What’s the matter with you Hobgoblin?

Q – If a hobgoblin is a mythical creature made up of two other mythical creatures, why would a pub want to brand itself after one?
A – Because it will attract geeks like flies round the proverbial.

Geeks are big business. As the cost of Games Workshop models and Starwars collector’s pieces shows, the Geek Dollar is sort after market for companies to mine. It is perhaps unsurprising, therefore, that someone would eventually attempt to start a geek pleasing range of pubs. Whether this is exactly what Wychwood Breweries aimed to do when it was founded in 1983 is a matter for founders Paddy Glenny and Chris Moss, but it is certainly what they’ve achieved.

Wychwood Brewies is best known for it’s 4.5% strong dark ale Hobgoblin which is sold in a number of pubs that have since attracted or adopted the label ‘Hobgoblin pubs’. Though not a single franchise, the degree of uniformity in these pubs’ clientele is remarkable and of two types – CAMRAs and Bad Geeks. CAMRAs are followers of the Campaign for Real Ale, a superb grass-roots organisation that has done much for the quality of British beer in its 39 years in existence. Bad Geeks are not Unacceptable Geeks who make mistakes in the deployment of their geekery. Bad Geeks revel in wearing T-shirts with wizards on, quoting Tolkien and playing Magic the Gathering in public. These are the people who give geeks a bad name.

The Acceptable Geek Club has many gripes with Bad Geeks and will come to them all in time. For now, we will suffice with just one criticism that we shall no doubt meet again – their ignorance.

As has been said before, music geekery is the most acceptable form of geekery. Beer geekery, however, cannot be far behind. Beer enjoys a high standing in British culture and so knowledge of it, correctly deployed, cannot be a bad thing. However, as with all forms of geekery, when such knowledge becomes your first line of conversation it becomes a bore; and when it becomes a gospel to preach it becomes an annoyance. Bad Geeks are always too keen to preach their current obsession and assert it’s superiority to anything that sways vaguely close to the mainstream of culture. At the same time, should anything they heap praise upon then enter the mainstream it then becomes a target of derision for “selling out”.

Hobgoblin, with it’s ridiculous ‘What's the matter Lagerboy, afraid you might taste something?’ tagline, is everything Bad Geeks love. Niche and yet aggressively assured of its superiority, they flock to it and turn it into another badge of honour to go with their unwashed hair, ZZ Top mimicking beards and aversion to any kind of physical exercise. Is it the greatest beer in the world? Perhaps (its cider is certainly top notch). But does this mean that the entire lager drinking population of the world lack taste buds? Given that lager sales far surpass those of ale, which is largely an English peculiarity ignored on continental Europe, we very much doubt it. As usual, the Bad Geek takes a genuine concern (the poverty of British lagers) turns it into canon and becomes more ridiculous as the “narrow-minded trendies” he so despises.

Wychwood Breweries is a successful company which, intentionally or not, has found itself a stable market base. It should, however, beware the Bad Geek. If it wishes to expand its market it may be time to kick the fat roleplayers out of the corner. There is only so much of them that the general public can take.