Sunday 25 July 2010

Celebrity Brewing Fad?


First we were subjected to the Morrisey Fox brews, now it looks like Guy Ritchie, AKA former Mr Madonna wants to open his own brewery in Wiltshire.
Is brewing suddenly becoming cool? Is the latest celebrity fad to own your own brewery? Is this a good or a bad thing for the industry?
The answer to the first question is no, it's not suddenly cool, it's always been cool even if most people haven't realised it yet!
I don't own a crystal ball so won't predict any more celebrity breweries. But the third question will be a mixture of prediction and personal opinion which any one of us is qualified to answer.
Personally I'm not sure about this one, will a movie producer/director help promote real ale, or help themselves to a quick profit and sell the brewery quickly when they get bored or realise just how much work is involved?
I'd like to think that it will help give the brewing industry a bit of a boost, a bit of 'cool' but I'm also wary that the beer could quite easily be sub-standard and not be taken seriously which in turn do more harm than good, after all he wants to produce beer in it's traditional style apparently, what style is that then? tell me it's not brown and boring please!
There is an instant positive which I can heartily back though and that's the creation of jobs which will always be a good thing and I applaud him for that.
I guess we'll have to wait and see how successful this venture is, I'd like to think more so than the Morrisey Fox one that ended up in them having to sell the pub they took over. Watch this space.

7 comments:

Sid Boggle said...

As a celebrity brewer, you could simply have interviewed yourself for this piece. Tee hee... 8-)

rabidbarfly said...

I'm neither a celebrity nor a brewer, as much as I'd like to be both! ;-p

Cooking Lager said...

I lament the passing of the ex footballer landlord. When footballers used to run a pub in retirement and decorate it with footie tat.

Anonymous said...

@Cooking Lager

Julian (terminator) Dix still does.

Cheers

Matthew

Sat In A Pub said...

As his favourite tipple is Landlord and he has said he prefers "Golden Bitters", I doubt it will be brown.

I think it's quite cool. It all deepends how good a businessman he really is. There was nothing wrong with the beer Morrisey brewed at the pub, but he was/is a terrible businessman. Ritchie is certainly keen-opening a cask pub in NY, but only time will tell if he can deliver.

rabidbarfly said...

@Tyson I hope you're right, I really do, I'm just an old cynic.

Sid Boggle said...

Plenty of cask beer in NYC - some of it not bad at all. Not sure if there's a market for cask-only...