Cask Ale: Why It Deserves Heritage Status

In this episode of The Beer Rep Chats With, we sit down with Jonny Garrett – beer writer, YouTuber, and co-founder of The Craft Beer Channel⁩  – for an in-depth conversation about the future of cask ale and the UK beer industry.

Jonny shares how his love for beer began in British pubs, how the pandemic impacted cask beer, and why he's campaigning to have cask ale recognised by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. We also explore:

• The evolving world of beer publishing and writing
• The role of influencers vs traditional beer writers
• Challenges facing UK breweries: market access, rising costs, and changing tastes
• The birth of The Craft Beer Channel
• A peek at his upcoming homebrew project

If you love beer culture, support independent UK breweries, or are passionate about preserving pub traditions, this episode is a must-listen.

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share if you're passionate about beer and brewing!

Sign the petition to get cask ale recognised as intangible cultural heritage: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/716686

Buy The Meaning Of Beer: https://amzn.eu/d/59HiNUy

Chapters

• 0:00 The Journey into Beer
• 3:31 Homebrewing Adventures
• 6:37 Intangible Cultural Heritage Petiton
• 11:04 Craft Beer Channel Insights
• 16:08 The Reality of Freelance Beer Writing
• 19:52 Influencers vs. Beer Writers
• 22:38 Beer Collaborating
• 25:28 Challenges in the UK Beer Scene
• 31:21 Future Projects and Home Brewing
• 35:27 The Importance of Cask Beer and Pubs
• 38:26 Next Show & Outro

Transcript

Martin (00:01)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Beer Rep chats with today I'm joined by Jonny Garrett of the Craft Beer Channel. Jonny, thanks for joining us on the show.

Jonny (00:09)
Yeah, always a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Martin (00:12)
Yeah, no problem. Let's kick things off with you and where your journey began with beer and what got you so hooked that it became your life's work.

Jonny (00:21)
Yeah, mean, it's one of those things, you we talk about overnight successes that take years. It's a little bit like that. I don't know whether I'm a success, but it certainly wasn't overnight where I've landed. Stop it. Stop it. Yeah, I mean, it all started, I used to work in pubs when I was funding my time at ⁓ university. And that's when I sort of fell in love with Cask Ale. It was a Green King pub. So mostly I was drinking the guest house.

Martin (00:30)
You're pretty famous in the scene, I would say.

Jonny (00:46)
⁓ But enjoying ⁓ sort of tribute and stuff like that as it was coming through. I went to university, did geography, nothing to do with it, but I did join the student paper and that's where sort of love of writing and of journalism came from. And I ended up doing a master's in journalism at City University in London. And while I was there, I was living in Kentish Town right by where Camden Town Brewery was founded in 2009. So was living there at the time that it opened. And that was...

I remember it was the middle of my exams we were supposed to be revising and me and my housemates ended up there for four or five pints I think one of them had an exam the next morning, but we were just blown away by how good the pale and the hells were. So I started to sort of explore that and started watching stuff on YouTube and was finding that people weren't really explaining a lot to me on YouTube in particular. Like there were lots of reviews, so I knew whether a beer was good or not, but I didn't necessarily know what made a

beer good, how beer was produced and this kind of stuff. And then I was very lucky. I had a restaurant blog that sort of got picked up and I ended up working for Jamie Oliver on his website. Yeah, I mean, I've shortened that story so much, but that was sort of the real catalyst for me. So I was working in literally in Jamie's office and one day he founded his YouTube channel FoodTube and installed essentially the world's best YouTube studio in our office.

Martin (01:55)
lovely.

Jonny (02:14)
And me and two friends in the office who were big beer lovers and were always meeting at the old fountain in Old Street. That's where we used go drink. It used to be 10 pounds for a beer and a burger. You wouldn't get that anymore. ⁓ So there we were drinking kernel and pressure drop pale fire and Oakham Citra on cask and drinking and eating burgers and chatting about it. And we thought, well, if nobody's talking about beer in the way that we want them to on YouTube, let's have a go. We've got all the equipment. We've got some of the experience.

Martin (02:23)
10 pounds.

Jonny (02:44)
because Brad, who's still working with me on the channel, he worked in TV before he joined Jamie's. So we had a go at it and Jamie liked some of the episodes, people liked some of the episodes and it sort of snowballed from there basically. So it was never an intention. was more just, it was there and we thought it would be fun and we might get some free beer. There was some talk of like the dream was to get to New Zealand for the hop harvest, which we haven't still managed.

Martin (03:06)
there's always free beer involved.

