…and does – or should – that matter in the slightest to anyone who isn’t a Beer Geek like me?

On Tuesday night my Dad (who was staying with us during a work trip), Jo and I popped out to the Holt’s pub round the corner for a bite to eat. With my meal, I had a pint of the relatively new Holt’s IPA.

Here’s the description from the Joseph Holt’s website:

ABV 3.8% TRADITIONAL IPA

2011 saw the introduction of our IPA, which has proved to be very popular in both Free Trade and the selected Joseph Holt pubs that stock it.

Our IPA is a very pale, traditional, English ale with relatively high bitterness and a fragrant hop aroma. It is brewed with traditional East Kent Goldings and Slovenian Styrian Goldings.

What it turned out to be: a pale gold coloured, pleasant, suppable session ale with a decent body and an almost entirely malt-led flavour*.

What it most definitely wasn’t: an India Pale Ale. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The 3.8% ABV was an obvious clue. Most IPA’s are around 50% stronger than that, particularly traditional IPAs.** Also, that “relatively high bitterness” (relative to what, I wonder?) was noticeable mainly by its absence, likewise the “fragrant hop aroma”. I could perhaps have forgiven the ‘India’ appellation if the beer had been bursting with dry, bitter hop flavours, but it wasn’t. If anything, it was slightly sweet and, as I mentioned, distinctly malty. Nothing ‘I’ about this ‘PA’ at all I’m afraid.

So: I call ‘Fake IPA’ on this one. And that’s the end of it.

Except it isn’t. Because I have a real problem with ‘Fake’ anything and I’m going to take some time to explain why. (If you’re not interested in a discussion of marketing technique and theory, or just wanted to find out what the new Holt’s beer was like, we’re done; you can click away now.)

Still with me? Right, here’s the thing: I work in the Marketing (capital-M) department; it’s that function within any business or industry that gets the blame for pretty much anything (from production concepts right through to point-of-sale advertising) that the customer doesn’t like, understand or agree with. On the one hand, as a Marketer that can be quite irritating, especially when you know someone completely unconnected with your department is responsible for the decision that’s resulted in criticism. But on the other hand, it’s also perfectly understandable, because as a Marketer (and I’ve said this before) you know that when you’re in business, everything you decide on and everything you do (from production concepts right through to point-of-sale advertising) that’s connected with your business in any way is part of your marketing: literally, the process of bringing a product or service to the market.

That’s because everything you decide and everything you actually do could potentially influence an existing or potential customer’s decision as to whether or not to buy your product. In business, everything is the process of bringing products or services to the market. Everything is marketing, whether or not the Marketing Department is in charge of that particular decision or action.***

Which is why I say that by conceiving, brewing, packaging and selling a Fake IPA, Holt’s – and this applies equally to any other brewery who does the same thing (and there are a number of them) – are guilty of bad marketing, all down the line.

It could be that the beer they’ve brewed is actually exactly the beer they were aiming for: a golden summer ale that’s easy on the eye and easy to drink. Fair enough. But then, if what Brewery X has produced is actually a golden ale, then why not call it “Brewery X’s Golden Ale”? Or even “Brewery X’s Pale Ale”? Why include the ‘India’ element at all?

Maybe the Fake IPA breweries just don’t think it’s all that important. After all, their core market probably won’t be beer geeks like me (with an IPA-chip on their shoulder). Maybe they assume that the majority of regular ale drinkers will be happy enough to give a new beer a go and will hopefully enjoy it, without worrying for a second about what’s on the pump-clip. But that still doesn’t make it right to sell one thing as something else.

Maybe you don’t care either. “So they’ve stuck an ‘I’ on the front of a ‘PA’”, I hear you mutter into your pint. “So what? Why does it matter?”

To my mind: the best-case scenario is that all these breweries have done is recognise and respond to a perceived increase in market demand for IPAs – possibly inspired by International IPA Day earlier this year – by putting an IPA of their own onto the market. But then – for whatever reason – they’re missed the point of what makes an IPA an IPA and as a result, rather than attempt to create a genuinely remarkable mid-to-high strength beer with an impressive hop-profile, they’ve just applied their target buzz-words (“traditional”, “IPA”, “high bitterness”) to a product that meets none of those criteria and in truth is something else instead.

