A jaundiced view of life from the darkest recess of the saloon bar...
I am the man, the very fat man That waters the workers’ beer And what do I care if it makes them ill If it makes them terribly queer I’ve a car, a yacht, and an aeroplane, And I waters the workers’ beer. So goes the popular song from the inter-war era. And the latest domino to fall is Fosters Lager, whose makers Heineken have announced that its strength will be reduced from 3.7% ABV to 3.4% with…
An ongoing theme of this blog has been the conflict between the interests and desires of pub customers and the commercial companies who own and run pubs. Pubgoers may regard their local as a valuable social resource and community pub, but the owning companies, not entirely unreasonably, feel that they have to make a profit to stay in business. Inevitably this leads to customers feeling aggrieved…
From the beginning of this month, new government regulations prevent restaurants and fast food outlets from providing unlimited refills of drinks deemed to be high in sugar. This includes not just fizzy soft drinks, but items such as hot chocolate in Wetherspoon’s. This has caused several commentators such as Andrew Lilico here to suddenly wake up and, as it were, smell the coffee. Is this true?…
The Morning Advertiser reports on research carried out on behalf of Ossett Brewery showing that cask suffers from a visibility problem in the pub. Apparently a mere 10% of drinkers could recall seeing the available cask beers, and only 19% can identify cask from the signature handpull. “Handpulls often sit too low or are hidden, while lager and craft keg dominate at eye level.” There’s a certain…
Having left the Old Swan, a short walk back west towards the town centre of Atherstone brought us to the Hat & Beaver , its plain frontage brightly illuminated in the Autumn sunshine. While the name may seem whimsical, it reflects Atherstone’s long heritage of the hatting industry. Apparently at one time in the past it produced more hats than Luton, and was responsible for making Tommy Cooper’s…
Atherstone is a market town in North Warwickshire with a population of about 11,000, located between Coventry and Burton-on-Trent, very close to the geographical centre of England. The only time it will enter into most people’s consciousness is when they speed through it at 100 mph on an express train between the North-West and London Euston, and may just notice the station sign. Some may have…
Over the years, I have often praised Wetherspoon’s business success in building an empire of large, thriving pubs from scratch in the face of an overall declining market. Earlier this year, I described how they had turned the existing business model of the industry on its head to be able to consistently deliver both food and drink at a much lower price point. I would largely agree with Cooking…
The Waggon & Horses , a large Greene King-owned dining pub located in Handforth, just south of the Stockport boundary, has recently closed its doors for the last time. It is reported that the site will be redeveloped as an Aldi supermarket. Originally owned by Greenalls, it was a large, rather plain-looking 1930s roadhouse-type pub that has for as long as I can remember operated with a food-led…
I recently saw this interesting post on X/Twitter about how smoking bans are a touchstone for a society’s general attitude to freedom. I won’t make any further comment beyond saying that they are an examplar of the dictum of science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein that “The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.” I have a…
Scarcely a week goes by without the present government announcing a policy to antagonise yet another group in society. They have now put forward a set of proposals to improve road safety that include the reduction of the drink-driving limit from 35 μg to 22 μg, the equivalent of 80 mg to 50 mg in “old money”. This had originally been proposed by the Blair government elected in 1997, but for…
The licensee of the Wonston Arms in Hampshire, a former CAMRA National Pub of the Year, recently had an article published in the Daily Telegraph entitled The village pub I run is being taxed to death . This certainly struck a chord with many, as did his post on X about his pub having precisely zero customers at 5 pm on a sunny Saturday. However, once you delve into it a little deeper, you find…
Budweiser Brewing Group (the new name for AB InBev in the UK) have announced that they are relaunching Boddingtons Cask Bitter , which was last produced in 2012. It will be brewed and distributed in the North-West by Middleton-based J. W. Lees. It will be brewed at 4% to a new recipe. Brian Perkins, president of AB InBev in Western Europe, added: “We are excited to relaunch Boddingtons Cask Ale in…
In an attempt to combat “food poverty”, the government have announced a pilot scheme to set up state-subsidised restaurants offering cheap and nutritious food, with the first examples set to open in Nottingham and Dundee. This conjures up memories of the British Restaurants that were set up during World War 2 to offer workers cheap and appetising lunchtime meals that were outside the scope of food…
