, before opening questions up to the floor.

As I began to introduce the band, the video screen, which was just behind my head, collapsed with a huge clatter and jubilant cheering led by Suggs, on his feet with his arms in the air. Without thinking I leapt up to try to fix the screen, and down it came again, this time knocking over my glass and sending my Gladness beer everywhere.

“And now the words you’ve all been waiting for — thank you and goodnight!” bellowed Suggs, to roof-raising cheers.

"Cheers everyone"​
I sat back down at the table, plastered on a grin and started to ask questions. I thought I’d set the tone with a cheeky one and asked if they’d got their inspiration from Hanson’s Mmmhops. It fell completely flat. I asked if this was the first in a range of Madness beers, with a stout to follow — something we had agreed just before the interview would be a good thing to talk about — and the band shut down and said they weren’t able to talk about that.

I asked about the importance of pubs to live music and they said they were here to talk about the beer. So I tried to do that. And after every single question, Suggs stood up and said: “Well that’s it, cheers everyone!”

I managed 10 minutes before admitting defeat and heading to the bar. “That was… tough,” said everyone I spoke to afterwards.

I still think Gladness is a great beer. I applaud the initiative. And I will never think of yet another band launching a beer as a hackneyed marketing gimmick, because I like the way an external influence pulls a brewery into brewing a style of beer it may not otherwise make, and every single one contributes to extending the potential market for good beer and getting it into the news more often.

And I still love Madness — they delivered exactly what we should expect from them and delighted the room. It’s just a tough job being their straight man. When I got home and people asked: “How were Madness?” all I could say was “It was… madness.”

There are many potential dangers in meeting your idols. Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton — your jobs are safe for the foreseeable future.