I was entirely unconvinced by the twerps whinging on that the Champion Beer of Britain competition was fixed because Greene King Abbot Ale came second this year. Boak and Bailey have posted on their blog about their experiences judging the CBoB and the title of the post is unambiguous: There’s no conspiracy behind the Champion Beer of Britain.
There's also a secondary conspiracy theory which has been which has been discussed online though: that Greene King didn't send their normal beer to the competition. As I know an ex-Greene King brewer that I think it's fair to say has no great love for the company I figured I might be able to get to the bottom of this one. So I asked them if GK got up to anything with competition beers and the answer came back:
"they didn't do anything different for festival beers when I was there"
Now it's possible things have changed since my friend left the company but why would they? Doing well in the CBoB competition isn't anything new for GK, I can remember GK IPA and XX Mild also doing well (and also similar whinging afterwards!).
I think that's wrapped it up for the CBoB conspiracy theories so if GK could send me the promised money that would be grand ;-)
Well said, Ed. Being a good beer doesn't mean the average drinker will get a good pint of Abbot (let alone IPA) in their average Greene King dining pub or Spoons though.
ReplyDeleteSomeone on my blog suggested the CBOB competition was skewed towards nominations by local branches who prioritised dull brown bitters or similar, but I assumed the judging was done by beer experts.
Abbot's not one I'll seek out but I have had good pints. A memorable one was in a pub in Bury St Edmonds with an ex-GK head brewer and when I said it was good he said he'd only rate it 7/10 as it could be much better!
DeleteI've only judged at regional level but that was done by a combination of CAMRA people and professional brewers.