The beer essentials

01 January 2000
The beer essentials

If you were free to choose what beers to stock to make the most from your bar, what would you choose? The answer, of course, depends on many different factors - who are your existing customers, where the bar is, whom you hope to attract, and so forth.

Usually, however, bar operators base their decision on just two factors - price and convenience of supply. A third factor, that they may have heard of it thanks to significant advertising support, is also sometimes added.

It is no surprise that so little effort is put into the stocking policy. After all, the range of drinks is well down the list of priorities for most customers when choosing where to drink, with location far and away the most important.

But, as we enter more difficult economic times, having the edge with your drinks range may make the difference. In addition, a well chosen and properly displayed selection will create an ambience to which customers will want to return.

Were I to run a bar, my own choice would centre on classic British beers with a few bottled Belgium specialities thrown in. Given that this is my last beer column for Caterer, it is perhaps time I laid my cards on the table and revealed my own prejudices. This is a fantasy selection, where commercial reality is kept firmly out of view.

I grew up in East Anglia and prefer the bitter bite provided by beers typical of the region. No creamy froth for me - a pet hate is finding bars pulling beers brewed to have no head through sparklers. The worst example is All Bar One, which uses sparklers when serving Fuller's London Pride.

While Yorkshire brews please my palate - I went to university in that neck of the woods - the creamy, sweet style which predominates in the North-east and in Scotland is not a favourite.

The only overseas beers I would have to stock would be Belgian. The Strong Suffolk produced by Bury St Edmunds-based Greene King is the closest the UK gets to some of the most unusual Belgian beers, such as Rodenbach.

Other Belgian favourites include white beers, with Hoegaarden as the most famous example, but I would endeavour to stock more unusual types. A regular trip across the Channel to stock up with direct imports would have to be a feature of any business I ran.

I am less keen on the stronger Belgian varieties. The Trappist and Abbey beers are generally a little heavy, but a modest selection would perhaps be called for. To provide relief from these treacly concoctions, the acid of a gueze would be needed. There is none better than Cantillon's, although this is unlikely to find favour with most drinkers.

Returning to draught beers, I would ensure a regularly changing guest beer which would be exclusively from one of the many excellent small micro-brewers in the UK. Woodforde's in Norfolk and Nethergate in Suffolk are among my favourites.

But the heart of the beer selection would be draught ales from among the longer-established small and regional brewers.

Inevitably, my all-time favourite draught beer is East Anglian. Adnams, based in the beautiful setting of Southwold in Suffolk, is my must-have brewery. A regular supply of its Best Bitter is essential. n

Beer of the month: Adnam's Best Bitter, abv 3.7%. Tel: 01502 727200.

by Andrew Sangster

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