As The Crow Flies - Ed.5 - Losing The Sparkle

To sparkle, or not to sparkle - that is the question. Whether it is nobler in virtue to suffer the peaks and troughs of condition’s (mis)fortune. Or to take arms against a sea of stagnance and by sparkling, end them.

The sparkler debate is an old one, and the framing is tired. Two diametrically opposed and well entrenched sides, face off against one another with weapons dull and worn. The question itself is a well trodden, uninspiring no-man’s land, but the traditional framing of the debate betrays a greater issue: a general mistrust of the people caring for and pouring the pints. It’s time to liberate the soldiers from their trenches, and reframe this conflict in a more modern context.

‘A sparkler too often saves a bad pint’ drone the naysayers, whilst the believers bemoan the insipidity of unsparkled pints and those that enjoy them. It’s all rather asinine and archaic. Both arguments share a genesis, in that they both assume that there is something wrong with the beer, or with the way it has been served. One side is making the assumption that the beer is badly kept, and a sparkler is being used to reinvigorate a lifeless pint. The other is assuming that without a sparkler, the server would be unable to pour the beer with an adequately pillowy head. These assumptions are a product of a bygone time. Thanks to decades of work from CAMRA, and others, the quality of real ale in the UK has never been better, and it is a disservice to the people working tirelessly behind bars and in cellars, to presuppose their incompetence. 

The truth is that a sparkler is neither a miraculous panacea, nor a profane defiler, it is a small bit of plastic with some tiny holes in it. It has benefits and drawbacks, which make the appropriateness of its utilisation entirely dependent on the situation. The use of a sparkler is in essence a trade-off. In theory when fixing a sparkler onto a swan neck you are accepting that by passing the beer through the many tiny holes in the sparkler, you are knocking out some of the aroma, but that you will be compensated in the way of a rounder, smoother mouthfeel. But how much of our own, personal, sparkling preferences are actually determined by our ability to discern these differences? 

Our opinion on sparklers could come down to something as simple as where we live. In the North of England, amongst beer drinkers, the sparkler has become a symbol of pride in where we are from. Any tangible effects on the drink itself are irrelevant. ‘We use sparklers because we are northern and that’s what we do’. However as with most questions of identity in the modern world, we are hasty to identify ourselves, primarily, in juxtaposition to others. Is the sparkler a signifier of who we are, or of who we are not? We are forever seeking to form our own identities, and in so doing we seek all the ways that mark us out from the crowd, rather than seeing what we have in common with one another. In this way a sparkler can both be a symbol of belonging and one of oppression, at once a proud cultural icon which helps us to relate to our surroundings, but also yet another way that we are so easily divided. Is it so difficult for us to focus on all the things we have in common, rather than the ones we don’t? A passing glance at the world around us, doesn’t inspire confidence. 

An ancient grudge breaks a community. Where hollowed plastic makes hallowed pints unclean. It is time to bury the sparkler debate once and for all. We must put aside our differences and unite around our shared love of pubs to combat the myriad of threats they are facing. There are bigger issues to tackle and, frankly, more interesting conversations to have.