August 2024. Sheffield.
There’s been an “entertaining” debate on CAMRA’s Discourse about deciding which pubs deserve to be in the GBG, and a call for “objective” assessment of beer quality by visiting “experts”.
Let’s see what three “experts” made of a back street Sheffield pub on Tuesday.
You’ll remember the “New” Red Deer from last week, a rather limited selection,
but a week is a long time in beer boards, and in the words of the Spice Girls, three become six.
Still no Plum Porter, but Pride, Iceberg and Shropshire Gold is a decent choice for the three of us.
Isn’t it ? Isn’t it ?
Well, my Fullers has a tinge of diacetyl. I don’t know what that means, but I know it when I meet it.
Will’s Salopian was, quote, “too cold”. I guarantee 10 CAMRA “experts” would have 10 different opinions on optimum temperature, just like opinions on sparklers (yes) and autovacs (treble yes).
Mrs RM’s Titanic was going down well, the star of the night.
Pleasingly, the Red Deer again had a good mix of visitors, but I’ll wait for the good folk of Sheffield CAMRA to pronounce on it’s GBG status
Oh, that’s us.
retiredmartin 
Well, let’s see what it’s like when all those cask ale loving students return in the autumn.
Replacing Black Sheep Best with Asahi London Pride is not a good start, though.
To be fair, my slightly dodgy, end-of-barrel Shropshire Gold was replaced without quibble, which is a definite plus.
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It’s definitely a pub I’d give the benefit of the doubt.
Who’d believe it’s students that will save cask? In Sheffield, anyway
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If it’s Asahi London Pride, shouldn’t it be Venture Capital Black Sheep Best?
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I never liked the “Molson Coors Draught Bass” nonsense from CAMRA, almost as if there’s another Bass somewhere.
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Yes, it’s just silly.
Unless making a point about a brewery you don’t like when it’s had a negative affect on the beer. Then it’s fine. 🙂
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Yes, it’s making a point that the ownership has changed, even if the beer (Bass) is produced in the same location. Childish.
We had excellent Bass in Bath yesterday, again.
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Having never ventured onto the pages of CAMRA Discourse, even when I was a member, I have to ask is this forum a place that wishes to promote positive change, or is it just an echo chamber for those whose views differ from mainstream CAMRA policy – whatever that is, these days?
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The idea is that the scoring offers the wisdom of crowds by averaging out the highs and lows and giving a number that represents a wide range of opinion.
Unfortunately they don’t get the number of scores to be able to do that so they go about “fixing” the scores to get the numbers the active members agree with. This can be ignoring scores from people they think are gaming it or ignoring scores from names they do not recognise that sits outside the range they think “correct” It can mean putting in corrective scores to alter averages.
So rather than be used to inform decisions, they are used to justify decisions.
As you are unknown to many branches that will have received your scores, many will have been binned because you didn’t score in the range they consider correct for that pub. That maybe because you tick on a Tuesday morning when the beer is tired, and they score on a busy Friday night when it is fresher.
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Hey Cookie come to AutoVacLand where I am now.
You can have some of Wednesday night’s beer mixed in with Friday’s and whatever else might fall in.
Too long but read anyway and thanks for a good starter.
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For once, I tend to agree with you, Cookie, having been to a number of GBG selection meetings when I was still interested in CAMRA!
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I always agree with Cookie. Shame he’s so shy and unwilling to speak Truth to Power more often.
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I doubt if that “INDUSTRY 10% DISCOUNT” is the steel industry now.
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