The Importance Of Geography

Somewhere deep in the bureaucracy of the European Union there is a unit composed of highly-paid people whose job is to think up the most mind-boggling and incomprehensible names for quite simple matters.

For example, there is an EU Commissioner for the Abuse of Dominant Positions. This was a job I quite fancied until I discovered it had nothing to with illicit sexual activity but entailed investigating monopolies. Why not keep it simple and call the job the Commissioner for Monopolies?

Last month the London office of the Czech brewer Budweiser Budvar sent me an excited email informing me that its beer had been given "a PGI" by the EU. This stands for Protected Geographical Indication. I was able to get my head round this because I knew Scottish Courage had been granted a PGI a few years ago for Newcastle Brown Ale.

It's an important award. It means that Budvar joins an elite of food and drink manufacturers in Europe such as Camembert, Cognac and Champagne. A PGI is a blue and gold seal that can be displayed on packaging or, in the case of Budvar, on bottle labels and draught founts.

So why not call it a Seal of Origin? But that would be too simple and wouldn't keep Eurocrats in long Brussels lunches.

Nevertheless, it's an important award for Budvar. It won't help in the long-running and unending trade mark dispute with Anheuser-Busch, American owner of the other Budweiser, though it will give the Czech beer extra prestige that will annoy the hell out of A-B and its corporate lawyers. As far as I know, Budvar is the only beer to have PGI status. ScotCo's PGI for Newcastle Brown will have to be revoked as the Newcastle Brewery closed at the start of the year and production was switched to Gateshead on the other side of the Tyne. Gateshead Brown Ale doesn't have quite the right ring and is certainly not the place of origin of the beer.

In spite of the ungainly title, Protected Geographical Indication is an important affirmation that certain prestigious foods and drinks are so powerfully linked to their places of origin that they cannot be made elsewhere. Cheddar cheese can't have a PGI because it's not confined to a gorge in Somerset but is made all over the plaza, from Ireland to New Zealand.

And even though the title of another Czech beer, Pilsner Urquell, means "original Pilsner" brewed in the city of Pilsen, I doubt the beer would qualify for a PGI as its owners, SABMiller, brews it under licence in Poland and plans to also produce it in Russia.

Budweiser Budvar has fought a sturdy and at times lonely campaign over the question of brewing authenticity. In Britain it launched NoFibs, the National Organisation for Imported Beers, which has attempted - with some success - to sort out the wheat from the chaff where imported brands are concerned. The aim of NoFibs is to stress the imporatant difference between such beers as Budvar and the new version of Heineken, brewed at source, with the likes of Kingfisher and Cobra "Indian" lagers that are brewed respectively in Faversham and Bedford. Budvar believes that consumers deserve to be told if a beer's label gives the impression it is a genuine Czech, Dutch, German or Indian brew when it's actually made in a large factory off the M6. A few years ago Interbrew planned to make its Czech lager Staropramen at the Samlesbury brewery in Lancashire, using a different recipe and shorter lagering time. A short, sharp rebuke in this newspaper put an end to such nonsense.

Budvar, never known to shirk a fight, has also made waves back home by launching a campaign around the use of top quality ingredients and the need to maintain proper lagering time for beer. Budvar is lagered or matured for 90 days and the brewery is critical of other Czech brewers, now owned by global giants, who are busily cutting back on lagering time and reducing quality with inferior ingredients.

Budvar campaigns in the consumers' interests. It fully deserves its PGI. It's just a pity that most punters won't have the faintest idea what Protected Geographical Indication means.