And of course, the worst-case scenario is that these breweries know exactly what they’re doing and have make a deliberate attempt to mislead their customers – beer geeks and regular ale drinkers alike – into buying a product that simply isn’t what it claims to be. In the worst-case scenario, Breweries who put out a Fake IPA are, in effect, passing-off a golden / pale ale as something else entirely. That’s false advertising. That’s mis-selling. And by either hoping or assuming that nobody important will notice or care they’re showing a certain amount of contempt for their own customers as well.

Then again, all that said and seeing as it’s the weekend and all, I’m going to give them all the benefit of the doubt and assume that the former scenario is the more common one. Even so it’s still a particularly dumb form of Bad Marketing, because Bad Marketing via Bad Branding has to be one of the most essential mistakes any business can make.

Marketing as a whole (remember: everything a business does) ought to be about putting a product out into the market that is genuinely, authentically the very best example of its type that it can be (based on the criteria you choose to compete on) and then standing behind that product and proudly saying: “We made this. We believe in it. We want you to enjoy it and talk about it and recommend it to others. This is our product and we’re damned proud of it.” Because let’s face it, in this day and age to do anything else – with so many alternatives to be had and so much more information available quite literally at your fingertips via the mobile Internet – is just a pointless waste of time.

That’s why Branding – sending clear and obvious signals about your product’s quality and desirability to potential consumers – ought to be about so much more than just putting an keyword-stuffed name to a product, in an attempt to catch the wave of current trend or popular opinion. And why starting the branding process off with a deception – even one that only a small (but fanatical and vociferous) segment of your market is even likely to notice, never mind care about – is an inherent flaw that’s always going to be pretty much impossible to overcome. Bad branding is bad marketing writ large for all to see.

So to flip my earlier question: what’s right with calling a Pale Ale a Pale Ale and having done with it?

Firstly, regular punters will most likely be happier because it’s pretty obvious what a Golden Ale is supposed to be and they can choose to try it knowing pretty much what to expect. Secondly, beer geeks and can likewise sample a new Golden Ale knowing that’s exactly what they’re sampling. They won’t have their false-hopes raised so they’ll have nothing to complain about and won’t end up spouting rants on their blogs about an otherwise perfectly pleasant beer that only fails on the grounds that it doesn’t do what it says on the pump-clip / website; because it doesn’t meet up to the weight of expectation created by that use of the seemingly innocuous ‘I’.

One last thought: maybe in the case of Holt’s (and again, any other Fake-IPA brewers likewise) it truly, genuinely doesn’t matter. Maybe they’re just not at all interested in brewing remarkable beers; the sort of beers that beer geeks will rave about online and plead with the likes of the Port Street Beer House or Mr Foley’s or The Euston Tap to stock up on. Maybe these brewers actually know their market pretty well and know for a fact that all their market demands is safe, familiar, unchallenging beers that are a reasonable strength and a reasonable price, whatever the heck the brewery decides to call them and that’s just the end of it, Beer Geeks be damned.

In which case: fair enough. They all can (and no doubt will) ignore every word of the above and just carry on regardless. But I still say that putting a Fake IPA onto the market is a misleading and deceitful act of false advertising. That’s still a Bad Thing in my book and it always will be. And I still say it’s a huge shame when any brewer – any company – chooses the lazy path of Bad Marketing rather than trying to create something impressive, something authentic, something truly remarkable, instead.

Then again, what do I know? I’m just a Beer Geek.