Jonny (03:10)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, that's

how most of I think most beer writers started being like, maybe I'll get some free beer and I'll write about it and it'll be a nice hobby. And for some of us, it all went very wrong or very right, depending on your point of view.

Martin (03:22)
Yeah, when did you start getting into homebrewing then? Obviously you got your equipment behind you, it's lovely.

Jonny (03:27)
Yeah, so yeah, so I mean, it's taken a long time to get to this. it's, it's, it's a ridiculous setup that I have these days, but it started actually, I was at London craft beer festival in 2015, I think, and Grainfather who make the equipment behind me came and did a little expo there. And at the end of the session, I was on a stand next to them. I was working in beer distribution at the time I worked for Cave Direct for about three years while I was sort of trying to take craft beer channel full time.

And we were on the stand next to them and I just got chatting to them. said, I had a YouTube channel and they basically said, this demo unit we've got here has, it's probably run its course as a demo unit. It was dented. It was not in great condition and they were like, you know, but it still works really well. So if you just, you can just have this unit and just play around with it. And if you put it on the channel, all the better. So I took this very dented, beaten up unit and started playing around with it. I brewed a couple of terrible, terrible beers.

and didn't do a huge amount with it. We did some videos on the Craft Beer channel. We brewed a version of the second ever New England IPA. We collabed with Gipsy Hill on the second ever New England IPA brewed in the UK and then did a homebrew version of it on the Grainfather and stuff like that. But really it was professional brewers telling me how to use the Grainfather. But that changed in lockdown. we did a video, because I was really missing cask ale and pubs, we did a video where I brewed Five Points Best Bitter at Home on it. ⁓

Martin (04:51)
Yeah, I remember that one. It's one of my favorite

episodes to be fair. ⁓

Jonny (04:55)
I think

that was a real watershed moment for us, not just in terms of getting us into homebrew and getting us making homebrew content and developing the voice we have around it, which is very narrative to try and get people that don't love homebrew to still watch it. just in terms of for the channel, seeing how powerful something we did could be up until that point, we were the biggest beer YouTube channel, but we didn't...

At no point did we have what we used to call the Jamie's, Jamie Oliver effect, where he would recommend something in Tesco and it would sell out. And now that Five Points best recipe that we worked on with Five Points is one of the best selling recipes on the Malt Miller. The video's got over 200,000 views. It's a huge, huge deal for us and we wanted to run with

Martin (05:41)
Yeah.

That was the episode where you put the cask ale into a bag in box and then you got a hand pull and ⁓ invited some friends around on your doorstep.

Jonny (05:50)
It

Yeah, exactly.

Yes, it was the middle of COVID. So I installed it on my coffee table so that I could drink it while I was watching telly, which my wife was so pro. She's a beer lover until when we finally removed the hand pull and realised we dented the coffee table beyond repair. But yeah, so we got because it was still COVID. could you could meet in groups of six, I think, at that point. So all of my friends came and were on my doorstep, my little stoop in Kentish town next to the bins.

Martin (05:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jonny (06:20)
just drinking casque ale and being socially distanced and being like, what even is life anymore? But I'm loving it for now.

Martin (06:26)
Yeah.

So

⁓ you've recently launched a petition ⁓ for the production and serving of cask ale to be recognised as intangible cultural heritage. Can tell us a bit more about that?

Jonny (06:38)
Yeah, so that's another lockdown project that raged out of control. at the end of COVID, we wanted to not necessarily encourage people back into pubs because we wanted people to take their time and feel confident enough to do it. But when people went to the pub for the first time, we were really keen to try and get them to drink Cask Ale because we knew... I mean keg breweries had a torrid time of it, but they were still able to sell their beers in web shops and bottle shops and stuff. But Cask...

died on its arse during COVID. So we wanted people to come back and support Cask Ale Breweries and support pubs that backed Cask. So we we pitched an idea, like a five part series to Asahi, who bought Fullers and Darkstar in 2018, 2019. And said, Hey, could you help us fund like a big project that will hopefully get beer geeks excited about Cask Ale? And while we were making that award winning documentary series.

Martin (07:31)
Congratulations.

Jonny (07:33)
⁓ We sort of started toying around with this idea of UNESCO recognition for it. So in 2018, think it was, Belgian beer culture got recognised by UNESCO as intangible heritage. So when people think of UNESCO, generally they think of, you know, the Taj Mahal and Stonehenge. But there is a provision in the UNESCO treaty for what's called intangible heritage. So cultural things.

