WHY REAL ALE?

Club Mirror asks NICK BYRAM, manager of the Dartford Working Men’s Club - the winner of Cask Club of the Year - why get involved in real ale?

1. Why did you decide to get involved with real ale?
Clubs tend to enjoy a reputation for cheap beer, but not necessarily quality beer. Real ale is a quality product and its appreciation is underscored by statistics frequently showing that in a generally shrinking beer market, real ale sales enjoy a steady increase. Our membership figures and club turnover have reflected this trend, attracting a new sector of members interested in a wide and regularly changing range of real ales.

2. What was the first step you took in terms of serving real ale?
In the beginning we started with one hand pump and struggled to sell one firkin of real ale a week. At first it was a real toil, but we persevered and slowly interest was aroused and sales increased. A further boost for serving more real ale was when Dartford Folk Club started to use our function room for their meetings on Tuesday nights

3. How did you decide on which ales to sell?
Initially we started with mainstream beers because they were a ‘known quantity’, usually supported by national advertising, and, therefore, familiar to our members. I also tended to go for stronger ales to stand them apart from the top pressure and cream flow bitters. Stronger ales also tended to stay in top condition longer because of the higher alcohol content.

 4. What advice did you seek on the subject?
Some of our members and folk club members also belonged to CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale, and regularly attended beer festivals and, therefore, tasted many different types of ale from small independent breweries. This knowledge they were only too glad to pass on to me, and I was only too glad to listen and accept their recommendations.

5. Did you attend any real ale appreciation courses?
Only at the university of life, aka Dartford Working Men’s Club.

6. What was your greatest worry about serving real ale?
Possibly that it wouldn’t sell, particularly to our long standing members who had become used to drinking brewery conditioned beers, lagers and ‘smooth beers’. Turnover of real ales grew steadily until they now account for the significant majority of our beer sales, winning over many converts.

7. How did you develop your knowledge of real ale brands?
Through networking with brewers, beer distributors, fellow licensees and fellow lovers of real ale. This acquired knowledge enabled me to personally organise and manage six annual beer festivals in Dartford Central Park, offering up to 150 beers, and subsequent seasonal festivals in the club where up to 30 ales have been available.

8. Is there any secret to the range of ales you have on offer?
Good cellarmanship is essential to successfully selling real ale, which is a living product, whether you are only serving just one ale, or up to 15 as we regularly do at DWMC. Quality needs to be monitored, cleanliness needs to be scrupulous, staff need to have product knowledge and we listen to our members.

9. Explain the make-up of your real ale offering in terms of abv strengths and beer styles.
In 2009 we served over 470 different real ales in DWMC. This wasn’t a random choice.
Firstly, seasonality can influence ale choice. Brewers offer beers to suit the seasons; darker, stronger beers in the winter, lighter and refreshing beers in the summer, with beers for Easter, Halloween, bonfire night, St George’s and St Patrick’s days, and so on.
Secondly, we try to ensure that we offer a balanced range of strengths and styles to suit all tastes, which we can do successfully having fifteen hand pumps at our disposal, and beers on gravity straight from the cellar if necessary.

10. If you could start over, what would you do differently?
I don’t think we did much wrong from the outset. Beer range, product knowledge, the number of hand pumps and sales grew hand-in-hand incrementally and, therefore, underpins our success story. I would like to install our own micro-brewery, not only to increase choice further, but to offer a quality product at a budget price, in these times of rising costs. real ale has been our brewing heritage in the past, and looks certainly to be a part of our successful future.