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Party Pooping Scoopers ► Apparently so, though I feel they are in the minority. It's just that the rest
of the world over play the 'hobby', to the point that it is common place for
anyone who likes something new or different to try gets branded a 'ticker',
usually by those who would be happy if all that was available was Tetley's, or
suchlike, in my experience. Have a look at
www.scoopergen.co.uk, run by an
ex-ticker.... there already is a "Tickers Guide to Real Ale" - it's called The
Imbiber. There are also e-mail groups such as Scoopgen [Google again] - and yes
I am a member, but it is useful for information on new breweries, for when we
get approached to supply new and unusual guest beers [and general feedback on
beers in general]. Tickers [or scooper, scratcher etc] wouldn't be seen dead in
a Wetherspoon's [unlike the beer...]. And a number of beer festivals as well, by
all accounts. We have a pub local to us that is renowned as a 'Tickers' pub, the
Strathmore Arms near Hitchin. They have a couple of regular beers [Fuller's and Woodforde's at present], and three never repeated guest beers, nearly always
'new' beers or breweries. But all but a very few pints a week go to the locals
who enjoy a couple of the guests, and then have their regular tipples if nothing
takes their fancy. This is how it seems to work in nearly all other such pubs.
And the festivals? Well they are all well attended, and only a small percentage
of attendees are CAMRA members, so I doubt the true ticker attendance is even
high enough to record statistically. I think that tickers are viewed by many
beer enthusiasts the same way that CAMRA members are stereotyped by the public
at large - a minority issue/interest played up to be a convenient group to
blame/laugh at/look down on etc. Unless you are a brewer of course, and then it
appears that they feel tickers are a reason to exist. Some tickers claim to have
drunk umpteen thousand [10,000 plus...] beers. I am no statistician, but there
are only so many variations on beer recipes, despite all the complexities of
flavour that can be found. ► Thanks for that
informative reply Steve. However, before I have legions of tickers at my pub
baying for my blood, my post was only meant to be tongue in
cheek. I have no grievance against tickers or bottlers. Each to their own, I
say. ► Baaah, just when I was getting excited by your messages Jay, you go and blow it
by 'bottling' it [cheap pun fully intended]. Burn their sideboards, pull their
short and curlies out with a pair of pliers, take a cheese grater to their nads
.... but not "each to their own". Having said that, I've just looked at the
website [www.scoopergen.co.uk] that Steve suggested and it's very funny in
places BUT BUT BUT this is most unusual for a ticker - they are generally
complete social outcasts. Right, I'm off to The Wellington with an oxyacetylene
torch...... ► Where do I sign up to be a ticker? It sounds fun. I have got my anorak from my
trainspotting days [complete with hidden map/note book pocket] but do I need a
thermos and flip flops? ► Ticking beers is just one of a vast number of male autistic gene expressions.
Most males are inclined towards collecting whether it is train or bus numbers to
the more extreme lift and skip numbers. Within the spectrum are stamp and record
collecting, both predominately male occupations. All of these occupations are
seen as anoraky but the average football fan has the same inclination. First you
have to be in the clan by wearing the strip, then you refer to the team as mine,
even though it might be owned by an American or Russian. Then of course you must
know all the players both past and present, who scored when and how many etc,
all their personal life and who is likely to buy them. Personally I cannot
believe that small and microbrewers can brew vast numbers of beer without
resorting to gyle brewing or blending. Most do not have the equipment or the
cash to pay for lots of different ingredients. Brewers like Archer's have as
many as ten different brews on the market at a time. In one pub I visited out of
six beers four came from Archer's. I prefer to try something new but also have
my favourites. ► Thanks for that explanation Dave, it does help me with something I remember
getting quite annoyed about last year while I was working in the catering hall
at Dudley Winter Ales Festival…. I found myself quite irrationally upset by the
behaviour of a bunch of scoopers. These guys populated two large tables in the
food area for the first two days of the festival. They may have been there on
the last day too but I wasn't. They turned up with their own pint glasses and
grubby bags full of plastic bottles and labels. One of group would wander off to
the bar and buy a pint, all would have a taste and the remainder was emptied
into a bottle, labelled and disappeared into the bag; presumably to be shared
with others later. As festivals go we served fairly good food at Dudley Winter
Ales Festival: game pie, generously filled cobs, the local Black Country
speciality gray pays and bacon plus a veggie version of gray pays [those were
the days]. Our scooper friends brought their own food and shamelessly filled
tables that could have been taken by other diners, not moving until last orders
were called when they shuffled off to god knows where. I do recognise my anger
was quite irrational, it's not like they started a fight or anything, although
their over loud conversation was of mind-numbing inanity. But they were so
disengaged with the festival – they could have been anywhere. Though I guess
they could read their bottle labels later to remember where they'd been. Now I
understand this is just another part of alien male behaviour that often causes
me amusement. I like bygone things like steam railways, narrowboats, vintage
buses etc., But whenever I go to a steam festival, waterways event or drop in at
the Transport Museum I always find myself collared by someone [male] informing
me that such and such is not accurate, "Midland Red livery was a darker red than
that" or "you'd never really have got that engine pulling that carriage" I smile
politely but I really don't care and can't imagine why anyone else would. ► Brewers have traditionally used this method of brewing to brew different beers
using the same equipment. There are two methods. 1. When the wort has been
collected and the mash has been sparged you can add more liquor to the mash and
when you run it off you will have a lower gravity brew. This was often called
second runnings and was used for low gravity boys bitter. 2. The more common
method is to mash a high gravity wort and then water it down to suitable
gravities. One brewer who uses this method is Timothy Taylor's [allegedly]. They
mash a high gravity wort and add liquor [water] to make Landlord, add caramel to
make Ram Tam, add more liquor to make Best Bitter, add more liquor to make
Golden Best and add caramel to Golden Best to make Dark Mild. So you get five
different beers from one mash. ► The two methods mentioned by Dave Guest are more common with the bigger
breweries [i.e. national/regional] but some micros also engage in this practice.
