That’s a rather spurious comment Oakes. Real ale refers to the way beer is produced and served rather than a specific style, as you know.
What we really don’t need is an American distributor with vested interests in certain brands of lambic taking producers he doesn’t distribute for to task over their beers. By all means write he should about lambic if he wants, but what about calling Girardin and Hanssens only ‘somewhat’ traditional and Boon not mentioned as a traditional producer at all? No mention either that there are people within Belgian brewing who aren’t exactly taken with Cantillon and won’t stock the stuff. I don’t think I even need to mention anything about his range of British beers.
You know, I’m not even saying that Shelton would actually slam other beers to boost the sales of his own, but when it’s your job to promote a specific narrow range of beers there is no way you can objectively write about what’s good and what’s not.
Oh, and Brussels is quite capable of enforcing their own standards on naming of regional specific products, they certainly know how to enforce it on the rest of the continent.
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This is starting to look like OT-M
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Since we are in the business in rejecting anything not made in a totally traditional way, why does the Shelton Brothers website class the nasty pasteurised bitters they sell as cask ales?
I like the irony of that.
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Shelton states: "One or two of the beers of Girardin and Hanssens are, well, mostly traditional."
What exactly does he mean? How are Girardin and Hanssen’s "mostly traditional"? Hanssens Oude Kriek seems to have become a bit sweeter as of late, but is it sweetened? Perhaps Hanssens is "mostly traditional" because they do not brew the beer themselves?
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He did list De Cam as traditional even though they are strictly blenders.
cheerio,
Kevin
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So?
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I think you’ll read something from Dan re: pasteurization of Girardin if I recall some older BBB postings, and the Hanssen’s issue may be sweetening, as it is (for Dan anyway) with Boon.
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I said this in reference to this part of Jeff’s comment:
Perhaps Hanssens is "mostly traditional" because they do not brew the beer themselves?
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One question: What if you do all the aging and blending, but the beer is brewed off premise? Are you still to be considered traditional?
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Wouldn’t that be De Cam? I think Dan’s answer would be completely yes.
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