Parisian coffee culture, Belgian beer culture, the rumba, like there's loads of dances on that list. Cider making in Spain is recognised. There's a bid currently for farmhouse ales from Norway, so sort of the Kviek tradition there to be recognised. And we thought it'd be a great idea to get Cask Ale recognised. We couldn't really understand why, like, CAMRA or the BBPA or somebody hadn't done it before. And we quickly realised, we announced that we were going to try to do this in the last episode of that series.

Martin (08:21)
Yeah.

Jonny (08:30)
And then quickly learn that the reason that nobody had done it in the UK is because we hadn't signed that element of the UNESCO treaty. So it was literally impossible to do. ⁓ So we sort of sat on it a little bit. And we actually, got an email from a guy called Jed Mears, who's a sort of a public policy lawyer, I guess is probably the phrase for it. He's probably got a better phrase, but ⁓ he's a lecturer at York University in law and he is a

Martin (08:38)
well.

Jonny (08:57)
fan of the channel and he emailed us just going, this is the reason why it's impossible, but why don't we work together and try and get this moving? we emailed some MPs, we talked to the all parliamentary beer group, talked to the BBPA, CAMRA SIBA of those folks. And out of the blue, February last year, the Tory government, one of the last things they did in fact, was to recognise that element of the treaty. So then there was the election, Labour also said,

partly under pressure from us. So we got the BBPA, SIBA, CAMRA to put into their manifestos, which they all released sort of saying what they want from the next government. Saying that they wanted Cask Ale recognised by UNESCO. And so Labour said they would be looking into it. They'd be continuing the project. now, of the back of that, we started series two. Asahi couldn't afford to fund it. So we got nine different sponsors. there's suppliers, there's breweries all involved and CAMRA as well.

put some money up to make season two, which was a seven episode documentary, not as yet award winning. And that was sort of the story, the story of how we could try and get it recognised and what needs to be done. So each episode was based on the of the tenets that UNESCO will be looking for when we apply to it. And then we started a petition, which everybody needs to sign. It's a governmental petition. It's on the official government website. We're at 26,000 subscribers, subscribers, sorry, YouTube speak signatures.

Martin (10:03)
sure it will be.

That's a bit...

Jonny (10:26)
But need to, well, we've got 10,000 and that gets a response from the government. The government have welcomed it. They said we'd absolutely welcome an application. We want to get to a hundred thousand because then we can take that debate to parliament and we can have a discussion that will be publicised. It will have MPs involved and we can broaden it out because while we're trying to get cask ale recognised. We're also trying to get the places that serve it is the phrase we've come up with, which is essentially the British pub. So it is kind of British pub culture. We're also trying to protect.

Martin (10:55)
talking about your channel and that your videos, think are very entertaining, quite educational. How do you and Brad go about what you plan to cover? Like what episodes you decide to do?

Jonny (11:07)
Yeah, mean, there's sort of, there's three answers to that. The first one is we've had this mantra since we started, which is entertain first and educate second. So everything we do, we think has to be either funny or fascinating. And then after that, once we know one of those two things is in place, we'll start to teach people about some things. So we're just super aware that the way that the internet is these days, or probably always has been, and probably all content always has been. So people have to be interested in what you're talking about.

You can't just sort of go, well, I'm interested in this so other people will be. Sometimes people get lucky and people are interested in that, but it's rarely the case. The other thing we love to do is, I absolutely hate, you pretty much every issue in the world, whether it's a war or whether it's the decline of cask starts with a preconceived idea. So we're always trying to smash preconceived ideas and try to change people's view on things, which is exactly where the cask ale thing is.

not necessarily where it came from. It came from very specifically trying to get people back in pubs. But most of the content we've made about cask since then has been like, almost saying like, you're wrong about that. You're wrong about Isinglass You're wrong about bitter. It's not all brown and boring and the same. You're wrong about this. You're wrong about this. And even if you aren't wrong, we're not saying really everybody's wrong about these things for saying, but have you considered it from this angle? But you have to dress that up as you're wrong about this because that's what gets clicks

Martin (12:25)
Yeah.

Jonny (12:30)
So it's always trying to change people's ideas about things. So if we see a topic where we go, ha, I'd never thought about it that way. We'll go like, well, let's dig into that and see how far we can go. And then the last thing is, is, you know, brutally honest and the things we try not to do this too often, but sometimes you have to, it's what gets clicks. So, so we did, did a video that was, it was a silly idea. I never thought it would work. got, I think it was 24 macro lagers and blind taste tested them here in the studio to see which one was best.

Martin (12:47)
Yeah.

Jonny (13:00)
And that video is now at nearly 800,000 views. It's brought in 20,000 subscribers. And many of whom have stuck around for everything else. So we saw the power of virality if it's still within sort of the confines of what you consider good content.

