Battle

of the beers Once again Britain's finest will enter the arena at Olympia for the Great British Beer Festival 2003. Who will take the crown this year? asks Sally Bairstow It's great, it's British, it's a festival and there are barrels and barrels and barrels of beer there. The Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) is, undoubtedly, the highlight of the year for all brewers and beer fans. It's a showcase for all ­ large and small brewers, milds and bitters through to porters and stouts, and almost every flavour beer you can think of. While it raises awareness of British beers to some 45,000 consumers, it also reasserts the beer sector firmly in the hearts and minds of licensees and bar staff. Over 700 real ales, ciders and foreign beers will be available during the festival. More than 200 British brewers will be there with some 400-plus real ales. Drinkers will be able to enjoy live music, pub games and pub quizzes too. And there's a "no rip off" zone where full pints are guaranteed as oversized glasses are used to ensure visitors get a full liquid pint. Gone are the days of only bearded, sandal-wearing men supping real ale ­ great drives have paid dividends for brewers who have been pushing the natural message across about beer to drinkers. So while there's stiff competition for the drinker's pound with today's vast array of drinks on sale in Britain's bars, beer is holding its own ­ volumes may be down, but quality is up. London's Olympia plays host to what is heralded as "Britain's biggest pub". The celebrations run from 5 to 9 August with the top awards for the best brews of 2003 announced on the first afternoon. Caledonian Brewing picked up the supreme award last year with its amber-coloured session beer, Deuchars IPA ­ the first time the accolade has been won by a Scottish brewer. Pop star Madonna may have done wonders for the sector with her endorsement of Timothy Taylor's Landlord when she was interviewed on Jonathan Ross's TV show, and she has been invited by the Campaign for Real Ale to attend the festival. On day one, Camra will unveil its new membership campaign ­ the aim is to almost double the number of members from 68,000 to 100,000. The campaign will focus on what Camra stands for and demonstrate the diverse set of people who fight for British beer and pubs. The campaigning body says: "If Camra is to grow, then it is important to highlight that Camra is not only a consumer group for middle-aged men with bellies and beards. This can easily be seen by the appointment of the first ever woman chairman in April, 2003 and the fact that almost 30% of our membership is female." Camra press manager Tony Jerome adds: "It is important that we highlight to the pub-goer and real-ale drinker that Camra serves a different purpose for different people ­ some enjoy being active campaigners, but others are happy to support Camra's aims through membership subscription and remaining an inactive member. "At the end of the day, Camra membership helps save British beer and pubs, and therefore, this appeals to many different groups of society, including young and old, male and female, different religions and races etc. "We have some serious work to do to reach our target of 100,000 members in three years. But if Camra is to achieve more campaigning power and raise the finances to continue with successful campaigns, such as Hale Ninkasi and National Pubs Week, then more members have to be attracted." A further Camra drive for 2003 is the Localism Campaign to support local breweries and beers. Each day at the GBBF, it will promote different regions with different themes. Visitors to the festival will be polled on local issues on beers and pubs and it will be tied into the Independent Family Brewers of Britain (IFBB) Cask Beer Week. Last year, the focus was on building the appeal of real ale among women, with the Hale Ninkasi campaign. Results of how successful this has been will be announced at the GBBF, as well as a look at how beer advertising has adapted over the past 12 months, moving away from the once heavily male-orientated ads. A new outlook for cask ale? Lessons learned from the Continent, particularly the Belgians, means more and more brewers are investing in branded glassware to use with their ales. Bedford-based family brewer Charles Wells is sponsoring the festival glasses this year, so the Charles Wells Eagle IPA name will be there for all to see on some 25,000 glasses. Camra marketing manager Guy Shreeves says it's a fantastic opportunity for them to raise awareness of Eagle. While great strides have been made with its Bombardier brand over recent years, Eagle has been a more localised brand. Now Charles Wells wants to drive national demand for Eagle. The GBBF, says Shreeves, emphasises the diversity of choice of real ales and the great British heritage of brewing. "It's key to get away from the old-fashioned position of the sector and give it some modernity without stripping away the heritage." Cask ale, he insists, has just as much appeal in a style bar as it can have in a traditional pub. He adds: "The GBBF is not just for consumers, it reinforces the importance of real ale in the minds of retailers. When you see so many people tasting and drinking the beers, it makes you sit up and say: I should be stocking that in my bar'." John Roberts, Fuller's beer and brands director, says drinkers are trading up in terms of strength, but, at the same time, ale volumes are declining as AC Nielsen's Cask Ale Market Report, 2002 states. Volumes have also been hit by the demand for nitrokeg and "smoothflow" beers. Roberts says that while the ale brands of national brewers have suffered, the regionals are performing well. He credits improved beer quality, dispense, staff training, cellar practice and branded glasses as helping the sector. The challenge is to continue to build on the awareness of the sector and the GBBF goes a long way towards that. "The Bavarians genuinely celebrate their beers at Oktoberfest. The GBBF is a great shop window for brewers here, it creates more interest, more people experiment and discover the wide range of styles ­ there's something to suit all palates," says Roberts. Competition is tougher than ever, with new drinks appearing all the time. Despite the fact that the pub is the traditional home for beer and it's gaining in terms of quality, it is losing ground when it comes to what customers are asking for at the bar. So the brewers and pub retailers have had to sit up, take stock and reassess the very way they market and sell their brews. Quality control has been at the heart of many of the drives to encourage more drinkers to ask for a pint. Cask Marque has made great strides in improving the beer know-how of licensees and bar staff. Founder Paul Nunny says beer accounts for about 60% of all sales in pubs, but often it does not receive the same amount of focus as other drinks categories. He stresses: "It's a drinks sector that we cannot afford to ignore." Nunny adds that licensees should be driven by their consumers and, with more discovering real ale, they should be satisfying that demand. "After all," he points out, "cask ale is the only drink you can't have at home, it's not like lager, wine and spirits. It's synonymous with the British pub.