A few evenings ago my TIVO picked up this sympathetic piece from the formerly-nasty Michael Portillo:
Pleasing though it is that our beer history is getting some mass-media, my heart sank a little at one point.
Where?
2 mins 47 seconds.
Why the old-fashioned van? I'm no expert but that van looks 1930s to me. Just what has that got to do with brewing in 2010? OK, the thirties were in Burton's glory years but the brewery concerned is contemporary. I can see that they want to suggest "we revere the tradition we are part of", but isn't it an awkward and unnecessary way of saying it? I might be imagining it, but I think Portillo's laughter is disguising a cringe. I certainly cringed.
It bothers me that the world of cask ale is perennially keen to promote itself to more people yet it doesn't listen to those it wishes to convert. The perception "cask ale is for old men" is still inhibits the unconverted yet brewers still trot out the very "ye olde" cliches that created it.
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