Martin (13:16)
What was the best

macro lager from that video?

Jonny (13:18)
I believe it was Heineken, which didn't make me particularly pleased. I mean, this is just it. was a preconceived idea. I'd have thought that Heineken... I mean, don't know what I thought would have won. ⁓ I mean, they were all pretty poor examples of pilsners, but some of them were pretty good examples of American adjunct lagers. I think it was Heineken and Stella came top, if I remember correctly.

Martin (13:21)
Really?

You

Jonny (13:47)
I think they're actually both 100 % malt beers, so that might be my preconceived ideas coming... well, it was blind, so I didn't know, but I was looking for malt character in there. And obviously, however much it is, 20 % corn and some glucose syrup.

Martin (14:03)
So between you and Brad, who's more likely to spill a pint mid filming. Definitely. I thought it would be. I bet Brad would say it was you if he was here.

Jonny (14:07)
That's Brad. Happens all the time. ⁓ No, no, think Brad would, Brad

admits he's klutzy. I have, sadly, I've never fully caught it on camera He falls over a lot as well. Like he's always tripping over tripods. There was a hysterical moment. We were out in the Arctic Circle covering like an amazing homebrew scene in Northern Norway. And he, we went for a walk to, well, a hike to a

Martin (14:21)
that's pretty good. ⁓

Jonny (14:36)
⁓ famous ⁓ salmon fishing lake that has this gorgeous waterfall. And it was so cold that the waterfall had frozen. And we'd been told it was going to be that cold. But Brad turned up in essentially boat shoes with no grip on the soles at all. And I said to him, I was like, you're going to fall over. And I think he probably said, yeah, I probably am. But he absolutely stacked it right in front of me, literally 20 steps.

Martin (14:59)
Yeah. ⁓

Jonny (15:06)
out of the door. So yeah, it's definitely Brad. That's not to say, I will say I have spilt beers. actually, so this keyboard I have was only a couple of weeks old when I spilt an entire bottle of ⁓ Boone Creek over it. So this still smells of cherry like a year later. So I'm not immune, but it's definitely Brad.

Martin (15:29)
Yeah. So, um, we're to, we're going to go talk a bit more about your beer writing. Obviously you've recently released a book, The Meaning of Beer, um, which is right behind you. want to grab it? Want to show everyone?

Jonny (15:38)
Right there.

go on then.

Martin (15:43)
Here we are.

Jonny (15:43)
So this is the hardback

which came out in November.

Martin (15:46)
the meaning of beer. So we're going to talk about, you know, lots of journalists, lots of beer writers out there. Where is it going right? Where's it going wrong? And what do you wish more writers were exploring?

Jonny (15:47)
meaning of beer.

So I'm also, I'm now chair of the British Guild of Beer Writers, have been for about two years. So I've seen a real decline in beer writing, not in terms of the quality of the beer writing, but in terms of the number of people that can make a living doing it. And none of us are making a good living, let's be clear, but it's reached the point where really, really talented writers have had to... You can see it happen. They get a second job because they can't afford to do it.

then that second job takes over. And sometimes it's, you they find another calling and that's great. But sometimes it's, you know, they just don't have time to do any beer writing anymore. And in fact, you know, from the board, so there's a board of the moment, it's down to six people, because three of the people on the board, three of the people who are most involved in the British Guild of Beer Writers have had to leave the industry because they can't afford to be in it. Or they've got burned out, which is another

very real issue. you know, I said before we started rolling on taking a little bit of time out because I am entirely burned out. Because it is is relentless trying to earn a living being a writer. So, you know, everything I'm about to say comes from the fact that we don't get paid very well. Typically, you know, you're lucky to get maybe 20 p a word. So 200 pounds for 1000 word article, which probably takes you three, four days to write. So

Martin (17:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, it takes up.

Jonny (17:23)
well below the minimum wage.

Martin (17:25)
Do you think it's, do you think people are just less interested about reading about beer?

Jonny (17:32)
think that... Well, so here's an example. So when I pitched the meaning of beer, I have a literary agent who went out to 17 publishers and all 17 publishers came back saying we love the pitch, but 15 of them came back saying beer books don't sell.

Martin (17:53)
Yeah.

Jonny (17:54)
So is the publishing industry's view on beer books. A couple of people came back, and I never say this to his face, a couple of people came back saying beer books don't sell unless it's Pete Brown, ⁓ which I can also understand. But luckily two of them did come back saying we'd love to publish this. And then that's enough to have, if not a bidding war, but enough to be like, hey, come on, the advance could be better.

Martin (18:04)
Well he's a great writer. Yeah.

