With the Sussex Beer & Cider Festival hitting Hove this month (see News, page 4) we caught up with Miles Jenner, Harveys’ Head Brewer, to talk about the Campaign For Real Ale’s gradual move into the mainstream.

Nick Coquet: Real ale sales have increased over the last year…

Miles Jenner: I think in a declining beer market the real ale sector is taking more of a proportion of it, yes.

NC: And real ale isn’t just down to the independence of the brewery.

MJ: No, it’s defined by CAMRA as a beer where yeast feeds on the residual sugars in the cask to produce an evolution of CO2 naturally to condition the beer. It’s a live product that undergoes what we call secondary fermentation in the cask.

NC: So there’s a distinct difference between that and something like John Smith’s.

MJ: Well, John Smith’s is a very good keg product where they filter the yeast out and it’s carbonated, served as a light beer, but it’s not a living product.

NC: The CAMRA Save Our Pubs campaign has never been more timely.

MJ: No, there’s certainly a tremendous amount of problems out there, people are struggling in many instances, particularly in country pubs. I think there’s a very real need to put the pub back at the centre of the community once more.

NC: I suppose the proliferation of chain pubs has had an effect.

MJ: Where pub companies have put a range of beers in, with independent brewers a lot of our business is free trade customers where we’re one beer on a bar with a number of others; that makes up a good 85% of our custom. For the remainder, we own 48 pubs and our tenants buy from our range of beers.

NC: So it’s not a closed shop from the chains, just stocking national brands?

MJ: No, no. Some of the chains do buy cask ales from independent brewers.

NC: The Sussex Beer & Cider Festival seems a good way to get the message across…

MJ: Yes, the Sussex Bar there shows the great range and diversity of cask conditioned beers available, it demonstrates the essence of local beer. With a cask-conditioned beer, a real ale, there’s quite a short shelf life about eight weeks from the time it’s put into casks to consumption, probably less than that. Traditionally beers have always been served with local brewers supplying within a certain radius of their brewery, it’s a very environmentally sound principle to work on, working within a small area rather than sending beers up and down the country. It’s very much about providing niche products within a local market.

NC: It must be frustrating seeing so much lager emphasis in the beer market, especially with younger drinkers forming long-term preferences…

MJ: Our experience is that the lager market is declining at the moment and real ale is in the ascendancy. I think that was true certainly, that young people would start on lagers, I’m not so sure it’s still the case. An increasingly large number of young responsible drinkers enjoy cask ale as a niche product and it’s something that’s no longer considered old fashioned.

NC: Would that old fashioned view have been down to the clichéd stuffy image of real ale drinkers; all beards and jumpers?

MJ: I don’t think so really, I think each generation just rejects the choices of the previous generation. I think it’s come into its own now. The alco-pop generation has largely gone now, it’s a far more sensitive and appreciative element of youth that are looking at cask beer. CAMRA in its early day was a campaigning body with tremendous success, I think it’s viewed as being a very well established, well respected pressure group now.

Sussex Beer & Cider Festival at Hove Centre, from Thursday 11th to Saturday 13th

Words by Nick Coquet