All in the best

possible taste

Hoping to educate the press ­ and through them the public ­ about the UK's diverse lager offer, Coors hosted a generic tasting event last month. Nigel Huddleston reports

If you think that all lager tastes the same then the Beer Naturally campaign run by Coors Brewers is out to prove you wrong.

It has just held what is thought to be the UK's first generic lager tasting. Such tastings are common in the wine industry where they're used to showcase wines from a particular country or region to newspaper and consumer magazine journalists.

In beer, they're almost unheard of. Paul Hegarty, head of external communications at Coors and the man who fronts the campaign, said one of the principal aims was to persuade consumer journalists to write "more intelligently" about beer. He adds: "The only reason people really think that all lager tastes the same is because they haven't tasted them."

Among those attending the lager event was a writer for Scarlet the new magazine that, in its own words, "turns women on", and a deputation from the UK's first consumer beer magazine, which will be launched in the summer. There were also buyers from major supermarkets, arguably bigger champions of diverse styles of beer than many of their on-trade counterparts.

The tasting comprised around 40 lagers, divided into groups that allowed the contrasts and similarities between different brews to be emphasised.

For example, a group comprising Kasteel Cru, Coors Fine Light, Grolsch, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Viennese and Kostritzer, was designed to demonstrate the range of colours in the lager rainbow.

Kasteel Cru's Champagne yeast produces a pale yellow beer with a moussy head. At the other end of the spectrum, the German Kostritzer is a black beer with a ruby edge, closer to stout or porter in appearance than a traditional Pilsner-style lager.

Knowing the different lagers

What makes the latter a lager is that it's made using a bottom-fermenting yeast that works at a lower temperature and sinks to the bottom of the fermenting vessel.

Other lagers in the tasting were grouped to show differences in the raw materials used to produce them, their country of origin or "provenance" and their abv.

Rupert Ponsonby of the Beer Naturally campaign says: "One of the aims is to redefine the word lager, to stop people just going into a pub and saying, I'll have a pint of lager'. You don't go into a picture shop and say I'll have a painting'. You make a choice according to your own taste, and even if other people don't agree with your taste, at least you have your own point-of-view."

He said that it was time to reassess the qualities of brands as diverse as Coors' own C2 half-strength lager and the challenging Carlsberg Special Brew. "People are not looking at the full range of the brewer's art," he says. "It's about making people know the difference, or at least thinking that they do. One of the joys of life is thinking that you know something. When Australian single varietal wines arrived on the market, they didn't take any magic out of wine but they did stop people from getting confused and intimidated by it."

Given Coors' organisation of the event, it was no surprise to find its own brands in evidence but in addition to the more esoteric lagers on offer, there were also major names from the brewer's biggest rivals, including Foster's, Stella and Kronenbourg.

While the Coors generic push is admirable, critics might suggest that the reason the full range of the brewer's art isn't sampled by many people is because the power of the own major brewers' lager brands has restricted choice. Not surprisingly, it's a charge that Hegarty rejects.

"It's true that over the next few years something like 70% of the beer market is going to be through the top 10 brands and that is predominantly going to be the big lager brands, but equally there will be niche lagers that will be very important to a pub's business. It's the middle ground that's suffering, such as keg ale."

Pubs should hold staff tastings

Ponsonby suggests that pubs should pull out the stops to make their full range of lagers more accessible. He says: "Ideally, licensees should go to town with their staff in the pub and hold a tasting with all of the beer they have, so they can see the differences for themselves. It's also a chance to look at whether lagers are being served in the right way, with the right glassware and at the right temperature. But most of all it makes the job satisfaction of the people who work in your pub that much greater if you challenge them."

It could also make the conversation a bit more colourful. Those at the tasting were supplied with a background pack of facts and figures about lager, plus a tasting glossary to help them pass their new learning on to the wider world. Look out for lager descriptions such as "TCP", "goaty" and "wet dog" appearing in the drinks' column of one of your favourite magazine's before too long.