Jonny (18:19)
And I'm very, very lucky to have Atlantic who, ⁓ well, Alan and Unwin, they're called in the UK, but absolutely backed the book, put so much marketing effort behind it. I've really, I mean, the book sold over 10,000 copies now. Like it's, it's really flown. hopefully, you know, hopefully that, you know, rising tide floats or boats. Hopefully that will make other people look at, you know, look at the sales for the meaning of beer and go, Hey, if you get it right, these things can sell. And I think this is when I'll be slightly critical of the beer industry, the beer, the beer writing industry is that we haven't.

Martin (18:31)
Wow. Well done.

Jonny (18:50)
found the way to talk to people about beer yet. We struggle to find the angles and the medium to put it out there. I absolutely loved Good Beer Hunting. It's a huge loss that it's gone. And they had a brilliant podcast as well. I love Pellicle I think some of the stories told there are just mind-bending and brilliant.

The issue is, though, all of that was written for people already in that beer space. And that's incredibly important. We need content that's for people in the beer space. But just as important is content for people not in the beer space. And at the moment, we're leaving it to magazines like VinePair and Paste and Instagrammers.

Martin (19:24)
Yeah.

Jonny (19:43)
influences, I guess is the word I should use on Instagram who have followings, certainly on Instagram, 10 times the size of mine. That, but yeah, posting pictures of beer, you traveling the world trying to find the best Guinness without any

Martin (19:51)
Yeah. Just for posting pictures of beer.

Jonny (20:03)
without much technical expertise, without truly knowing the context of what they're drinking, the way it was made, why these Guinnesses might or might not be better in different pubs. I believe that in a blind taste test, none of these influencers will be able to tell the difference between the pubs they're giving, know, 10 out of 10 and five out of 10. And this is an issue because it means that I think our best writers and our best stories are not being told.

Martin (20:21)
Yeah.

Jonny (20:31)
the right people and I think that the beer writers could work much harder to be, I don't think they're gatekeeping, but I don't think they're opening the gate. And the meaning of beer was literally an attempt at that.

Martin (20:39)
Yeah, exploring new ways of...

I ⁓ guess with all things, it's trying to find that narrative to attract new people ⁓ to want to learn about beer.

to take advantage of.

Jonny (20:54)
I really...

sometimes people refer to me as an influencer, and I don't get offended by it, but it frustrates me because I think that in my mind, the difference between an influencer and say, beer writer or a journalist or whatever space it's in, is an influencer will go around, a Guinness influencer, a Guinfluencer, if you will, will go around and will be finding the best pints, trying to spin a yarn, tell a story, and on to the next one.

journalists would be looking for the best Guinness in a pub and then go, well, why is this the best one? Can I have a look at your line length? Can I find out what your cleaning regime is? Can I find out what your turnover is? All this kind of stuff where they actually dig in and go, well, why? As soon as an influencer starts asking why, then I think they become a journalist. And there's lots of influencers that have taken that step. And it's brilliant, because they then have the audience and they're gaining that expertise.

Martin (21:37)
Yeah.

Jonny (21:49)
The issue is that in our short attention span world, it's not always what people want to see. I understand that if you're just flicking, you sat on the loo, you're just flicking through, you just want to feel good for 30 seconds. You want a dopamine hit, you want to see the mutton Easter go. It's an absolute creamer. And then you can get on with your day happily knowing that Jason is happy. And that's brilliant. But beer writers need to be better at getting into those spaces.

Martin (21:53)
Just about to mention, yeah.

Yeah.

Jonny (22:19)
And I'm constantly amazed by the lack of Instagram activity from beer writers, because that is where most of the conversations are happening and they're not part of it

Martin (22:28)
Yeah, exactly. So going on to your brewing, you've also done quite a few brews with some, you know, big, breweries in the UK. What's your, favourite thing about collaborating  on a brew?

Jonny (22:42)
I mean, there's some of my favourite videos that we've ever done. They're not always the most viewed because I think it's a niche within a niche within a niche. I learn there's never a brew day, never a professional brew day where you don't learn something. I mean, so one small example is when we did our collaboration with Omnipollo, Henok and I sat down, it's mostly on camera although we were sat down there for like 90 minutes nerding out about malt.

The fact that he has two different chocolate malts in his Imperial Stouts because he likes the balance that both of them bring by being together. I think a lot of home brewers and I think a lot of professional brewers are like, where can we get chocolate malt from? Buy it, bring it in. You're on the malt miller, one chocolate malt out of stock, you're like, well, I'll get the other chocolate malt. And the privilege of being Henok Omnipollo is...

Martin (23:34)
Yeah.