The Morning Advertiser recently published figures confirming the continued decline of cask beer sales in the UK, which were reflected on by beer writer Phil Mellows: Once a month I’m privileged to have sight of the official beer sales figures for the UK. When they pop up in my inbox I duck behind the settee and peer at them through my fingers. I’m a cask beer drinker you see – well, about…
The Daily Telegraph reports that the government have spent over £35,000 on beermats to boast about increasing the minimum wage. This in itself is a distinctly disingenuous message, as the increase is funded not from government largesse, but by forcing employers to pay money that they may well not be able to afford. And it seems rather rich expecting pubs to display these mats, when increasing the…
When you ask people about how to improve the fortunes of the British pub, one issue that often comes up is the beer tie. Remove restrictions on supply, and allow pubs a free choice on which beers to stock, and they would be in a much stronger competitive position. On the fact of it, this sounds like a great idea, but in reality things are not that simple. The “beer tie” refers to the ability of…
Earlier this month, Keir Starmer announced that pubs would be allowed to stay open until 1 am on Thursday 8 May, to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day. He said “Keeping our pubs open for longer will give people the opportunity to join in celebrations and raise a glass to all of the men and women who served their country, both overseas and at home.” However, at a time when the pub trade had just…
A few weeks ago, I was browsing the Wetherspoon’s app and noticed that the chicken breast bites were “temporarily unavailable” I thought nothing of it, as branches can run out of food items and deliveries can be late. But, checking back a few days later, they were still absent, and the problem seemed to be general across their estate. We are now into the fourth week of the shortage, and it has…
The Drinks Business reports on concerns that German beer is losing its lustre both at home and abroad. Shocking new figures from the Statistisches Bundesamt office have revealed that global interest in German beer is rapidly diminishing alongside continued ambivalence for local beer in Germany itself. Assessing 2024 figures from the country’s Federal Statistical Office, EWN it was highlighted how…
I recently saw a couple of posts on X/Twitter expressing dismay at the rising price of beer in pubs. One was taken aback to find a London pub asking £7 for a pint, while the other was appalled that the price of Guinness in a Salford pub had risen by 70p over one weekend. With the multiple cost pressures imposed on pubs by the government, we are likely to see many more such stories in the coming…
At the beginning of last year, Carlsberg-Marston’s announced that they were discontinuing the use of the Union sets at their Burton brewery, which were used to brew Marston’s Pedigree. This decision was met with a certain amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth but, as I said at the time, “it must be remembered that Carlsberg-Marston’s are a commercial company, not the custodians of a brewing…
Last month, Wetherspoon’s announced that they were removing steaks, gammon and mixed grills from their menu. This resulted in a predictable outbreak of grumbling, but it’s the only the latest example of a long record of discontinuing supposedly popular menu items . One of the most notorious was dropping Sunday roasts in 2016. Later they discontinued traditional Christmas turkey dinners. It is…
The Guardian newspaper always has a tendency to regurgitate nonsense on lifestyle issues, and its latest effort is a piece entitled Everyone’s drinking mid-strength – but what actually is it? A report, published by KAM Insights, has found that, when out at the pub with friends, 50% of UK consumers would rather have two so-called “mid-strength” drinks than one full-strength one. The report,…
The Manchester Evening News reports that the Sparking Clog pub in Radcliffe, Greater Manchester, has recently reopened after being given a unique “Two Door Pub” concept . The StreetView image above dates from last year and may not reflect its current appearance. I am informed by Tandleman that the pub was built in the late 1980s by Banks’s, who still own it in their current guise of Marston’s. A…
Today marks the fifth anniversary of that fateful day when Boris Johnson announced to the country that the pubs would be completely closed until further notice due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I contemplated going down to my local for a last hurrah, but eventually decided against it. This ushered in sixteen months of either total closure or varying levels of ever-changing and often ludicrous…