After nearly 10 years of focusing on brewery conditioned and bottled beers, London based Meantime Brewing have finally taken the plunge and entered the cask ale market. London Pale Ale, 4.3%, (rated one of the ‘World’s 50 Best Beers’ at the 2007 International Beer Challenge), is the first Meantime beer to be continuously available in cask fashion. Being Meantime, however, this is not a straightforward cask ale. The essence of the Meantime philosophy is the belief that maturation is the key to quality. Consequently, all Meantime beers are always subject to at least 28 days brewery conditioning. So, unlike most cask ales, which are young beers by historic brewing standards, London Pale Ale is fully matured before it is racked. It is then re-conditioned in cask.
Elaborating on Meantime’s decision to enter the cask market Alastair Hook the brewer said; “A number of changes in the market have shown us that the time is now right for Meantime to add cask to its portfolio. Until recently there was very little free trade in London, this is changing. SIBA Direct Delivery Service, the changing attitudes of pub companies, plus the sale of pubs are all helping by bringing a broader range of beers to the consumer. In addition Youngs’ shameful abandonment of London and Londoners has created a space for beers with genuine London provenance.
I make no excuses for using large chunks of the press release here, but one or two interesting points emerge. One is the "go" at Youngs' which is pretty direct and the other is the point that some of us have been saying for years, that until recently there was very little free trade in London. I reckon Meantime could be on a winner here. Their beers have quality and they have judged that to appeal to Londoner's to support a local brewery is a winning marketing strategy.
In a capital city that is waking up slowly to the potential of quality and choice in beer, they are hopefully right. I look forward to seeing how it pans out.
A bit of a CV. Tandleman is a veteran beer lover, local CAMRA Chairman and activist, beer writer, beer reviewer and pursuer of all things good in beer. He lives in the North West of England and London. Despite his CAMRA membership, he does not limit himself to cask conditioned beer, though he believes that cask conditioning, when done correctly and appropriately, brings a quality to beer that is hard to equal by any other kind of presentation. He is a strong supporter of Northern methods of beer dispense and avidly detests poorly presented beer and dislikes pasteurisation. He regularly visits Germany, has conducted corporate British and German beer tastings for CAMRA at the Great British Beer Festival where he has worked for years on Biere Sans Frontieres and was Deputy Organiser at CAMRA's very successful National Winter Ales Festival in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 and at the Manchester Beer and Cider Festival from 2013 to date. He admires good brewers wherever they are and has travelled extensively in pursuit of good beer to drink.
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