That’s me, 47 years old, the first 18 of them on the right
side of the Tyne, followed by the move to Manchester coming up 30 years ago.
The last 10 or so of those has seen much of my free time immersed in the world
of beer and cask ales in particular (more of that later) – a subject which is
likely to form the majority of these musings.
Growing up in Newcastle in the 70s and 80s, cask ale did not
feature much in my early drinking years. The first alcoholic drink I remember
having was a can of McEwans Export given to the children to keep them quiet at
one of my parents' annual house parties – I’ve never been too sure about the
date but I’m guessing may have been the Christmas of 1977. I don’t know why I
recall it but guess something about the distinctive red can stuck in my mind. I
faintly remember not being overly impressed by the liquid but hell, it was that
stuff what adults drank – I wasn't going to knock it back.
By the time I was 16 and 17 and my friends started those
tentative ventures to see if they could get served in pubs, I had a
disadvantage of being pretty much the shortest person in my year as well as
being one of the youngest - so had little chance of persuading your average
doorman in the Bigg Market that I was 18 (not that I didn't manage to slip in
on the odd birthday party). In those years I went through varies stages of home
brewing – back in the days when every Boots had a large home brew section
selling all sorts of kits - I tried my hand at wine, ale, 'lager style’ and
cider. As with many young taste buds, they were almost certainly all pretty
awful, but they were alcohol on a pocket money budget – we drank it!
By I eventually turned 18, a group of friends and I had
pretty much adopted The Bacchus on High Bridge as our "local". Now
the Bacchus of 1988 was nothing like the pub of the same name that occupies the
same site in Newcastle today – back then it was divided into two sections with
a bar which connected the two. Most of the time we sought out a corner at the
back where us youngsters could hide away from the real drinkers in the main
bar. Knowing what I know now, I was
probably missing out on real ale, but back then I recall my drink of choice was
whatever lager was cheapest.
When I arrived in Manchester to study at UMIST – now subsumed
into the University Of Manchester – I became a bitter drinker for one very
simple reason. In the Oak House student bar, Webster’s Bitter was 67p a pint. I
don't recall what the house lager was, but I do recall it was 69p. I was going
to be on a budget – decision was made, I was a bitter drinker! The Oak House
bar didn't do cask ale, but the bar at the neighbouring Owens Park halls did –
Courage Directors tasted better than the Websters did, but I found my head
didn't like it – even the odd pint would give me a headache the next morning.
Over those next three years, for various reasons my drink of
choice would graduate to being Newcastle Brown Ale. This was nothing to do with
my heritage, it arose from joining the UMIST Students Union events team where
early in my first year one of the team worked out that could by ‘Newcy Brown’
at Booker’s cash and carry for 50p a bottle. As the crew's equipment store was
just outside the back door of the union nightclub, we could easily nip out to
our own private bar – complete with fridge disguised as a flight case – for
some reason the only flight case in the room with a padlock fitted! I am sure
the Union's bar manager knew what we were up to – he couldn’t have failed to
notice that the crew's inebriation was out of step with their visits to the
bar.
It was at UMIST that I first came to appreciate the variety
and flavour that real ale offered when the events team provided the music for
the UMIST Real Ale Festival. Although not serving on the bar, as the event was
held on the third floor of the building, it was a long way from the fridge so
it made sense to drink the festival ales. Today’s spoilt for choice “craft
beer” fans would not wish to travel back to that era – the exotic selection
included Theakstons, Timothy Taylor, Holt’s and Robinson’s!
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| Sharansky's Disco at UMIST Students Union |
Three or four nights a week DJing (at UMIST, Oak House and
latterly the Owens Park Bop) combined with the lure of “the fridge” meant I
didn’t get much other real ale during my student days, although there was the
odd pilgrimage from the halls in Fallowfield to Ladybarn where you could get an
Old Tom in The White Swan and an Owd Roger in The Derby Arms – two pub, two
pints and you were merry. The occasional Sunday afternoon would be spent in the
city centre supping Sam Smith's Museum at the pre-IRA Sinclair’s Oyster Bar.
