07-Aug-2006 The Big Issue - Who'd be a Landlord anyway?
Who'd be a landlord anyway? You make a profit and the brewery puts your rent up. You identify a brand, a guest real ale perhaps, with wider margins that could make you some money, but the brewery is saying you can only choose from the range of drinks that they supply - even if your customers want something else. You might work out that by concentrating on food you can make a fair living, but you didn't want to be a restaurateur, and then the brewery decides to sell the pub to developers - your business disappears, and if you live in a village, your local pub disappears.
Who cares? Well, a visit to the Great British Beer Festival [GBBF], which served up 300,000 pints in Earl's Court last week, indicates that quite a lot of people care. Thousands of cheerful, boozy and well-behaved people thronged to celebrate pubs and beer and to lend support to the numerous campaigns that aim to protect the British pint and pub from voracious market players who are intent on drowning the UK's drinking culture in cheap fizzy lager, this week's alcopop hybrid of choice, and low-cost, no-frills drinks' promotions.
In the run-up to the announcement of the winner of the Champion Beer Of Britain, a huge number of enthusiasts crowd round a stage. A fervour in the air, someone denounces 'lagerboys' and a cheer goes up. The winner, Crouch Vale Brewers Gold, is heralded as a "gorgeous, fruity golden ale", and lauded for its unprecedented second win in a row.
The emphasis at the festival is on quality, a quality that is sometimes in danger of being marginalised elsewhere in our pubs, bars and nightclubs, but is at the heart of the British pint. Protecting that quality is the Campaign For Real Ale [CAMRA], the Society For Independent Brewers [SIBA], Cask Marque, the Beer Association, the Beer Academy, Pub Is The Hub [PITH], the list goes on. They are professional and voluntary organisations - indeed over 5,000 volunteers staff and run the GBBF each year.
The Pub Is The Hub project, supported by Prince Charles, is a volunteer-run organisation campaigning to stop pubs disappearing in rural areas, and encouraging them to broaden their remit beyond food and drink to provide other services that are hard to find in far-flung areas - for example, providing post office services.
Pub Is The Hub also has a team of experts and a degree of funding to support communities who want to protest planning decisions to change pubs into houses, or to help those communities club together and buy and run a pub as a cooperative at the centre of their village.
Developers tend to demolish pubs and then apply for a change of use, knowing that local authorities are more likely to grant permission at this stage than if the pub was still intact. Forty per cent of pubs lost in England are demolished, and hundreds of pubs close each year never to be replaced. PITH works with CAMRA's Community Pubs Foundation to help people challenge these developments at the earliest possible stage.
This 'bottom up' approach can be felt at the GBBF. Of the 300,000 pints that were consumed, the majority are from smaller brewers concerned more with the quality of their product than profit. These are companies - sometimes hobbyists -that employ locals, who promote their communities, who don't take profits out of their locale or rack up thousands of environmentally damaging miles in distribution.
As a minor award [a silver medal in the Speciality Beers section] is announced, one man jumps up and down uncontrollably, arms aloft, shouting "Yes, yes, yes!" He turns, tears in his eyes, and starts bear-hugging his friends. Not only is it a reward for his brewing efforts but it also represents a significant boost for his business. A CAMRA-awarded medal at the GBBF means that he can up production, and a few more local pubs will take his product; perhaps he can employ one more person. A quality product will reach a greater audience.
At the judging panel earlier in the day [on to which The Big Issue was graciously invited] over 60 beers had been held up to the light, sniffed, quaffed and enjoyed. Marked for clarity, colour, body, taste and aftertaste, anyone who thought that wine tasting was alone in its concentration and precision would have been surprised as the world's most eminent drinks writer, the self-styled Beerhunter and Whisky Chaser, Michael Jackson, pronounced quietly that he could detect hints of apples and cedar in a well-balanced beer in the best bitter category.
The fight for Britain's pubs and for greater awareness of the diversity and excellence in UK brewing goes on - and let's face it, if it means going to the pub to try out unusual beers, or even downing a few at the GBBF or any of the other beer festivals throughout the year, it's not the most arduous fight in the world. Come on, your country needs you... ■ By Charles Howgego
BEST OF BRITISH IN A BOTTLE
- MOORHOUSES BLACK CAT 3.4% A dark, refreshing mild, with a distinctive chocolate malt flavour
- PITFIELD ECOWARRIOR 4.5% A nicer light refreshing summer beer
- BLACK SHEEP ALE 4.4% A reddish gold ale with a creamy head, a fruity sweetness and a bitter, hoppy finish
- NI WHEAT BEER 5% A light and refreshing wheat beer with lots of coriander flavour
- HARVIESTOUN BITTER AND TWISTED 4.2% Former Champion Beer Of Britain, this blonde ale is a full-flavoured bitter
- HARVEYS DOUBLE IMPERIAL STOUT 9% A very rich, full-flavoured Christmas puddingy stout
- BLACK ISLE RED KITE 4.5% A quenching amber ale bursting with hops, from the Scottish Highlands
All beers are available from the Pitfield Beer Shop on 0845 8331492 or go to www.pitkeldbeershop. co. uk
who d be a landlord anyway.pdf