Skip to main content

Beauty and the World Wide Beast


I’ve written briefly about my localist of local micro-breweries before – the Millstone Brewery, Mossley. I have ranked them in my top 3 favourite breweries for nearly 7 years and have enjoyed their great beers, mainly locally, without deeper thought in all this time.

But, something changed the other day. I was in Stalybridge Buffet Bar and had a pint of Millstone’s famed Tiger Rut and it was, as they say, on terrific form. Light but full of flavour, a fresh melon-like aroma, a great hoppy hit with a satisfyingly bitter aftertaste, everything I’ve grown accustomed to in the years past. The only difference was my natural reaction to this delicious beer was to reach for my phone. Why? Well any users of Twitter probably know.

There’s nothing wrong with Twitter. I love Twitter. I love having a little beery community to share my thoughts/rants with about beer, rather than drilling into the brain cells of my lager obsessed Gump friends. And I’ve certainly no problem with breweries using social media as an advertising tool. Brewing is business after all. But when did this become my natural reaction to drinking beer?

There are some newish breweries who have played the social media game well. Without resorting to slander, I’ll just say that certain beer makers have certainly become over-hyped amongst certain beer folk simply because they have a highly active Twitter account. They’ve used it to great advantage, knowing that conversing with their followers, and even giving them that committed follow back, will helpfully increase their beer sales as people scramble to be the first to sup their brews and practically scream out “RETWEET ME! RETWEET ME!”

I still maintain that the hunt for beer is part of the enjoyment and it is part of the reason why I don’t make orders directly from breweries. Dare I ask, what’s the point? When a brewery, who’s beers I love, tweet the world to announce they’ve a great new beer out my reaction is “Brilliant, I’ll keep a look out for it,” and then I get that great thrill upon finding it and trying it. And preferably this will happen IN A PUB, seeing as that is who we are supposed to be supporting.  My reaction is never “Great, I’ll order some from your online shop, then I know I get to try it, in front of my fireplace, and can tweet you all about it.” This is why Twitter has created a playground effect in some areas. This idea that “Oh haven’t you tried that beer yet? I tried it the day it came out,” as if I’m from the family who couldn’t afford Kickers so had to have US Brass shoes instead.  

Millstone Brewery doesn’t have a Twitter account and, on the aforementioned day, I was disappointed that I couldn’t tell them how much I was enjoying their Tiger Rut. But Millstone is, with the greatest of respect, an unambitious company. They explained, at a recent Meet the Brewer event, that they have no plans to expand, despite showing terrific sales in the establishments they do provide to and are returning to more traditional brews, despite the fact that they have been consistently making very hoppy and delicious beers that some of these newbie brewers could only dream of.

Their seeming lack of ambition frustrates me. I’d love to become their marketing executive and I’m sure I could double sales overnight if I was. But they are clearly happy with the position they are in, and my hat comes clear from my head to that, even with slight reservation. They’ve done fine without the aid of the World Wide Web so why should that change now? Maybe next time I enjoy a beer I’ll keep my phone firmly in my pocket. And maybe next time I write a shared blog, and then advertise it through Twitter, it won’t be filled with such blatant hypocrisy.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"They Had Their Issues, So..."

      There’s a set of garages to rent as storage units near my workplace. One of them is taken by a local florist that uses it to store flower arrangements for various events, that are more often than not funerals.   As such, at least once a week at 8am I will pass a car being loaded up with flowers arranged into heart shaped patterns or the letters M U M. It is a grounding reminder that, as I mentally grumble my way through the upcoming arbitrary grievances of my ordinary working day, a group of family and friends locally is going through the hardest time. It provides much needed perspective on days when I could do with being reminded of all that I have to be thankful for.   These little moments explain to me why it is possible for us to share a communal loss when a celebrity passes away. Grief is often a personal and lonely experience, shared between a minority of people in your life. When a co-worker loses a relative or friend, it has little affect on me, bar signing of
Post a Comment
Read more

The Ten Pubs That Made Me - Part 3: Dr Okell's / My Foley's Tap House and Leeds

A pint in Mr Foley's Tap House from December 2022     This is Part 3 (the fourth post) of an ongoing project. Please see the beginning of Part 0 for details.    Come the end of this journey, there may be a lesson in procrastination that I am unlikely to heed. These posts stem from a list that I made three years ago and a series that I embarked on 18 months ago. We’ve only now reached a 30% completion rate and with this post we are back to fail for the second time.   This odyssey began with a trip to Mr Foley’s Tap House in February 2022 – named Dr Okell’s bar on my first visits in 2005 – only to discover that it was closed. It did reopen by the time that the post was coming out and I managed a brief visit in December 2022. However, my July 1 st 2023 trip to Leeds, on which this post is based, is met with this sign at the door of the bar:      A quick check of social media shows an Instagram post from the day before (June 30 th ) announcing the closure of the
Post a Comment
Read more

LIVERPOOL - the City that Craft Beer Forgot Part II (and found...)

After visiting Liverpool, one of my favourite cities, in February this year, and not impressing people with my rather hasty but honest verdict on the city’s lack of craft beer, I jumped at the chance to return last week and hoped to come out with a more attractive judgement. A couple of friends and I visited on a day out, with neither of them having been drinking in the city before. It was left to me – or rather, I volunteered – to plan the day’s itinerary and places to visit. I had a couple of new or unvisited places in mind myself, but knew it would be unfair to miss out on some of the city’s famous gems. With around 10-12 hours in which to fit in an entire city, I opted to concentrate on the famous Georgian Quarter and see if we had time for the Dale Street end later on.    We planned to arrive in the city for around 11a.m. just in time to walk up Mount Pleasant to the new-on-me, though I believe it has been opened three years, Clove Hitch on Hope Street for breakfast.
Post a Comment
Read more