When I graduated in 1991, Sinclair’s became a more regular
haunt and I had also been introduced to the beer heavens that were The Beer House
(now The Angel) and The Crescent. Many a happy night discovering some great
beers – made up for the pig awful beer in most of the music venues I spent my
other nights in – some things never change. Along the way, I continued helping
out at UMIST festival for several years after graduating including moving from
the music side to doing some cellar work and also began discovering other beer
festivals.
I have lost track of when and where I joined CAMRA, but according
to their records it was March 1997. What I do remember is that I largely joined
for the benefits. This was pre the Wethervoucher, but as a relatively young
engineer trying to save the pennies I realised that a couple of night's entry
to Stockport Beer Festival and a trip to Oldham Beer Festival was costing
around the same as the membership fee. I'd get a free newspaper and if I went
to more festivals I'd be making money!!!! (Applying good alcohol induced logic
of course).
By the time I met my future wife Caz in 1998, I was a
committed real ale drinker, rarely touching anything else (apart from in fore
mentioned gig venues). Getting together with a dedicated Carling Black Label
drinker provided bit of a challenge –
back in the late 90s, you still had to seek out real ale so even being armed
with a Good Beer Guide wasn’t enough to find mutually acceptable pubs. Thankfully
the same period saw the emergence of the early hop forward ales so while my
favourites were Phoenix Wobbly Bob and Moorhouse's Pendle Witches, Caz was
slowly weaned off the Carling and onto Marble, Hopback and the early days of her
Pictish worship.
By 2005 while we were living in West Didsbury we were
increasingly venturing to Chorlton of a weekend where, unlike the pubs of
Didsbury, The Bar and Marble Beer House were welcoming of drinkers with a well
behaved 11-year-old in tow. When we heard about a new beer festival being held
at a church in the area, we took no persuading to visit the first Chorlton Beer
Festival. Having been used to beer festivals being cramped noisy events like
Stockport, it was a breath of fresh air. Only 36 beers but in such a relaxed
setting.
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| Chorlton Beer Festival 2011 |
We returned the year after with a weekend ticket – with more
time to sup, I remember setting off from one end of the bar with the aim of
drinking through to the other end. I don’t think I managed to complete this self-imposed
challenge, but it got me noticed and got me in conversation with several of the
volunteers from Trafford & Hulme branch.
In 10 years of membership of Stockport and South Branch I
was never tempted to go to a branch meeting and only ever went to two socials.
At the first we went to the rendezvous point a little early and sat in a corner
of Didsbury’s Dog & Partridge awaiting the CAMRA group. When a bunch of old
men almost universally approaching or exceeding twice our age came in, we kept
our heads down and didn’t let on that we had been intending on joining them. We
gave them a second chance next time they came round to West Didsbury and we fared better when
there were at least some other people our age – although turned out that they
weren’t regular members – they were the new manager of a local bar and her
brother dragged out for moral support while she “got to know” her local CAMRA
branch. The regular members didn’t
impress – a standout comment was being told that “West Didsbury isn’t really
our area” – talk about feeling included!
So it came to pass that the good folks at Chorlton fest explained
to us that you didn’t have to be a member of the branch you lived in and not
long after we requested a transfer into the branch area that started 500m up
the road from home. Although our “activism” started slowly at first, it didn’t
take long to become more heavily involved as our daughter got older. Within a
couple of years of moving branch I was on the branch committee and eighteen
months later I was training to be a bar manager at the National Winter Ales
Festival.
I’ve bored you enough with my “beer journey”, but hopefully
that gives you an outline of what got me to a position of being a CAMRA branch
chair, several roles and Manchester Beer & Cider Festival and a bar manager
at GBBF. I am sure my experiences within CAMRA over the last ten years will
come up in future musings – if I ever get round to writing them – this one’s
been a week in the gestation.
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