They are methods used since time immemorial, and could at least be considered
traditional! The art of high gravity brewing is a common way of getting more
beer in the FV [fermenting vessel] than you can get out of the mash tun or
copper. It is in fact practised by nearly all breweries to some degree, for
reasons of improved output at the larger end, or because it is better to be
slightly high on gravity at the end of the process than too low, which applies
to probably all micros. This latter reason involves only enough 'liquoring back'
(adding brewing water at the end of the process) to reach the required gravity,
and is rarely enough to affect the beer if the brewer has got his water
calculations about right. Remember that without the use of modern process
control, additional enzymes & sugars etc, brewing is not an exact science! This
still of course only produces one beer. To get more than one beer before
fermentation you can use either of the methods described by Dave, though in
reality High Gravity is mostly used to describe the art of Liquoring Back in a
big way - and may explain a thin, dull brew (think of anything?). Of course this
is possible without watering down if the process / recipe is at fault. Dave's
second method is known as 'Parti-Gyling', (Gyle being a brewers term for a
single brew, Quality being used to describe the recipe, ie today's brew is
Quality: Bowel Cruncher; Gyle number: 007). In essence Parti-Gyling needs high
gravity brewing principles to work (ie lots of malt & added sugars etc), and
involves separating the beer at some point, either before or after the boil.
Before the boil is probably the most common, and allows the use of different hop
varieties, additional malt extracts etc to alter the beers. Given that all beer
is mostly pale malt, there is no reason why a stout and an IPA could not brewed
side by side by this method, with the use of suitable extracts in the copper. A
number of national and regional brewers use this method - and indeed probably
have done from the start. Another common method of creating an extra beer is
blending. Again, not a new idea at all, and of course well practised in the wine
and whisky trades. The simplest way of doing this is to use a Racking Tank, a
tank which is used to fill the casks from. You just transfer part of the
contents of two (usually) or more fermenters into the tank, and fill the casks.
This is quite common amongst micro's. This is a method we will be using once we
get our second/third fermenters running - we brew 2 days running, and rack on
the same day (and we are open about beers that are blends). Best done with
completely different recipes otherwise you don't get a suitably 'unique' beer.
The ratios of the beer can of course be varied, we only use 50/50, but for
example most tickers will accept 75/25 as a minimum I believe (oh yes, they have
'rules' you know!). The Duty people have a slight mistrust of blending unless
you can satisfactorily show you have got the ABV of the blend exactly as you
state it to be. Some breweries will blend by decanting from casks, but this
method increases the risks of infection. Blending as a method in breweries
stretches back a long time, and indeed Porter as a style most likely was a
result of blending, as indeed Guinness once was (so it is said). It is of course
possible to use other adjuncts to alter a beer after fermentation, for example
honey, fruit, dark sugars and anything else you fancy (all of which of course
can be used at any time in the process), indeed even vegetables, and (I believe
this has been done) tea bags. The results may be somewhat mixed though in these
latter cases. Kitchen Brewery were renowned for using vegetables.... Now for the
really dodgy stuff, designed to attract scoopers. Dry hopping is a common way of
making one beer into another. We always dry hop, and whilst it is good for the
beer flavour wise, I have yet to seen a big enough difference between hop
varieties to convince me it has a greater effect of flavour than a landlord can
(dry hopping alone though make a big difference, but again, it doesn't make a
new beer IMHO). Some breweries (and even one or two wholesalers) will save
themselves the work, and just change the name of the beer. After all, no-one can
drink all those beers and remember them all, and of course the landlord has an
effect on the flavour, so who will notice? Just how prevalent re-badging is I do
not know - I know it goes on, I know some who blatantly do it, and there is I
believe a scoopers avoid lists of such breweries. The fact it still then happens
proves in my view two things, firstly scoopers/tickers are a very small (but
vocal) bunch with no real effect on the industry, and secondly there are too
many landlords who always insist on something new to sell. Of course House Beers
are often (but not always!) re-badges, some nationally brewed regional beers
were in the 70's/80's, and there are some 'virtual' breweries out there who get
there beer brewed by others, and in one or two cases these are alleged re-badges
of other breweries beers (please note the alleged, I know of one case where this
is claimed falsely). So is it possible to have a massive beer range from a
micro? Say you brew 5 days a week, at approx 20 firkins a go (but brew length,