Jonny (23:39)
everybody that makes chocolate malt in the world wants you to use theirs. know, digging that far into just one variety of malt was a real learning curve. ⁓ Real learning curve for me. When we were at De La Senne we didn't brew with them, but we were learning all about thermal loads. I sure won't dig into too much, essentially, if you want beer to age well, you need a small differentiation between the thing that's heating up your beer and the beer temperature itself.

which actually learned as well when we did our Russian River collab and why he used to boil for 90 minutes and he's reduced that and would like to reduce it further. Because I think he's aware that a lot of the bottles go away, get put in the post, kept warm and aren't drunk for a couple of months. So yeah, it's what you learn. And it's also to some extent, generally will be either they trust us or they just want

Martin (24:22)
Yeah.

Jonny (24:32)
know, the exposure to be on YouTube, so they'll let us get away with stuff. But we've done some pretty experimental things in the collaborations that we've done, so it's always nice to try and push people and get brewers out of their comfort zone. I wouldn't say they necessarily learn anything from it. Like when we did our barren collab and we pushed the sulfates and we pushed the IBUs right, right up, because I was like, it'll be more drinkable, it'll be more drinkable.

Martin (24:46)
Yeah.

Jonny (24:58)
And when we tasted it, Jack was like, yeah, it is more drinkable. And then he has never pushed his sulfates or his bitterness higher since So it's like, I think he's saying that for the camera. ⁓ But yeah, it's that trade off of ideas because obviously, you know, we're drinkers, we're not really brewers. And to have a drinker design a recipe at a brewery must be eye opening to the brewers.

Martin (25:06)
Yeah.

pretty special.

what's your, what's your take on, on the, on the beer scene, UK beer scene right now? Is it, is it going through a bit of a rough patch? it, you know, changing a bit?

Jonny (25:18)
Yep.

It's really tough. There's so many moving parts in the beer scene at the moment. We're lucky enough to have a lot of diversity in our beer scene as well. We have Cask, have Macro, we have Craft, we have a bit like America does, just a wild variety of beers being made. I think they're all experiencing different things. If you are Verdant or Deya or somebody with strong webshop, great taproom, great reputation,

making hazy IPA, you're probably doing very well at the moment. There's probably not a huge issue. Although your margins are getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed, which is why all these breweries are opening taprooms and pubs and stuff like that, because they can claw some margin back that way. Outside of that, I think it's incredibly tough and it's incredibly tough for myriad reasons, none of which are to do with the brewers. And one of the big things that I want to combat when I get back to doing Craft Beer Channel,

Martin (26:03)
Yeah.

Mm.

Jonny (26:27)
⁓ in a couple of weeks is to try and find a story that explains to people why beer costs what it does in the UK. Because I don't think that consumers understand quite how much is tax and ingredients. I think there's probably still the conception out there that starting a brewery is just printing your own money. And it's not. It's about the most stupid business move you can make.

Martin (26:35)
Yeah.

It's definitely not. I mean, I've

been lucky to speak to quite a few brewery founders and yeah, access to market is another thing. ⁓ Recently spoke to Jonny from pipeline down in St. Agnes, who are actually now moving to Newquay. And he said, you know, around the area, they've got the big brewery St. Austell ⁓ who

He said, probably own roughly around 80 % of pubs in the area and won't have guest ales and won't have any guests, local breweries on. And again, he says it's very hard to get yourself established, ⁓ locally because you just can't get your beers in the pubs.

Jonny (27:26)
Yeah, 100%. And, you know, I did some work with Verdant, consulted with them when I first went freelance, and that was a major talking point, and they were working out how they could start to do it. And the way that they have is, is cask. So, and that was always the way when craft beer started as well, you know, there was even less access to market in 2009, when these brewers were starting up. And so cask was the best way because there usually was a guest line in most pubs. I know that St. Austell don't offer that.

really disappointing. think they should, certainly should with the market share that they have in Cornwall and to some extent Devon. But yeah, Cask was the way, was one of the ways that Verdant did it and Lightbulb on Keg has I think been really beneficial to them. But even they, know, they now own two pubs and obviously have their massive taproom. And yeah, access to market is a scandal. It is illegal in most parts of the world. The situation we have here where you

Martin (28:01)
Yeah.

Jonny (28:24)
you can restrict what is sold in a license premises. ⁓ And indeed, AB Inbev have been fined multiple times in America for essentially trying to tie lines. there does need to be, and there are rumbles of a change in the law of, well, no, sorry, of a consultancy period into essentially the market freedoms of the beer industry. Whether it will happen, I don't know.

Martin (28:26)
Yeah.

