The Bar Towel

"First delivery by Horse-Drawn dray.

The Wychwood Brewery of Witney, Oxfordshire, is delighted to announce that one of Britain’s most famous cask ales, Brakspear Bitter, is now once again being brewed in its home county – Oxfordshire."


Refresh, the brewing company that purchased the Brakspear line of beers from the brewery when they switched from making beer to running pubs exclusively, spent a lot of time sorting out their facilities at Wychwood and finally started making the beer again this summer using the original equipment from the old Henley brewery. Early reviews claim the beers are as good as the originals. If anyone gets hold of some please let me know. I'm dying to compare the new stuff to the couple of remaining bottles I have of the old.

The return of Brakspear was feautured prominently in CAMRA's What's Brewing August issue. On the front page there is a picture of head brewer Jeremy Moss and consultant Peter Scholey and there are 3 articles inside. I loved Brakspear bitter when it was released by the LCBO a couple of years ago and I sent a e-mail to Brakspear telling them this. I was suprised that Peter Scholey then the head brewer responded. Peter is there any chance that Brakspear will be released by the LCBO again?

No idea...Wychwood had agreed to give us the line but then decided they would not brew it so I'll be in touch with them. We deal with Peter Scholey and have presented a number of his beers to the LCBO, all of which have been rejected including, once again, Coniston Bluebird Bitter, onetime CAMRA Grand Champ.

Why were they rejected, Peter? Labelling? At least we know they don't have any of those killer cherries in them.
Michael

Labelling issues come up after the selection process. We are never given a reason for rejection other than "other products were more suitable to our needs".

Peter, Is there any chance that you'll be bringing in a private order of Coniston Bluebird for Smokeless Joe or another pub?

Without an LCBO order freight costs are a serious problem and the fact is that UK beer are not in great demand amongst our clients. I can sell good Belgian stuff in decent quantities but UK is a real problem so It's unlikely we'll do Coniston unless the LCBO buys.

Okay, let me understand. UK beer ... nobody wants. US beer ... nobody wants (from what I understand from your other posts). What beer DO people want? That's already 2 gone from Josh's "big four" countries of beer.

DukeOfYork wrote:Okay, let me understand. UK beer ... nobody wants. US beer ... nobody wants (from what I understand from your other posts). What beer DO people want? That's already 2 gone from Josh's "big four" countries of beer.

From looking at the shelves at the LCBO, I think it's pretty obvious that people want a whole bunch of bland European lagers that are indistinguishable from each other.

And they do want US beer, just as long as it has a high alcohol percentage, tastes like jet fuel, and is named after an animal of some sort.

esprit wrote:Without an LCBO order freight costs are a serious problem...I can sell good Belgian stuff in decent quantities but UK is a real problem so It's unlikely we'll do Coniston unless the LCBO buys.

...which is why I still look at the situation in Quebec and think: what gives? The selection of imported beers available in stores there is essentially fixed; no retailer--not the SAQ, not the neighbourhood depanneur--is buying Young's or Samuel Smith (to pick just two examples), yet private orders for both breweries seem to be handled with relative ease, and for very reasonable prices. Why are we so beholden to what the LCBO orders and when, while that doesn't seem to be the case in Quebec? Are they just better organized to reach critical mass in terms of quantity, or is it something else?

Look at the prices of their private orders...they're quite high. I'm doing all sorts of private orders in Quebec but people there are less price sensitive because they're desperate. Hey, the bottom line is both systems suck because a monopoly controls distribution. Today I had to spend $1350 to have the LCBO place stickers on some of my Consignment beers. It seems that having a label with ALC 10% VOL is not sufficient because Ontarians are idiots. We have to label them EXTRA STRONG BEER or we can't sell them here.