CityLife

Main event: National Winter Ales Festival 2010

Patsy Slevin of Prospect Brewery

THE pleasure of a well poured pint of real ale is a rare indulgence with a Sunday pub lunch for most of us.

But on January 20, a nicely stocked bar of over 100 real ales will be a reality for anyone who visits the National Winter Ales Festival in Manchester.

The festival is organised by the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) and is an opportunity for the industry to meet up and show off.

Thousands of beer enthusiasts and novices are expected to turn up to the four day event at the show’s new location in the Sheridan Suite at The Venue, Oldham Road, and local group The Road Runners (formerly of Salford Jets and The Alarm) is lined up to entertain the punters.

Many of the beers on tap are created by microbrewers – small craft breweries that produce less than 15,000 barrels of beer a year – and the event is a reminder of the buoyancy the sector is currently enjoying.

Patsy Slevin, 49, who set up Wigan-based Prospect Brewery in 2007 and brings two beers to the festival (Nutty Slack and Pick Axe), says she is still waiting to feel the effects of the global economic downturn.

“Recession?” she asks, “What recession? We won a silver medal in the Society Of Independent Brewers’  National Beer Competition last year and sales have just mushroomed from there.

“You’re never going to be a millionaire running a microbrewery, but it’s about quality of life.

“I’m a great believer in local produce for local people, and there’s nothing but nothing more satisfying than sitting in the corner of a pub watching someone enjoying a pint of your beer.”

Almost three years in, and Patsy remains one of the greatest proponents for being a woman in the microbrewing industry – and she brings a life-long appreciation of the art to her brews.

New beers

“My dad was a great home brewer when I was young,” Patsy remembers. “I’m one of five children and it was always a fight for who got to suck the siphon and get that little taste of beer.

“I’ve always loved food and cooking and beer and my husband casually mentioned one night that he’d always loved the idea of running a brewery.

“We set up in my mother-in-law’s garage so I could also be mum’s carer. We had a casual attitude to it – my husband would say, ‘If you want to brew, brew’; there was no pressure.

“I always said I would control it and not it control me. It still doesn’t control me but the balance has tipped a bit!”

Microbrewers have got a lot to celebrate; most are seeing big increases in sales, despite huge international hikes in the price of hops and heavy rises in beer duty during the Noughties.

Tony Hulme, 59, founder of Glossop’s Howard Town brewery, says microbreweries can hit the ground running because ale drinkers are fascinated by new beers.

His own love affair with the industry begin in a ‘dingy’ basement site in Howard Town Mill, where he ran his first brewery for a year before the mill was tragically burnt down.

Howard Town shifted to a new site, still in Glossop, and he and business partner Les Dove now brew five regular beers – two of which they bring to the festival: Monk’s Gold and Dark Peak.

His High Peak beers are now available in freehouses from Preston to Nottingham, with some even finding their way up to Edinburgh and out to the Isle of Wight.

And he’s not taken his eye off the home market either. In last week’s snowy conditions, Tony was rolling barrels down the hill to the local pub company house at the bottom so it didn’t run dry.

Hot topic

The festival, though, is a way to build on that reputation nationally. “It’s a showcase for the industry,” says Tony, “an opportunity for brewers small and large to get together and chat to each other.

“But the most important thing in the prohibitive climate currently around alcohol is the fact that thousands of people can get together and have a drink without causing any trouble.”

Getting people drinking at a time like this, he says, isn’t a problem. The real hot topic is beer duty, which Tony says is doubling the cost of production.

Along with the rising price of hops, which has increased three-fold in the last year because of poor weather and crop growth, the industry is feeling a big pitch at the bottom line.

“We pay about £13 a cask in duty,” says Tony, “which is about a quarter of the sale price and as much as it costs us to make a cask of beer.

“But it seems to be that the worse the economic climate gets, the more people want to drink. The microbrewery sector is consistently producing quality beer with more care put into it than most production breweries can give and people appreciate that.”

Patsy Slevin agrees. “I think we should pay duty on beer,” she says, “but it’s desperately unfair to charge it at the current rate.”

Their position is supported by CAMRA, which has written to the Chancellor asking him to fund a reduction in beer duty and a zero rate for some lower alcohol ales following the return of the rate of VAT to 17.5 per cent.

Event organiser Graham Donning says CAMRA is generally in celebratory mood, though, ahead of the biggest winter ales event in the country.

“After the great year the real ale industry has had,” said Graham, “we’re really looking forward to people coming to the festival ready to try beers for the first time and learn more about the delights of our national drink.

“We always endeavour to find a beer to suit everyone’s taste, and we hope people will enjoy the new venue we have moved to.”

The National Winter Ales Festival 2010 is at The Venue (Sheridan Suite), Oldham Road, from January 20 to 23. Opening hours: Wednesday 20, 5pm-10.30pm; Thursday 21 to Saturday 23, 12noon-10.30pm. Entry is from £2-£5 (£1 concessions Wed/Thurs, free for CAMRA members Thursday before 4pm).