I’d definitely like to hear what you think, whether you’re a fellow beer geek, a regular pub punter, a brewer, a marketer, or none of the above. Hit me up via the Comments below, if you feel so inclined…

* It reminded me most of cask Boddington’s Bitter as it used to taste, back in my Salford student days in the early ’90s, and that’s not a bad comparison to arrive at.
** Martyn Cornell’s rather excellent Amber, Gold and Black tells us that: “The strengths, at least, of early Burton IPAs seem to be much the same as later C19th versions at around 1065 – 1075 OG.” [p.112] which in my rough-and-ready-reckoning is around 6.5% – 7.5% ABV? And most modern US and UK IPAs weigh in at around 5.6% (e.g. Worthington’s White Shield) to 9.2% (e.g. BrewDog Hardcore) or even higher.
*** This isn’t my idea or riff by any means, it’s one I’ve been following and reading up on for years in the work of writers and bloggers like Seth Godin, Hugh MacLeod, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Anderson and others.

Sainsbury’s have rotated their special offer selection again. Here’s a few edited highlights:

3 for £4

• Fuller’s Bengal Lancer [TN]
• Badger Blandford Fly
• Black Sheep Ale [TN]
• Holts Maple Moon
• Holts Humdinger [TN]

2 for £3

• Purity Ubu [TN]
• Fuller’s Organic Honey Dew [TN]
• Wadworth 6X
• Badger Poacher’s Choice [TN]
• Black Sheep Golden Sheep

2 for £5

• Leffe Brun and Leffe Blonde – 750ml size

These offers finish on December 7th.

Our local Sainsbury’s has rotated it’s 2 for £3 real ales offer again; last night I picked up a couple each of Meantime London Stout and Purity Ubu and I spotted Adnams East Green, Holt’s Maple Moon and a few others with the same red shelf-tags (I forgot to take notes, sorry…)

They had the 750ml version of Innis & Gunn Original at 2 for £5 as well.

Jo and I headed up to Summerseat, north of Bury, on Saturday to do a spot of shed research at the Summerseat Garden Centre. As it turned out they didn’t have any sheds, but once we’d fought our way past three rooms full of assorted Christmas tat and wandered into the “luxury food items” (over-priced james, pickles, bicsuits, chocolates etc. etc. etc.) section, we discovered that they did have a real ale section, for which I was almost able to forgive them the four-piece plastic midget santa band playing a selection of seasonal jingles (not what you want to be hearing in early November).

So, whilst we didn’t come away from Summerseat with a new shed, we did end up with a ceramic strawberry planter and bottles of the following:

• Bank Top Port O’ Call – A ‘dark and mysterious’ ale with added ruby port.
• Bank Top Dark Mild – A full-bodied mild ‘with hints of liquorice and roast barley’.
• Wold Top 5 Wold Rings – An amber beer that’s described as ‘festive’ on the label… we’ll see about that at Xmas, then.
• Wold Top Cracker Black – A 6% ABV Strong, dark Xmas ale, so another one to save for Dec 25th.
• Copper Dragon Black Gold – A Dark beer brewed to a traditional C19th recipe.
• Holt’s Manchester Brown Ale – With ‘a hint of molasses’ and a ‘smooth, burnt palate’, hopefully more interesting than Newcastle Tadcaster Brown.
• J. W. Lees Moonraker – A 7.5% ABV ale from local brewery John Willies? Had to be done.
• Leyden Forever Bury – A 4.6% ABV ale brewed by local brewery Leyden to support my team, Bury FC. About bloody time I bought a bottle or two of this one then, eh?

…so it wasn’t an entirely wasted journey, although I was deeply traumatised by the sheer volume of Christmas tat. It may take me some time (and about eight bottles of beer) to recover.

Incidentally, Wold Top brewery are working to raise £10,000 to support the Candlelighters childrens’ cancer charity. You can support them by buying a bottle (or six) of their Candlelight Ale, available from the brewery or various fairs and farmers’ markets around Driffield in the run-up to Christmas.

I have a confession to make. I completely failed in my mission to get down to the National Winter Ales Festival, although a token effort was made: my mate Howard and I met up in the city centre on Friday night and wandered on down to the New Century Hall. We got as far as the 7.00 p.m. Queue of Doom outside the venue: out the door, round the corner and a couple of hundred yards up the street.

