The very fact that you are reading this blog suggests that you might be aware of the importance of Social Media and Digital Marketing in the Pubs and Bars business.

53% of consumers now use social media to research going out before they venture through the door. 97% of smartphone owners use their devices to research local businesses online and yet less that 40% of pubs and restaurants have their own websites. Most pubs, fortunately for them, are featured within our useyourlocal.com pages.

At the most basic level, there are 36 million Facebook users in the UK and one in every five minutes spent online are on Facebook. 37% of Facebook users ask for recommendations on new bars and restaurants and 27% actually visit these venues on the basis of these recommendations.

The big missing here is the absence of a formal mechanism to review the quality of the outlet visited. Within useyourlocal.com we offer pub visitors the opportunity to communicate directly with fellow consumers and pub owners by reviewing the full range of goods and services on offer and we really encourage you to do so.

Each review is communicated directly to that pub giving the owner the opportunity to praise his team for a great experience and address issues that are brought to their attention.

You are on this site and reading this blog because, like us, you love pubs. Let’s all do our bit to try to make them that little bit better.

Cheers!

Does anybody else fondly remember the unique feel of the thick glass walls of those heavy brown flagon bottles? Do you recall gently twisting the black stone stopper and hearing the gentle “phut” as the red rubber seal disengaged with the neck of the bottle? Can you still see the fine beaded bubbles and smell the orchards as the effervescent spray bursts towards your ears, eyes, nose and lips. Are you smiling as you recall these fond memories? If so, then you too, may call yourself a cider drinker.

Contrary to current perceptions, cider was not invented in Ireland or Sweden and made from pear concentrate and fruit syrup. Cider is one of Britain’s greatest gifts to the world and we have been sharing the love for centuries. Julius Caesar was an early convert when he discovered that the wine he brought over did not travel quite as well as his majestic wine warehouse manager advised him it might. Being the Emperor’s victualler was a heavy cross to bear, quite literally.

Cider has traditionally struggled to make its mark in British Pubs as the brewers, quite naturally, saw cider as a credible threat to their ale and lager sales. More recently however, as breweries have relinquished ownership of their outlets to Pub Companies and many have invested in, or acquired their own cider businesses, we see a much wider choice of ciders on and behind our bars. Inevitably this has created a bandwagon upon which to jump but Stella Cidre, Carling Cider and Carlsberg Somersby are just about as relevant and appealing as Bells Vodka, Bombay Sapphire Cognac and Stolychnya Malt Whisky. Still, some say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery and if true, Bulmers must be very flattered bunnies indeed.

Bulmer’s is the number one Cider producer in the UK, indeed the world, who produce around half of the cider we consume. They own and control around ten thousand acres of orchards and are said to consume on in every three apples produced in this country in pressing and producing their range of brand leading products. Bulmer’s are now owned by Heineken who have recently announced a £58m investment programme in their Hereford mill.
The resurgence of cider has seen a number of long established, English cider makers find a place on many more bars that they have ever previously had access to. Brands like Aspalls, Weston’s and Thatcher’s have seen huge increases in sales over the past four years but given that it takes around seven years for a new apple tree to bear cider fruit, they may face challenges in sourcing the all-important raw materials. They might need to look at Magners, the number two seller and explore how they fuel their sales with such a small orchard base in Ireland. Such challenges concentrate the mind as well as concentrating the apple.

The further transformation of the industry came with the emergence of the fruit flavoured cider market. Officially, these products are not actually ciders as they contain added fruits and flavours but this is more of a concern to the Chancellor then the consumer. Fruit ciders have now happily occupied the fridge space vacated by the previous wave of brightly coloured, sweet flavoured alcopops and spirit mixes. Bulmer’s and Magners both have a range of flavoured variants whilst the pick of the Scandinavian crop includes Kopparberg and Rekorderlig. There’s also a new entrant on its way from New Zealand, intriguingly named Old Mout (pronounced Moot ). Google it…..I don’t have enough space left to explain it.

There are probably some cider traditionalists who frown upon the new fruit generation in the same way that the traditional beer police frown on beers that are not dark, warm and flat. For, me, anything that keeps customers coming through pub doors is a worth a welcome on the mat. Fruit ciders, Craft Lagers, wine from Chile……..like bread with garlic, they’re the future.

Les Murphy

Having confessed my ignorance of Crafty Stuff in my last blog, I set out to further my education with a visit to a Craft Beer Co. outlet in Holborn, London. My thirst for knowledge knows no boundaries.

