Good Beer Guide 2022 - physical or digital?

 

I’m not going to write another piece exposing the crooked thinking behind the government’s ever-changing Coronavirus strategy, as that would just be too painful for words. So, what do I write about, especially as there’s not been much happening locally, on the beer and pub front -  at least as far as I'm concerned.

Work has been pretty manic, as following the dramatic fall-off in orders at the start of lock-down, things have swung back the other way, with sales flooding back in like there’s no tomorrow.  I’ve been heavily involved in a major risk assessment, with a couple of my management colleagues, as the plan is to bring the entire workforce back on site, in a phased return, starting from next week.

We’ve made the appropriate changes, and are now as satisfied as we can be that by following the guidelines set out by the HSE, our workforce, many of whom have been on revolving furlough since the end of March, will be returning to an environment that provides a safe and Covid-secure environment.

The fact that our return to work plan has come at a time when infection rates are rising, is not the most encouraging of news, although cases in much of Kent are way below the national average at the moment. We shall see, but as I’ve said before, all work and no play does make Paul a rather dull and very grumpy boy!

This leads me to reference a debate that I partially sparked off on the WhatsApp Beer Socials Group I belong to. The thread was given our illustrious leader has predicted another six months of "nanny-state" imposed misery, will there be sufficient time to prepare the 2022 Good Beer Guide?

“Plenty of time,” said one optimist. “Don’t be so hasty,” said I, and went on to detail the time-frame that goes into the preparation for each years’ edition. Members are normally contacted prior to Christmas and ask to nominate pubs for possible inclusion in the guide. This is normally done by email, so no problem there.

Once all nominations are received, members are invited to survey all the prospective entries, filling in those tedious GBG survey forms that I’m so glad I’ll never have to look at, ever again! Surveying can still go ahead, although limited or restricted opening times must be taken into account. This will take place against a background of will pubs be forced to close once more, or will our increasingly hapless Prime Minister have the good sense to keep them open?

Surveying’s not going to be easy, especially with table-service only. Gone are the opportunities to stand at the bar for a cosy chat with the licensee and gone are the chances to stroll around the pub, soaking up the atmosphere and getting a feel for the place.

Once the surveys are complete the fun really starts, as normally a GBG selection meeting is held, where the choice of entries is thrashed out, and whittled down to the number allocated to the branch. The meeting normally takes place late January - early February and, being CAMRA, it takes place in a pub.

This is where the problems begin. Under Doris’s edict, a maximum of six people are allowed in any one group. GBG meetings often attract numbers in excess of the "magic six," so what happens then? Also, because CAMRA wants to promote itself as a “responsible" organisation, ALL official branch meetings are suspended, until further notice. This includes socials, outings, committee meetings etc, so physical get-together to select GBG entries, are by extension automatically excluded.

Some would argue that such meetings can be held virtually, as indeed they can for the tech-savvy, but trying to coordinate and conduct such a meeting involving any more than a half dozen participants, sounds like a logistical nightmare. Such meetings ae normally lively and impassioned affairs, where discussion and debate play an important role. Trying to replicate this in hyper-space is not going to be easy!

I’m no longer a CAMRA member, so can’t participate in these discussions, even if I wanted to, but unless it’s work-related and I’m forced to, I don’t want anything to do with “virtual stuff.” If I can’t have the real thing, then I’ll go without, so that rules me out from virtual pubs, the virtual Great British Beer Festival and virtual, just about anything else.

Moving on, let’s say a branch has selected and filled its quota of guide entries, data from the scrappy hand-written forms then has to be inputted to a central database – a task CAMRA rather cynically and lazily leaves to individual branches.

Those tedious forms I referred to earlier were originally deigned to be machine-read, which is why they had to be completed all in capitals, and with each letter of every word, written inside its own little box. Boy how I hated those forms, and unsurprisingly they were hard enough for humans to read, let alone machines, so that was a waste of time.

So now, just like 30 years ago, the details for every pub must be inputted manually. Being such a tedious task, in my former branch the job was usually shared between two people. One would read out the details, whilst the other would type it into the online CAMRA database. They would swap at regular intervals.

Now two people from different households are allowed to mix – I think! At least in West Kent where rates of infection are low, but what about other areas that have been placed under a much stricter regime. Two people from different households mixing is practically a hanging offence according to the "boy" Hancock, so there’s no chance of this dual input method being mimicked in these “sinful” parts of the country.

All of the above stages are tedious, at the best of times, but with all these petty restrictions in place, it’s going to be rather tight for many branches to get their entries processed. There’s still a final proof-reading stage before the guide finally goes to print, so before you know it, that’s half 2021 gone already.

Will things have gone back to normal by then, and was this all just a bad dream? I somehow don’t think so, which brings us back to the question will the Good Beer Guide 2022 appear on time, or will it even be published at all.

The consensus on the WhatsApp group was that the guide will be published and will appear in the traditional printed and bound book version. Fine, but what sort of publication will it be? Suggestions were raised during the discussions that instead of surveying pubs, branches could rely on information sourced from WhatPub.

If this is true, the 2022 guide is unlikely to be the fresh, vibrant and up to date that its users expect. If the pandemic lasts into next summer, what’s the likelihood of this “make do and mend” approach to the GBG working second time around? Will CAMRA itself even exist as a cohesive, nationwide campaigning group, or will it disintegrate into dozens of splinter groups, that are little more than drinking clubs?

The next 12 months could prove very interesting, but not necessarily for the right reasons!