We overheard the bloke in the yellow jacket saying to someone who’d just joined the line “about an hour, mate”. I reckoned he was being optimistic, it looked like they were operating a one-out, one-in system. And who the hell was going to be leaving the place with the evening still so young? It didn’t take us long to reach a mutually acceptable verdict on the situation: sod this for a game of soldiers. Stand outside in the cold for an hour, not drinking? When Manchester is full of great boozers… not a chance. To the pub crawl!

We started out at the legendary Marble Arch, home of the Marble Brewery. The place was packed (most probably with fellow refugees from the NWAF queue) but we managed to squeeze our way through to the bar. Howard’s eye was immediately caught by the Pictish Porter which, despite the Scottish-sounding name, is brewed just up the road in Rochdale. And it was fantastic: rich, thick (almost chewy) with a lovely deep, deep brown-black colour and a creamy white head, bursting with chocolate and coffee flavours. Highly recommendable and a great pint to start the evening with.

Indeed, I could have happily stayed on that one all evening, but my eye had in turn been caught by the Marble’s own Port Stout and I’m very, very glad it was. Wow. What a beer! Deep black with a tantalising aroma, a rich, creamy mouth-feel and bursting with flavour again. Unlike some port-flavoured beers I’ve had in the past I could really taste the rich, fortified wine flavours, and even detected a few tannins, perhaps? Once again, I could have happily stayed on that one all night, but by now the pub was absolutely hammered with NWAF refugees, so we decided to stick to the original pub-crawl plan and head off.

(On the way out through the crowd, I squeezed by a bloke dressed up in a foam-rubber beer bottle costume. “Nice jacket,” I said. “Cheers,” he said. “Just tell him he looks like a bloody idiot,” said his mate on the other side of me. “We’ve been doing it all night.”)

Next stop was The Angel, another highly-regarded boozer that used to be called the Beer House, which was rescued from demolition and converted into something of a gastro-pub. Although it was standing-room only, at least we could get to the bar. We ordered a pint each of the pub’s own Angel bitter, which turned out to be very nice indeed. Tangy and fresh-tasting, lots of hops and citrus. Didn’t take us long to sup those (whilst listening to Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell duetting on their ‘Ballad of the Broken Seas’ on the stereo, which was a definite bonus) but by that time a couple of mates of Howard’s from work had been in touch to say they were installed in the Hare & Hounds down the way, if we fancied joining them.

We did, although we came close to regretting it. Yes, we got a seat, but the place only had a choice of Holt’s bitter or the usual cooking lager options. Howard asked if they had the Holt’s beer-of-the-month on and got a blank look for his trouble, so the Holt’s bitter it was. Which is alright, if you like that sort of thing, or in an any-port-in-a-storm situation like this one. But luckily everyone agreed that a move round the corner to the English Lounge was in order.

Cue waves of reminiscence from yours truly: Jo and me and all our mates used to drink in that boozer every Friday and Saturday night back when we were students, back in the days when it was called the Hog’s Head, they had four or five real ales on tap and another five or six gravity-dispensed straight from the barrels behind the bar. Oh, and a bar-billiards table, which was probably the major attraction. Happy days… oh, yeah, I had a pint of Hobgoblin in there. As Tim said recently, it’s one of those reliable old favourites that you can seldom go wrong with, and was a definite improvement on the Holt’s.

After that, Howard’s mates decided to call it a night (they’d been out since five p.m. and were beginning to feel the effects) but we I decided there was definitely time for one more. So we headed down to the Bull’s Head, opposite Manchester Piccadilly station. I’d not been in there before either, although I’d heard good things from several friends. We both had a pint of Ringwood XXXX Porter, which although not quite as intense and interestingly-flavoured as either the Port Stout or the Pictish Porter earlier in the evening, was still a very good pint indeed.

