‘I’ll drink in an upholstered sewer if the beer is good’ - real ale expert speaks ahead of Preston pub fest

This month, the Preston Pub Festival promises to bring a “one of a kind” experience for ale enthusiasts everywhere – but what makes the perfect pint?

According to one expert: “It’s all about beer, the quality, the range, and the passion. My friend once told me, ‘I’ll drink in an upholstered sewer if the beer is good’.”

Adrian Smith, 71, is the current chairman of the Central Lancashire branch of CAMRA, which stands for the Campaign for Real Ale.

Since 1971, the organisation has campaigned to protect pubs and breweries from closure while preserving their historical character, all while promoting only the best in real ale.

“It all started in the early seventies, and it was very different to how it is now,” Adrian said. “Four guys were away on holiday somewhere and they were all sat around a table complaining about how bad the beer was.

“In the seventies, there were six major brewing companies in Britain brewing 95 per cent of the beer that was drunk. If you lived in certain parts of the county, it was difficult to get decent beer; big breweries didn’t brew very much, and cask beer was thrown onto the bar without much in the way of knowledge of how it operated.

“Easy to keep, easy to serve, and cheap to brew – and consequently, it tasted like dishwater. That was when CAMRA began.”

Since its launch, CAMRA has established its own ‘National Beer Scoring System’, which rates the quality of drinks through the reviews of their volunteers.

An ‘excellent’ beer is “exceptional […] with fantastic aromas, flavours, and ideal carbonation”, and may encourage the drinker to share with friends and compliment the cellar manager.

An ‘undrinkable’ beer, meanwhile, may send the drinker demanding it be taken off the bill entirely.

“We’ve got The Good Beer Guide coming out in three weeks’ time, and it will list 4,500 pubs nationwide based on scores provided by our members on the quality of the beer. Not whether they like the taste of the particular brew, but of how well it’s kept.

“Some breweries out there are excellent, and the beers they produce are wonderful. Some of them are okay. And then there’s the old saying that you can’t turn a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

“There are lots of things that go into how we rate pubs. The knowledge of the people who run it, their knowledge of beer and how they present the product, the atmosphere, the attitude of the staff, cleanliness, the nature of the building, the furnishings - what we would call the ‘wow factor’. Do you walk in the pub and think this is something special?

“In 1973 I turned 18, and started to go into pubs and drink legally. I knew nothing about real ale. And one day I discovered a pub that had a hand pump on the bar, and I was astonished about how different it tasted, how full of body and character and flavour it had compared to everything else I’d haduntil then.

“Back then it was relatively cheap. At the pub around the corner in the City of London, it was 16p a pint. It’s a lot more expensive now.”

In August, the Office for National Statistics revealed that the average price of a pint in the UK had risen to £4.83, more than double the cost in 2005 (£2.36).

Prices have risen by about 36 per cent – or £1.50 – every four years, despite overall inflation averaging at 16 per cent.

It comes as the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) found that nearly two pubs a day had been forced to shut in the UK within the first three months of this year.

In all, 161 pubs were forced to close their doors due to spiralling business costs, despite a 20 per cent cut to business rates from the government.

Speaking to the Lancashire Evening Post in August, one pub in Preston said the hidden costs of running a business – such as TV packages – were “bleeding pubs dry”.

“If you said at the moment that pubs were caught in a perfect storm, you wouldn’t be far wrong,” Adrian said. “Over the last couple of years you’ve had the budget, increased National Insurance contributions, the highest utility bills we’ve ever had, and the highest cost of electricity in Europe.

“By the time someone has bought a barrel of beer and they’ve paid the duty and added the costs for a couple of overheads, after they’ve added VAT on top of that, by the time they’re selling it, they’re making about 12p a pint.

“A lot of licensees are putting in 70, 80 hours a week, and still not taking home minimum wage. And something that’s brewery-owned or co-owned can find it hard to do well because there is normally a restriction on what they can sell.

“The thing with CAMRA is that there really is two sides to it. The headquarters of CAMRA is very much a political organisation, trying to put pressure on the Government to relax brewery ties and influence taxation.

“At a local level, we’re very much more about interaction with local breweries, promoting them, and letting people know what’s going on in the industry.”

However, despite issues facing pubs and bars being more acute than ever, Adrian said he felt events like the Preston Pub Festival could be a reason for hope.

“This is the sort of thing that’s becoming much more common: pubs in town getting together and, instead of seeing each other as competition, working together to promote what they have to maximise the outcome of the event.

“From what I’ve seen of what’s happening in Preston in a couple of weeks’ time, there certainly seems a lot of interesting things planned. I’m looking forward to it.”

The Preston Pub Festival will feature 11 historic and modern pubs across the town centre, and aims to honour Preston’s nightlife heritage.

It promises a wide selection of cask, craft, and keg beers, alongside ciders, wines, and various spirits across the weekend – some of which will be available for a limited time only.

The festival will kick off between Friday, September 18 to Sunday, September 20.

More information is available on the organisation’s website.