What is it about Birmingham and Carling?

Whilst nationally we are enjoying a much-publicised renaissance of real ale and this is certainly true in Birmingham, when leaving the comfort zone of real ale pubs, Carling is King.
 
It is so easy to sit in a Good Beer Guide pub, to see the ale flowing from the shiny handpulls and assume that all is well with the real ale world.
 
The City Centre has real ale available in most pubs, the range of ale in Birmingham is better than ever before but move out to the suburbs and with a few exceptions keg beer is the norm.
 
We understand that Wetherspoon’s have de-listed Carling as a preferred lager around the country with the exception of the West Midlands. Why is this so?
 
Whenever we write anything about the development of pubs or beer in Birmingham or the West Midlands we always claim to be an exception.  This is due to two main factors, ‘The Birmingham Scheme’ and the dominant power of local brewer Mitchell’s and Butlers.
 
During the 19th Century Birmingham was awash with hundreds of back street alehouses, which were often unruly and sometimes totally squalid.  In the early 1900’s the City Council and the Licensing Magistrates, who were famously dominated by the Quakers, decided to tackle the problem of these mainly unregulated ale houses and so the ‘Birmingham Scheme’ came about.
 
The idea of the scheme was that in exchange for closing a number of theses undesirable outlets the brewers would be granted a licence to open a “super pub.”  An early example of this was the Barton’s Arms at Aston, which, with no expense spared, opened its doors in 1901 to reveal the most unprecedented opulence.
 
Birmingham, the City of 1000 Trades went through a period of vast expansion into the suburbs with the creation of areas such as Kingstanding, Weoley Castle and Tile Cross.  Each of the new areas were served by a new breed of pub – the ‘reformed’ pub.  Built on a huge scale with several large bars, function rooms, bowling greens, car parks and pleasure gardens these would have been the pride of Birmingham.
 
Mitchell’s and Butlers built the lion’s share of these pubs.  The merger of Henry Mitchell and William Butler created the brewery M & B in 1898.  With a period of aggressive expansion M & B acquired many local breweries to make them the most powerful and dominant brewery in the region.
 
In the 1960’s a revolution began with the introduction of keg beer.  The big brewers were quick to embrace this new type of beer, which was filtered, pasteurised and kept in a sealed container under pressure.  Wastage was reduced; it could be mass-produced and didn’t need the experience or commitment of looking after traditional ale.  The fact that it was fizzy and either totally bland or tasted metallic never seemed to enter the equation.
 
It was also in the sixties that we saw the mass introduction of ‘Lager’. Traditionally the word lager meant to store, which is how the fine beers of Czechoslovakia, Germany and Belgium were produced.
 
Mitchell’s and Butlers who had been taken over by the Bass Charrington Empire had Carling Black Label as their house lager.  This was, for many years, brewed under license from Carling O’Keefe of Canada and bore no resemblance to the Eastern European blonde beers.

A very early Carling dripmat

Lager, as with keg beers was mass produced and needed to be mass advertised to satisfy the new mega-breweries that had been formed through takeovers where well loved local breweries were swallowed up and closed.  The ubiquitous keg beers and lagers were foisted on to the British pub goers as traditional cask ales and handpulls
 by the thousand were ripped out of pubs.
 
The dominance of M & B ensured that there were countless outlets for Carling Black Label in Birmingham.  For the last 40 years endless millions of pounds have been spent promoting the product as the ‘must drink’ lager. Most of the advertising has been excellent and some of the campaigns have been legendary.  If only the product lived up to the hype.
 
Carling, as it is now known (having dropped the Black Label bit some years ago), is consumed in vast quantities by the majority of Birmingham’s pub goers. Is this because of the quality, the subtle flavour, the pleasing texture (hic), or it’s traditional heritage?  Or could it be down to those numerous, clever adverts from the half naked hunk in the launderette to the Dambusters and intrepid Arctic explorers?  Many of us have enjoyed the adverts for what they are but many millions have bought into the global brewers dream of mass produced fizz rather than the excellent quality of traditional cask ale.
 
In Birmingham the word lager has almost been replaced by ‘Carling’ in much the same way that most people refer to a vacuum cleaner as a ‘Hoover’ and a ballpoint pen as a ‘Biro’.
 
Let us hope that with the resurgence of real ale and particularly with some of the superb pale and blonde ales now available, the brainwashed generation may just realise there is something much, much better out there – even if they’ve never seen it on the telly!      

By Nigel Barker