With a range of 30 keg beers, 15 casks and 50 bottled beers to assess, this was never going to be a flying visit. My fellow customers packing the bar and spilling over onto the roped off pavement may not have shared my academic interest but it was clear that experimentation and discovery was their prime motivation.

I understand what cask beer is and bottled beer is a bit of a giveaway but I am still not much wiser as to why Kernel IPA is a craft beer and John Smiths isn’t. It would seem that to be a Craft Beer you need to come from a very small brewery, have an a.b.v. that can also translate as a price per pint and have a quaint, quirky or suggestive name. Craft Beer, it seems, can be Lager, Porter, Amber, IPA, Bitter or Sour with ab.v. ranging from 3.2% to 13%. Given that the common denominator is keg dispense I would be interested to learn the official CAMRA line on Craft.

I pursued my duties diligently, making my way through a number of interesting keg and cask offerings. At one stage, I did seriously consider cancelling my Summer holiday and booking a room on the premises for a week. I did resist the temptation to sample the Speedway Stout at £22.95 for a 750ml bottle of 10% porter. I suppose it would be fine if you want to use a whole week’s units and disposable income on one drink and perhaps ideal for someone about to go into hospital for a hip operation.

The visit was not without incident as with fifteen cask beer engines in situ I could not help but notice that each hand pull spout had the obligatory screw attachment at the end to accommodate a sparkler. I wonder if the management had ever wondered why? My question as to whether they would ever used a sparkler seemed about as welcome as Rolf Harris in a Kindergarten but I continued the line of inquiry, pointing out in my best non Northern dialect that the sparkler is not just about the head but about the activation of the wonderful flavours, enzymes and textures lurking below the meniscus. “Sorry Mate! We don’t do Sparkler but we give good head!” mmmmmmmmmmm?

Les Murphy

I’m not entirely sure what the definition of Craft Beer actually is but it looks like might be with us for a while so I guess I should find out. For those of you who haven’t yet partaken it’s a bit like lager but with taste and texture.

Not surprisingly, the concept is said to have started in the United States when, presumably, a large enough slug of the adult population rebelled against having to pretend that they actually enjoyed drinking Bud light. Apparently it is written into their constitution. But like most things supposedly invented across the pond, we need to separate the myth from the truth.

In reality there have been Craft Beers in Europe for centuries but there were no sharp suited  marketing men around to tell them what to call it. The common characteristics of Craft Beers, that differentiate them from more commercial  Lagers are taste, colour, texture and strength….and scale. Small is beautiful, big is ugly……successful, profitable, quaffable, but ugly.

Since real beer should only be made from four ingredients; barley, water, hops and yeast, the art in creating a genuine, truly innovative craft beer is in the selection of those raw materials and the timing and temperature of the fermentation and maturation. These crafty brewers can create fruity flavoured beers with refreshing effervescent mouth feel, without the addition of flavourings.
There are, of course, a few cheats who throw in the odd Kiwi or Gooseberry or Vanilla Pod here and there but hey, it tastes good. The Belgians have been brewing beer with Cherries and Raspberries for centuries and nobody would dare to accuse them of creating Alcopops.

These new Craft Lager brands have created a whole new drinking experience, similar to the recent cask ale explosion, but without requiring the drinker to sport a beard, wear sandals and support Greenpeace. The other obvious similarity to cask ale lies within their brand names and whilst they are not quite as radical and rude as Cask counterparts, beers such as Arrogant Bastard, Hopzilla and Puppy’s Breath are certainly capturing the imagination and generating trial.

Whilst widely available in the States, (have a look at www.ratebeer.com ) we have to search them out over here. Brew Dog, the Scots entrepreneurial anarchists are opening bars and stores like most of us open envelopes and there are communities in Bristol, Camden, Bath, Shoreditch and Covent Garden where, justifiably, it has been deemed a capital offence to be seen drinking Stella.

It should also be noted that just because some of the national brewers produce lagers on an industrial scale, this does not necessarily mean that they compromise on ingredients, fermentation, maturation and quality. They produce quality products, consistently, on a scale that makes it affordable for some of those pubs not fortunate enough to be able to stock a Craft Beer to compete. Craft Beers are likely to cost more due to their differentiated raw materials and scale of production but it’s a price worth paying.

For me, the greatest attraction to the Craft craze is that this is mainly a draught beer offer that has not yet found prominence in supermarkets so anything that improves the experience and makes the pub an interesting place to be, has to be a crafty move in the right direction.

Les Murphy