While Ron and Al take a little break, please enjoy this guest post from Mark at maeib’s Beerblog.
I recall a joke from my childhood where an American tourist is in London on a guided bus tour. She is shown Buckingham Palace and says “that’s tiny; my outhouse is bigger than that”, then she is shown St. Paul’s Cathedral to which she states “my village church is bigger than that”, and on it goes. Everything is so much bigger and better across the pond.
That’s pretty much how I view American beer; bigger and bolder than British beer. There’s no scrimping where ingredients are concerned. Brewers enjoy making big beers.
However, ask most Brits about American beer, and they’ll say it’s just Bud and other crap lagers. And that’s the problem, we don’t see enough of it. We need an importer to take the bull by the horns and get us these big, bold beers and show those who think it’s just Bud how wrong they are.
I’ve written previously about some American beers being newly imported into the UK, and that’s good, but those beers have only been seen at a handful of off-licences up and down the country. We need them in the supermarkets where they will gain a wider audience. In 2003 one of our supermarkets, Safeway, which has sadly been taken over since then, sold the 23% version of Dogfish Head World Wide Stout and Raison D’Etre. But it wasn’t enough. We have also seen Dead Guy Ale, Imperial Stout, Mocha Porter, Smoke Ale and Youngers Special Bitter from Rogue. Other than those though the only micros we’ve seen are the biggies of Anchor, Brooklyn and Sierra Nevada. We don’t even see American beers at festivals except for The Great British Beer Festival.
So, why do we not have a huge amount of imports? There are three reasons, each of which may have some truth but can easily be overcome. The first is price. It’s true to say that importing beer brings with it a fair amount of cost, but the American beers we have seen haven’t been sold at exorbitant prices, and in addition we export tons of beers over the water, so a reciprocal agreement could easily be arranged.
The second reason is that there isn’t a market for US craft beers as English beer aren’t willing to accept they will be any good. I agree that there are thousands of heathens who wouldn’t give them a try, but they are the same heathens who won’t buy imports from other great brewing nations such as Belgium which are readily available. The amount of Chimay, Duvel, Orval and others that are sold are testament to the customer base good beers have.
The third reason which links to number two, and is the one which frankly angers me the most is that we are just not ready for American style beers. I recall a quote from Meantime head brewer Alastair Hook which, paraphrased, said that the British palate isn’t capable of appreciating his own IPA or Old Smoked Bock and that was the reason they were for export only – thankfully the IPA is now widely available over here but the Bock is not. Alastair and others underestimate us. The US cask beers at GBBF sold far quicker than was expected this year, and customers lapped up the big Scandinavian beers that are brewed very much in an American style.
So, if there are any US brewers out there who fancy dipping their toes in the British market, do not hesitate. There are thousands of beer lovers over here. We don’t all just drink 4% session bitters. We like big flavours. We like American beer!
I think British beer lovers on the whole prefer to drink in the pub. That’s a limiting factor on the market for quality bottled beer. Quality ale in British pubs is usually cask-conditioned. Therefore the market for imported keg beers is limited. Those are two things I don’t want to change because of my love of pubs and real ale respectively.
One smaller but significant point to consider: the demographic these imports would be aimed at would be relatively affluent, well-educated people. Those are precisely the type of people who are more likely to be concerned about “food miles” (the environmental effect of importing something thousands of miles that could be sourced closer to home).
Given the extensive range of bottled beers in most UK supermarkets, albeit overwhelmingly domestic and European, I think the quality bottled beer market *does* exist and there’s no reason more Americans can’t be there, other than the reasons Mark gives above. That, and the stupid tiddly 12 oz bottles, Rogue excepted.
It’s not a one-way issue. It’s difficult to find British beer here that’s not Bass. Oh, sure, if you know where to look you can find stuff, and my favorite “candy store” has a nice selection, but in your run-of-the-mill beer store you might find, at best, a Boddington’s.
Stonch has a point. There’s no “pub culture” to speak of here. I’m not sure exactly why. I think it’s in large part economical. For the cost of two domestic industrial brewed light lagers at my local bar I could get a six-pack of 12 ounce bottles of something interesting. Not to mention that that’s not my kind of bar.
Of course, for most American, it’s not how much you spend but how much you saved.
Oops! I’m supposed to be on vacation! Sorry.
I think the reason pub culture suffers in the States is very similar to the reason it struggles here in NZ, prohibition. While in the states full prohibition was achieved, here individual suburbs voted themselfs dry and pubs were forced to close at 6pm for years. This turned pubs into ‘piss barns’ where you had an hour after work to consume as much beer as posible. Brewers adapted by making beer a watery medium for alcohol, pubs adapted by sheding anything that got in the way of fast binge drinking, the result was inhospitable pubs and very uninteresting beer.
As for American beer in NZ, while our micro brewers tend to take alot of influence from the states, the American beers that make it here all come via the UK, its pretty much unheard of to find anything outside of the Sierra Nevada, Anchor, Goose Island ect.
The appearance of US beers in UK supermarkets and national off-licences seems to be a cyclical trend.
I remember in the early days of Oddbins back in the early 80s we used to get inundated with Wicked Pete and his brews – plus Anchor Steam of course. I remember these being in Waitrose and going cheap as they were having trouble shifting.
Then a few years later we had Brooklyn Beers and Rogue being heavily promoted.
And in subsequent years we’ve had other brewers such as Rogue and Brooklyn (once again) trying to break into the UK market but they never seem to remain in numbers on a national scale.
Perhaps they’re regarded with disdain by home beer drinkers who wouldn’t normally touch American beers as they maybe suspect it’s just another “lite”? Maybe it’s the cost of importing them that means the supermarkets are not keen?
The suggestion that the British palate is not sophisticated enough to handle certain beers is utter crap. I suspect that Meantime beers went abroad as few people want to pay their over-inflated prices.
My guess is that there really isn’t any one single contributing factor. Each one of the reasons suggested are most likely valid and have impact in varying degrees. Personally though I belive the largest factor really comes down to the economics of transportation. My guess is the largest cost is shipping is shipping across the Atlantic (using out UK – USA example). Local distribution is probably nominal in comparrison. The greater quantity you ship, the cheaper it is per item to do so. Now compare markets… there would have to be 5x the demand in the UK for american beers to equate the reverse demand (just being rough based on population comparisons of the countries).
But if the average demand is similiar (which its probably lower based on the points people have raised) then the cost to ship small quantities from the US to the UK results in a much higher cost per item, which means expensive beer… and expensive beer means smaller demand, which means smaller shipments, which means…. well you get the point.
This post was written in 07 and even at that time I was able to find a variety of American beers.
White Horse in Parsons Green (which used to be my local) always had something interesting going on tap or bottle. There July 4th American Beer Festival in 08 was quite an event.
utobeer and therefore The Rake at Borough Market always have a collection of interesting bottles (I just supped a Matilda from there!).
Evening Star in Brighton usually has something on tap plus a variety of bottles (first had Terrapin Rye Pale Ale there).
As for UK brewers, first it’s kind of missing the point of British beer to expect that huge hoppy vibe BUT Brewdog (check OddBins) are certainly gunning for that market plus there’s some great ales that are starting to use Pacific North West (Ascot Ales Alligator Ale) and even Kiwi (Thornbridge Kipling) hops.