ie volume, is irrelevant here). You could have 5 beers. By sensible blending
whilst racking you could get maybe another 2 or 3. This gives you 8. The next
week you could do it all again, but with different recipes. You now have 16
beers. But you would have sold some already (I hope), so this figure may come
down. Allow 5-6 weeks max shelf life, and you could soon legitimately build up a
large range of beers. Personally, I have my doubts about this working in
reality, but in theory it can be done. Whilst we were brewing in Leicestershire
we only occasionally did repeated recipes, and after a while I felt we were
running out of options for something distinctively different, bearing in mind
there are approx 40 - 50 hop varieties, many of which are tweaked versions of
others, and around 10 or so malt options, most of which are restricted in terms
of volume used of what a drinkable beer! So there is only a finite number of
recipe options in my view. Add to that the fact that yeast gives a strong
flavour profile (in some cases too strong...), and the water has an impact, and
you can see why some breweries beers may appear to taste the same, yet are in
reality separate recipes/brews. At the end of the day, it is often simpler just
to drink a beer if you like it, regardless of whether it is on it's third name
this month, a watered down version of a stronger beer, or one brewed with hopped
malt extract and enzymes. After all, you probably drove down in re badged or
parti-gyled car, and had rebadged food at lunchtime, and wear a designer sports
that is from the same sweat shop in Manilla as what is sold in Asda but with a
different label. Sorry if I have rambled on, but I am sure something in here
will be of interest! ► This is how sad some tickers are. Leicester CAMRA run survey trips once a month
to visit pubs to check for suitability for the Good Beer Guide following a
recommendation. On one occasion, we were asked to visit an Everard's pub that
had recently been refurbished to the tune of £500,000. On entering, one of our
members walked back to the minibus and sat on it while we were all in the pub on
the grounds that "There's nothing here that I need". We said, have Tiger, he
declined. His loss. I have often driven to my local in the winter and had a pint
and taken two more home in a bottle. It tastes much different in only half an
hour later and a two mile drive home. How the hell these tickers can drink their
beers the next day after dragging it around in a shopping trolley is beyond me.
If any one ever sees me doing this, permission to shoot me is granted. ► That is outrageously sad! So it proves that some tickers aren't even bothered
about having a nice pint, its all about the "collection". Okay - I take back my
comment "each to their own". They are a disgrace to everyone who enjoys a decent
pint. If I see anyone bottling beer from my pub, they will feel the end of my
toe up their arse! If they aren't man enough to drink a pint, then they should
collect ale flavoured 'scratch & sniff' stickers. Then they could mount them in
a nice scrap book and trade them with their mates. Which brings me to another
point - do "bottlers" swap samples with other people? A bit like, trading two
Lampard football cards for a Beckham. If there are any bottlers out there - can
you let us know which ales are the most collectable. ► Well, there is no point drinking just for the sake of it. Although in this case
it is perhaps a bit far. As uninteresting as Everard's may be when compared to
some of the good stuff produced by the micro's of Leicestershire, I have yet to
see a minibus that was more interesting! ► I recall going to a beer festival a few years ago where there was a notice
stating that tickers were not 'welcome', could have even said 'not permitted'.
Not sure where it was, probably Shrewsbury. Taking that one step further, I fail
to see how tickers can rate a beer given they only seem to take a sip, put the
rest into plastic bottles and, presumably share with fellow tickers at some time
later. ► Some years ago I was in the Port'n'Ale when this bloke wondered in at about
10.40pm and ordered a half. He drank it, then on last orders proceeded to order
another selection of beers, all in halves. The barman said he wouldn't be served
because he couldn't possibly drink all that lot, at which point a plastic bag
full of bottles was brandished. Said halves were then decanted into bottles and
put back in the bag. Said bottler then regaled a small group of us with tales of
his day's ticking. It provided a modicum of amusement. ► You've got me really worried as I am a fully paid up "Anorak". I collect to a
more or less degree beermats, bottle labels, pump clips, beer cans, brewery
ephemera, brewery playing cards, crown corks and models of brewery vehicles
[does anyone see a pattern yet?] I also usually drink [complete] half pints.
Does this mean that I am liable to catch the ticker virus? Seriously though, in
the Syd the Scooper cartoons I had always wondered the purpose was of the corked
test tubes in a bandolier. I had hoped that it might be to run a laboratory test
such as chromatography on a sample to log its properties. But to save it for
tasting perhaps several days after is crass!!!!! |
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