Revolution behind the bar

It's a bit of a shock to hear the word "revolution" bandied about at a brewers' event. Brewers by nature are conservative folk. They read the Daily Telegraph and consider The Guardian to be dangerously radical.

But here were the great and the good from Greene King donning the mantle of Ché Guevara and extolling the virtues of revolution. But hold the barricades — they were launching a new beer engine, not waving the red flag. Readers of the Torygraph can sleep soundly in their beds.

Nevertheless, it was a fascinating event. As the MA reported on 2 April, the gleaming stainless steel font can deliver beer with either a creamy northern head or a shallow southern one. The bar person merely has to flick a switch on the side of the device to travel the length of the country, from Barnsley to Budleigh Salterton, you might say.

I was struck by another facet of this new device: it allows the drinker to see his or her pint being delivered in front of his eyes. This had never occurred to me before. When cask beer was first in vogue in the 1970s, courtesy of Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale, it was often on the cloudy side, with the occasional hop leaf floating on top.

Marketing people solemnly declared that cask beer would only reach a wider audience if it were crystal clear in the glass. "People drink with their eyes," was the mantra of the day.

So beer became as open and transparent as an MP's expenses claim. But delivered by a traditional handpull, the service remained out of sight and below decks. This has never bothered me as I have nothing but praise for barstaff and trust them to pull the perfect pint.

But the daunting statistic thrown up by Cask Ale Week — that more than 60% of pub-goers have never tried real ale — has forced me to rethink my attitude. Would more people switch to cask beer if they saw it eddying and swirling in the glass before their very eyes? Would they be turned on — to use another piece of marketing speak — by "the theatre of the pour"?

Greene King has added a new dimension to the debate by offering the drinker the choice of creamy head or thin head. It means that not only can pub-goers sample cask beer that is served before them for the first time, but they can also taste the same beer served in two different styles and can choose their preference.

Greene King's head brewer John Bexon presented the two versions of IPA and warned that the one with a northern head would have had the hop aroma and bitterness driven into the foam by the method of delivery. I was used to this, as beer served in the north via a tight sparkler has the same result. It explains why my first pint of Tetley's, several eons ago, almost blew my head off.

I was weaned on the likes of Charrington IPA, Draught Bass and Young's Ordinary, flat as the proverbial mill pond and with the hop character slowly developing and lingering down the glass. Back in the 1970s, we didn't bother if our pint had no head at all, but today's drinkers, whether northern or southern, expect some foam, whether loose and fluffy or tight and effervescent.

Greene King has invested £1m in the new dispense system, including staff training. The company aims to install it in 2,000 pubs, which will include more than just its own tied estate: 75% of the brewery's production goes to the freetrade. Marketing director Fiona Hope says that the new font has increased sales by an average of 10%, in some cases as much as 70%. She added that other brands, with Old Speckled Hen on the radar, might be switched to the new system.

John Bexon then conducted a "tutored tasting" of some of his beers. We were deep in the cellars of the Golden Fleece, in the City of London, and it occurred to me that Greene King and other brewers should be doing this in the bar, in front of the punters, not before a handful of beer journalists.

Bexon spoke of aroma, mouth-feel and finish. He showed us how the use of different malts can give toffee, caramel, butterscotch, molasses and dark fruit to the palate of beer. I found a touch of fresh tobacco on Ruddles County, but was sharply reminded of the smoking ban.

He uses a wide range of hops — Bramling Cross, American Cascade, Challenger, Fuggles and Target — to add to the character of the beers. Malts and hops show just how profound and complex cask beer can be and why brewers with the skills and knowledge of John Bexon need to describe them to the widest possible audience.

The new Greene King font clearly increases the interest in beer. It allows drinkers to see beer being poured with all the drama of a Guinness. The next step is to bring skill and expertise out of the cellar and up to the bar.

As the old Brewers' Society promotion put it, with the image of a tankard of beer, "Drink the Wine of the Country". Britain remains a great beer-drinking country. Let us be proud of it and proclaim its joys.