Yeah, they've passed law in Scotland,

haven't they? So where

Jonny (28:52)
Yeah,

so in Scotland, there's been been a big change to ensure more access to market. And I think that probably what's happening is, you know, the the English authorities are looking at how that goes much like they did with minimum pricing. Unfortunately, minimum pricing proved nothing, we have no idea whether it's helped or not. hopefully, hopefully, we'll have more success with the with the sort of the guest ale provision up in Scotland.

Martin (29:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, obviously

Jonny (29:18)
you've got access to market, you've got the incredible price rises that have been happening. That means even if you're, you you can be growing as a brewery and making less money, which is a bonkers situation to be in. And then we do have the fact that people are drinking less. know, for years, you know, I've been doing this now for 15 years, eight years full time. And it's always every focus group you go to, you know, the pub show or Northern

restaurant and bar, it's all like people are drinking less, but they're drinking better. It's premiumisation, all of this kind of stuff. you're like, well, I mean, that's fine. That's good. But it's not premiumising to the point where people are weekly spending seven quid on shipping an eight pound a can. You know, that's just not happening. So we have to recognise that something has to give either it's the costs ⁓ or it's loss of breweries, know, the market.

Martin (30:02)
Yeah.

Jonny (30:16)
I fundamentally reject the idea that the market is oversaturated. It's not the number of breweries that's the issue, it's the access to market that is the issue, and it's the price for beer that is the issue. So I guess it's oversaturated in this entirely broken market, but if we fix the market, we can happily sustain two, three, maybe 4,000 healthy, profitable breweries. The will isn't there at the moment.

Martin (30:23)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's very sad. ⁓ The challenges are real and you know, we're doing all we can to make consumers aware of the issues that independent breweries face. ⁓ How it's good to support independent breweries ⁓ and your pub as well your local pub. ⁓ Yeah, just be, be nicer wouldn't it to have a bit more variety in pubs rather than your standard beers that you see.

everywhere on your high street. what's next for you and the craft beer channel? What's your next, your dream project? I know you said you're taking a month off to relax for a bit and, what's your next big project?

Jonny (31:20)
Yeah,

well, I mean, we've still got there's still content coming out. So I edited lots and lots of stuff in advance so that there wouldn't be a break as far as everybody else was concerned. So at the moment, we're running through sort of the directors cuts of our tours of places like Timothy Taylor's and ⁓ Kirkstall and the breweries that we visited for Keep Cask Alive Season 2. So those are still coming out and we're doing something which we haven't done enough ⁓ recently is

We call them under the radar. So we pick a brewery that we don't think gets the love that they deserve. And we do a feature entirely on them just drinking their beers and talking around it. Generally with an eye to later in the year to go and see them. So recently released one about Saint miles of the desert. I think one of the most interesting and talented breweries in the country. We've got two more coming out in the next couple of weeks. And then, so last week, last week? Yeah. Yeah. Oh God. Two weeks ago I was in South Africa. I was in Cape Town.

making films about the beer culture there. So we've got four full documentaries on breweries from there that will be coming out over the summer. And while we've got that sort of bank of content to come out, I'm going to be home brewing. That's the next big thing because that's what people miss the most. So there'll be a Czech Pilsner video in the works. be brewing batch... Well, mean, it's batch two of double decocted, but it's about batch six of Pilsner while I try and get this right.

Martin (32:36)
Yes, we want to see some more home brewing.

Jonny (32:49)
And we're also going to do finally a homebrew version of Now IPA, which was our collaboration with Meantime for our documentary, The Time Is Now, trying to save the British hop farms. So we're going to finally do that in September and I'm going to barrel it. Hopefully I've saying this, I'm committed now it's on record. I'm going to barrel age one version of it with some Brett and make a modern British IPA, the way that it would have tasted, roughly the way it would have tasted in the 1800s.

Martin (33:04)
Yes, I'm record now.

years ago.

Yeah.

Jonny (33:18)
So homebrew and maybe another documentary, but I don't know what yet. But that's why I

Martin (33:22)
And then you can

compare the new age brewing and the old age brewing and see which one's better.

Jonny (33:28)
Well, exactly. Yeah.

I mean, there'll be there'll be almost identical recipe. Just one will have barrel and Brett. ⁓ I've got no idea how. How that will turn out, so it'll be very interesting to see what these new British hops taste like alongside Brett.

Martin (33:41)
Yeah.

What, what hops you have in mind? Olicana , things like that.

Jonny (33:47)
Yeah, so the now IPA was Olicana Jesta Harlequin and Golding's In The Boil. No, no fuggle. So I prefer Golding as a hop, which will shock some people. And I just think it's a better bittering hop. It's a cleaner bittering hop for something where you want the aroma to shine. So if I was making a bitter...

