John Keeling has seen how the adoption of technology can improve beer, but also remove its ability to excite and surprise. Here, he tells us why it’s important to embrace development but be mindful that natural batch to batch variation in a biological product is something to be delighted in, not derided.

During lockdown I have had more opportunities to listen to music and to read books. One of the books I have managed to catch up with was Pete Brown’s latest – Craft: An Argument: Why the term ‘Craft Beer’ is completely undefinable, hopelessly misunderstood and absolutely essential.

If you have not read this then I suggest you do as it seeks to answer some important questions. Reading this book made me think, it definitely helped me to begin to crystallise my thoughts on the craft beer movement.

Early in my career I worked for a big company in the form of Watney’s. I left them to go to university to study brewing and then, when I left university, I went looking for a job.

I didn’t know which company I wanted to work for, but I did know I didn’t want to work for a big company. I did not like the way they managed people or the way they managed the brewing of beer.

So, what about these companies didn’t the young John Keeling like?

Well, they seemed to manage by formula and brew beer by formula. What drove them was how to use science to make beer cheaper, not better.

They liked to put people into boxes and that proved very difficult to get out of that box, they liked their management to have university degrees and fit their template. All this was fair enough, after all it’s their company. But this was not for me. I like to bend and break rules.

I was lucky enough to get a job at Fuller’s. Lucky, because this was a great time to join them. They had just started to reinvest in their brewery and they were led by progressive directors.

In particular my boss, Reg Drury, the brewing director was very progressive in his use of science and technology.

We were the first or amongst the first to use centrifuges, to use conical fermenters in ale fermentation, and to invest in a QC laboratory. The first major project I led was to use computer control in fermentation.

We used science to improve our quality and consistency, not to reduce our costs. Yes, the adoption of new technology frequently did reduce our costs, as it certainly reduced our wastage.

“The natural batch to batch variation in a biological product is something to be delighted in, that is its character.”

However, this was not our primary aim. We also recognised there was something about the character and flavour of our beer which made it unique. We certainly did not want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

In marketing terms, you could say we had a USP. When I joined Fuller’s in 1981, they brewed about 70,000 barrels and owned 90 pubs.

Fuller’s were indeed known as a small brewery. When I left them in 2018, we owned about 400 pubs and brewed 210,000 barrels of beer. So, this philosophy clearly worked.

We had used science and technology to drive our quality and consistency. The big brewers had driven their consistency but whereas we had maintained our flavour and character, they had sacrificed this on the altar of cost and consistency.

I remember back in my Watney Brewery days doing shelf life tests on bottled beers. At the end of their shelf life I had to do a haze check on those beers.

If the beer was in range then the beer was good. The beer, however, was not tasted. Tasting and flavour was too difficult and time consuming to be measured.

So, flavour was ignored. What could not be measured was ignored, haze could be measured easily and simply so that became the test.

Things have of course changed since those days. We have had the rise of craft and the big brewers have responded to this and are now producing interesting beers as well. So, all seems well or does it?

Science and technology are always developing. What happens if we use this science to make beer so consistent it loses the ability to surprise and delight us.

In other words, a beer so high on quality and consistency it becomes entirely predictable and boring because of that. I think that this is a temptation that is so easy to fall into.

“I also think that craft beer is more a philosophy rather than how you physically make beer.”

I have always thought that great beer is where the quality and consistency is in balance with the flavour and character. I also think that craft beer is more a philosophy rather than how you physically make beer.

To be true to that philosophy your beer should always be interesting.

So, as craft beer increasingly adopts the new science and technology of brewing don’t let that mean that your beer is now in a box and no matter where you drink it or when, it is the same.

The natural batch to batch variation in a biological product is something to be delighted in, that is its character. If you lose that from your beer it not only does it cease to be great. but it is no longer craft either.

Oh, and another thing…

If you want your beer to have character then its best to employ characters to make it. Try not to hire boring brewers.

Accountants can be boring but not brewers.