And it was certainly good enough for a repeat visit. So when Jo and I went out with our mates Andy and Dawn on Saturday night and we ended up in the Bull’s Head after a quick Thai meal, I started with another pint of XXXX and then stayed on that one for the entire evening (via a quick swig of Wychwood January’Sale for research purposes – not bad, would be worth re-visiting), with Andy and Jo keeping me company for the duration. Taking a bit more care to sample the flavours this time around, I was sure I detected a tang of blackcurrant or blueberry in there, as well as a more traditional nutty-malt finish. A very nice drop indeed and a good session beer. Well worth dropping in the Bull’s Head for a jar if you’re in the vicinity of Manchester Piccadilly any time soon.

As for the beer festival failure… next time I’ll just have to get my strategy right: book an afternoon off work and go down for an after-lunch session. Either that or put my name down as a volunteer and lug some furniture around or something. I’m sure that must get you an evening pass or two to put to good use, eh? Tandleman? Eh?

2008 was something of a landmark year for me, beer-wise. Having started this ‘ere blog with Ed and Joe (we were later joined by Tim, of course) I got in touch with my inner scooper in a pretty big way. This resulted in frequent trips to the supermarket – or to the off-licence, or the delicatessen, or whichever liquor-retailing establishment I was passing at the time – to grab just about one of everything I’d not seen or sampled before.

As a result, and what with it being (let’s be totally honest) a lot less fiddly to drink the beer than it is to write up the tasting notes afterwards, I have something of a backlog. I’m now going to attempt to clear the majority of said backlog, in a series of mini tasting-notes (sipping notes) of three sentences or less, in roughly chronological order, based on the notes I took at the time. Which may or may not prove coherent enough to actually make sense. Time will tell. Here goes:

Young’s Christmas Pudding Ale (5.5% abv, bottled)
A 2007 limited edition, by all accounts. Tooth-cringingly sweet; a shot of intravenous marzipan. Not one I plan to risk my enamel with again.

Holt’s Touchwood (4.5% abv, draught)
One of Holt’s seasonal ales, on draught at our local, the Woodthorpe in Prestwich. A light, malty beer with a lingering, hoppy finish. Pale and easy-drinking, a definite session option.

Wharfedale Executioner (4.5% abv, bottled)
My Dad gave me this one at Xmas, 2007. A rich, red-brown ale with a subtle aroma but a potent mix of flavours; burnt coffee predominating. (Wharfedale has apparently since been acquired and re-named the Dark Horse brewery so not much chance of a re-visit here, unless they re-issue.)

O’Hanlons Goodwill Bitter (5.0% abv, bottled)
Another 2007 seasonal? A dark amber beer with a chewy flavour, citrus. Spiced, but not overpoweringly so.

Wychwood Bee’wyched (5.0% abv, bottled)
A pleasantly sweet, highly drinkable, golden ale delivering plenty of honey to the palate. Does exactly what it says on the label.

Greene King Fireside (4.5% abv, bottled)
Rich, red-brown in colour with plenty of malt, hints of caramel, citrus and spice. (So clearly much better than the pint of piss I was served when I ordered this one in London a couple of months ago.)

York Brewery Centurion’s Ghost (5.4% abv, draught)
Sampled at the York brewery tap, this one was definitely one of my beers of 2008: rich, dark, ruby-tinted, full-bodied, smooth-drinking nectar in a pint pot. Stunningly good, this is a session beer for the bold, or a sipper for the cautious. I’ll be hunting a Ghostly Centurion down the next time I’m in York and will produce some proper tasting notes when I do; it surely deserves a proper write-up at the very least.

York Brewery Stonewall (3.8% abv, draught)
Tried this one mid-session, in-between a couple of pints of Centurion’s Ghost. As a result, a direct quote: “Light, tasty, quite malty, easy-drinker, hoppy notes.” Best you’re going to get; needs a re-visit, clearly.

Harviestoun Haggis Hunter (4.4% abv, bottled)
A rich, malty, golden-amber ales that was apparently brewed as a Burns Night special last year. Hoppy after-taste and a hint of citrus; not too bad at all, but not one I’d dash to re-visit.

