Welcome to Perfect Pint. Real Ale - Updated for the Real World.

Like all the best ideas, Perfect Pint began with a conversation over a beer. We all try and change the world with a pint of ale in our hands but that usually subsides when we put it down and especially when we wake up in the morning.  This time was a little different though, as fortunately for us one of our group has a little more get up and go than the average. Several years earlier we had opined how great it would be to own our own pub. He badgered us into actually doing it. And then, before we knew it, we had another one.

In two years we have sold a little over 400 different beers at those two pubs, they are both Cask Marque accredited and we are very proud of them. We spend far too much (but in some ways never enough) time down there. But plans to develop a real ale empire soon hit the buffers when in a moment of Jaipur fuelled inspiration the seeds of Perfect Pint took hold. This time we knew what to do. We got another round in...

Woking in the 1980s was not exactly a sea of inspiration. Fending off the joy police in this cultural vacuum was the number one pursuit of many. Drinking lager was number two and it was as bland and mass market as it gets, with Lowenbrau and Hoffmeister the staple brews.  With little to tie us down there we all went our separate ways, pretty much to the four corners of the globe, before convening in back in London several years later. As nature dictates, hairlines had receded and girths expanded but another form of evolution had also taken place; each of us, independently, had graduated to real ale. This opened up a whole new world, not the least of which was taste and genuine enjoyment and released a passion which was to manifest itself many years later.

Several thousand pints later we arrive back at the seminal moment, we bought our first pub. In the intervening years, the real ale scene has changed permanently and beyond all recognition. There are now more real ale breweries in the UK than at any time since the end of the Second World War. The range of tastes and quality and the vibrancy of the scene is surely at an all-time high. Not only that, but it is a global trend, stretching from Italy to New Zealand. The passion or enthusiasm of the real ale community is there for all to see and a great sight to behold it is too.

But there are problems and frustrations. As a drinker how do you know which beer is on where? How do you know which new microbrewery beer will suit your tastes? As a landlord how do communicate your beer range effectively to a wide audience simply and easily? Why has technology not harnessed an up to date real ale guide like it has for other sectors? What if I want to record my beers or invite my mates and harness my social media accounts? Frankly the list goes on...

There have been several attempts to address this issue and we respect them all. In fact it simply demonstrates the deep desire amongst drinkers to provide a seamless real ale experience. We are not pretending we have all the solutions, but we hope you agree that the Perfect Pint website and our soon to be released mobile app are a demonstrable leap forward, to help find great British beer you love at the best pubs and beer festivals in real time.

It is an ambitious project and we have funded it all ourselves, so please bear with us if you find any omissions, errors or encounter technology problems. We are working on them!  Perfect Pint is an evolving product and we would welcome your help and feedback to contact us  and help improve it. After all, one of our central aims is to create a genuine, on-line real ale community where all can interact whether you are a drinker, brewer, wholesaler or pub owner. At Perfect Pint we are passionate about UK pubs and passionate about beer, cask ale is our principal love but we respect and appreciate all forms of craft beers including bottle and keg. Our aim is to enhance the whole beer experience. We are independent and we are committed to providing the product free of charge to drinkers. After all, we are pretty keen drinkers ourselves...

The Perfect Pint Team

www.perfectpint.co.uk

info@perfectpint.co.uk