Martin (33:56)
No Fuggles

You

Jonny (34:15)
Fuggle would be in there, but for IPA I'm using Golding. And also Golding is an older hop variety that has more heritage in IPA because Fuggle was only created in the mid 1800s. So if only you'd have gone into the later IPAs. ⁓ So yeah, Golding. And then it's Golden Promise and Chevalier, which was a malt that was around in the 1800s. And I haven't decided on the yeast because we can't get hold of the yeast we used in the documentary because that was a heritage yeast we got out of the deep freeze at the Norwich.

⁓ yeast ⁓ god what they call it basically a museum you go into a deep cryogenic freezer and pluck out vials of yeast bank thank you yep that's the one ⁓ so yeah not sure on the yeast yet but that's roughly the recipe it'll be

Martin (34:51)
Yeast Bank.

Sounds very interesting. I'll have to keep my eyes open for that one. Um, so lastly, you know, for those who have listened and haven't come across the petition yet, I'm sure they don't know why they haven't come across it yet, but what would you say to them? And what, why is it more than just, you know, a beer lovers campaign, give them your best pitch, your dragons den pitch.

Jonny (35:19)
Well, so like I said, the government, they're there who are in the way. So the best thing we can do is talk directly to them through this petition. But, you know, even if you're not a cask ale lover, the reason we're doing this UNESCO campaign is because of how important breweries and pubs are to UK society and UK industry and the UK economy. So, you know, if you think of what a world would look like if there were no pubs, can you think of what a pub would look like if there was no cask? Can you think of...

what your local city would be like with no breweries. That's end of the world kind of scenarios, but this is literally what's happening. We've lost 40 % of our pubs in the last 20 years. We've lost about 400 breweries since COVID. It's absolutely dire and we need to break that cycle of boom and bust that's in the beer industry. And I think that UNESCO recognition is the best way for us to certainly do that for cask ale producers.

Martin (36:14)
Yeah, hundred percent. Do you think there's like a change in, in, ⁓ the pubs, you say a lot of them are closing, but there's also quite a few micro pubs that are popping up. ⁓ do you think there's like a kind of a shift there?

Jonny (36:28)
I mean, definitely pubs have had to shift. They've again, go to all of those focus groups at these events. I do, you know, there's a lot of talk about ⁓ how you make money as a Publican without selling beer is essentially the topic of these, of these talks. So micro pubs are a great way of doing it because you can open a pub for peanuts. And we've seen that we did a mini documentary on it on the ones of Margate.

Martin (36:48)
Yeah.

Jonny (36:54)
⁓ and you get great variety that way, you know, there's some amazing, amazing and unusual micro pubs. ⁓ obviously gastropub is a way to go having great food. People have started integrating bottle shops, ⁓ post offices, ⁓ changing their opening hours. You know, my favorite pub in London doesn't really open on a Friday. I think it closes at 8 PM, but you you go in there. Yeah. But you go in at 11 PM on a Wednesday night and it's absolutely jumping.

Martin (37:16)
Yeah, it's because everyone goes home. Everyone goes home from work on a Friday.

Jonny (37:23)
There's a definite shift in culture, but that's not necessarily ⁓ profitable still. We're still trying to feel our way through it. So we're still working out those shifts in culture and how it's going to come about and how we can start to predict it. ⁓

So yeah, I mean, we'll see how it shakes out. still, I wrote an article actually during COVID about how this would all shake out. And in it I said, we won't know for five or six years because things will take a while to catch up. But I think, you know, we've seen like the recent SIBA beer report said that there was, I think it was a 10 % increase in sales of beer by SIBA members, which is encouraging. hopefully Cask and as a result pubs, because they're intrinsically linked, you can't really drink Cask at home unless your wife lets you attach a beer engine to your coffee table in your home brew.

Martin (38:06)
Yeah.

Jonny (38:10)
So the two are really tied together. So that little rise in independent cast production is very heartening.

Martin (38:15)
Yeah, definitely. Well, Jonny, it's been absolutely a pleasure to have you on the show. And yeah, all the descriptions to the petition for the link for the UNESCO heritage and your craft beer channel and your book will be in the descriptions below. Once again, thanks for joining us.

Jonny (38:34)
No worries. Thanks for having me.

Martin (38:36)
Yeah. Next episode, we'll be talking to Mike, who's the founder of Colbier in Liverpool, who recently just won a best new independent brewery. So we'll be talking to them. So yeah, join us for that one and see you in a couple of weeks. Cheers. Bye bye.