Bateman’s Victory Ale (6.0% abv, bottled)
Brewed to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and named as one of the world’s 50 best beers in the 2007 Beer Challenge. I can see why: it’s a rich, sweet, malty, mid-brown ale with distinct toffee flavours that I’m definitely going to go back to one day soon. Deceptively drinkable; at 6.0% you’d need to be quick to find your sea-legs after a few of these.

Thwaites Lancaster Bomber (4.4% abv, bottled)
A lovely rich-red colour with a smooth, malty finish. Very drinkable. Might go back to this one sometime.

Jennings Cumberland Ale (4.2% abv, bottled)
A pale, golden-amber ale with a very mild, hoppy character that isn’t too harsh or bitter. Not exactly remarkable, but not at all unpleasant at all.

Right, I think that’ll do for Part I. Part II to follow in due course…

Brewery: Joseph Holt’s
Location: Manchester, England
ABV: 5.0%
Version: Draught pint
Source: Woodthorpe Hotel, Prestwich, Manchester

Another trip to the Woodthorpe yesterday evening, for a couple of pints of pre-Fantasycon practice and to check out September’s seasonal ale.

Holt’s Pioneer is billed as a 5% IPA and let me tell you, is absolutely delicious on draught. It’s a cask beer (as far as I know – there’s no mention of it on the Holt’s website), it pours a deep golden colour and has a pleasantly creamy head. A sampling-sized swig results in a rich, complex flavour-burst: a big hit of hops (as you’d expect from an IPA) but also a malty sweetness and a distinct fruity flavour that was initially a little hard to identify… strawberries? No, not tart enough…

The first pint went down very easily indeed and so I nipped back to the bar for a second in order to continue the fruit-flavour identification process, which eventually resulted in a positive i.d. (let’s be honest, once Jo had taken a sip and told me the answer): peaches. Far less reticent peaches than those that allegedly lurk in Theakston’s Lighfoot Bitter as well; these peaches were all about getting in your face and singing that Presidents of the USA song at you while you drink your pint. And now I can’t get it our of my head. Thank you, Joseph Holts.

Anyhow, as I said up at the top: delicious. Glorious colour, fresh flavour, great mouth-feel, lovely finish, everything about this one said: “I am now one of your favourite beers.” Another round, anyone?

Brewery: Joseph Holt’s
Location: Manchester, England
ABV: 4.1%
Version: Draught pint
Source: Woodthorpe Hotel, Prestwich, Manchester

Humdinger is available as part of Holt’s bottled beers range, but I actually tried this one on draught a few weeks ago at Holt’s flagship pub The Woodthorpe Hotel, which is just up the road (and round the corner a bit) from my place. It was their seasonal ale for August, if I remember rightly, or maybe July.

Anyhow, it’s a honeyed beer, but unlike some honey-based brews, is possesses a strong, hoppy character that’s allowed to dominate the honey tones and keep the sweetness at bay. Net result: a light, summery ale that’s very refreshing and easy-drinking that, whilst sweet, isn’t too cloying or over-syrupy.

Brewery: Joseph Holt (Holt’s)
Location: Manchester, England
ABV: 4.5%
Version: 500ml bottle
Source: Tesco

The first mention of a beer from local large independent brewery Joseph Holt and it’s a fine one. Holt’s 1849 was originally brewed to mark the company’s 150th anniversary in 1999 and has been kept on their premium bottled ales roster by popular demand ever since.

It’s easy to see why: pouring a lovely ruby amber colour, the beer has a sharp, hoppy bite and a dry finish, but with good malt flavours as well to balance it out. Overall it’s fresh-tasting, refreshing and very easy-drinking with a nicely-balanced strength as well. Very good indeed.

I know from personal experience that the draft version is even more satisfying, but you might have to wait for that to come around: Holt’s serve just one of their premium range on draft in their pubs every month (although the rest are usually available in bottles), and display a tantalising poster version of the schedule to let you know when your favourite is coming up. Roll on November, I say: it’s Fifth Sense month!