D ON ON L Dec Vol 33 Jan No 6 2012 How could Wetherspoons pay to give this pub to Tesco? (see page 26) Tel: 020 7281 2786 Steak & Ale House SET MENU SALE u 3 course meals for just £16! - or u 3 courses for just just £21 including a 10oz sirloin or rib- eye steak - or u A two course meal (starter and main or main and dessert) for just £11.50 So much choice there is something for ...Six Cask Marque everyone... oh, and Cask Marque accredited real ales accredited ales! always on tap and You can follow us on Facebook for all events and updates and on 40+ malt and blended Twitter@north_nineteen whiskies also now on. Membership discounts on ale available, All proper, fresh sign up at www.northnineteen.co.uk Steakhouse food. In the main bar: Food is served: Tuesday - Live music and open mic 8pm start Wednesday - Poker Tournament 7.30pm start Tuesday-Friday 5-10pm Dart board and board games always available Saturday 12-10pm Prefer a quiet pint? Sunday 12-8pm Our Ale and Whisky Bar is open daily for food, drinks and conversation. We always have six well Cask Marque Please book your Sunday Roast kept real ales and 40+ top quality whiskies. accredited There are no strangers here, just friends you haven’t met yet Editorial London Drinker is published by Mike Hammersley on behalf of the London NDO Branches of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real O N Ale Limited, and edited jointly by L Sarah Bleksley and Mark Davies. Tel: 07747 494840. Material for publication should preferably be sent by e-mail to [email protected]. Correspondents unable to send letters to the editors electronically may post them to Brian Sheridan at 4, Arundel House, Heathfield Road, Croydon CR0 1EZ. Press releases should be sent by email to [email protected] Changes to pubs or beers should be reported to Capital Pubcheck, 2 Sandtoft Road, London SE7 7LR More breweries but fewer pubs or by e-mail to [email protected]. For publication in February 2012, please send electronic documents to the editors no later than esides three new brewpubs, consultation advocates, not before Wednesday 11th January. Bfour new cask ale breweries time, a ban on ‘restrictive SUBSCRIPTIONS: £4.00 for mailing of 6 editions or £8.00 for 12 should be sent to Stan have opened in London over the covenants’ that stop a pub that has Tompkins, 52 Rabbs Mill House, Chiltern View last six months: By the Horns, East been sold from being used again as Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 2PD (cheques a pub. Fine, but pubcos like Punch payable to CAMRA London). London, London Fields and ADVERTISING: John Galpin Moncada. There is a growing and Enterprise have already Tel: 020 3287 2966. demand for local cask beers, which abandoned restrictive covenants. Printed by Cliffe Enterprise, the burgeoning London CAMRA They do not need them when Eastbourne, BN22 8TR LocAle scheme continues to estate agents like AG&G can Views expressed in this publication are those promote and which members of ensure that any struggling pub that of their individual authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Editor or the the London Brewers’ Alliance comes on to the market with the Campaign for Real Ale Limited. celebrated with an impressive beer faintest whiff of development Advertise in the next exhibition at Brew Wharf on 22 potential is unaffordable to any LONDON DRINKER October. The London Branches pub operator who would otherwise Our advertising rates are as follows: Whole page £325 (colour) marked CAMRA’s 40th be interested in making a go of it. £260 (mono) anniversary on 5 November at a As one company told me after they Half page £195 (colour), £145 (mono) party in the Counting House with had enquired about a pub that Quarter page £105 (colour), £80 (mono) Phone John Galpin now on a great range of Fuller’s and would have been ideal for them, 020 3287 2966, Mobile 07508 036835 London microbrewery beers. On “They are asking an insane amount [email protected] 24 November we are presenting of money for it, so it is not one we are this year’s John Young Memorial going to be able to pursue ”. In this issue Award to Duncan Sambrook and That is one reason why so David Welsh, recognizing the many pubs are closing. It is a News round-up 6 pivotal achievement of Sambrook’s national scandal. And another brewery in the rebirth of brewing scandal is the absence of any Letters 26 in London. requirement for planning LocAle 34 But all is not well. A lot of permission before converting a pub pubs that might have survived as to offices or shops. The local Awards 36 outlets for our new brewers have community and their elected representatives are powerless to The Wenlock Arms 38 closed in the last ten years, and now, increasingly, we find stop pubs turning into betting CAMRA’s 40th birthday 40 cherished local community pubs shops or supermarket convenience suddenly closing or being sold to stores when there is no Wells and Young’s 42 property developers in the absence opportunity for consultation. So Bromley branch revived 44 of any effective safeguards. When much for ‘sustainable Young’s sold the freehold of the communities’ and ‘localism’. Branch diaries 46 Queen Dowager in Teddington to a And w(h)ither ‘corporate Capital Pubcheck 49 property company, the pub social responsibility’? Tim Martin, promptly closed. The Castle in chairman of JD Wetherspoon has A girl walks into a bar 56 Battersea, thankfully still trading, given permission to publish his Idle Moments 57 has also been sold to a property letter revealing that they actually firm, and now so has the Charlie paid Tesco to take over the lease of Crossword 58 Butler in Mortlake. the Grid in Southfields. A local A recent government resident who organised a belated 3 Editorial petition wonders if the company had kept the closure of the Grid under wraps to avoid alerting regular users and so avoid any form of consultation process. “ This flies in the face of Wetherspoon’s own mission statement, which states that customers are at the heart of ‘everything we do’... The closure of the Grid to make way for a Tesco Express will also have negative economic implications for all the local businesses. ” Readers will be more encouraged by Hackney’s reasons for rejecting the planning application for demolition and change of use of the Wenlock Arms. This is one battle won, at least temporarily, but the grim reality is that we have many more to fight, on several fronts, and we are as far as ever from winning our campaign. For so long as community pubs remain an endangered species, it will continue to be a challenge for breweries to find enough customers to make cask ale worthwhile. LD Geoff Strawbridge Check the Beer Festival Calendar and visit the Travel Pages at www.londondrinker.org.uk The Camel Fine ales, English lagers, ciders and legendary pie and mash. Currently serving Sambrook’s Junction and Wandle, Crouch Vale Brewers Gold and Adnams Winter Spiced. Cassels Stock Cider and Redchurch Brewery beers. Regular quiz, music and backgammon nights. 277 Globe Road, Bethnal Green, London E2 0JD www.thecamele2.co.uk Tel: 020 8983 9888 4 News round-up Thinking of you… is done to communicate the courts on the grounds of restraint here has been quite a lot of health benefits of moderate of trade. The Westminster Thealth-related news recently. alcohol consumption, as Government’s Minister for Public Dr Ian Gilmour of the Royal indicated by recent research. No- Health, Anne Milton, has already College of Physicians has tried to one can doubt that this is a said that the advice that she has clarify the use of Alcohol Units. serious issue and we deserve received is that minimum pricing Apparently, we should treat them appropriately pragmatic advice. is illegal under EU law. as a rolling weekly guide and not The Mayor of London is also One line of thought is that if exceed 21 to 28 units (14 to 21 getting in on the act. Boris the new measure keeps to the for females) over a seven-day Johnson has set up the London previous proposal of 45p per period. Quite why he is doing Health Improvement Board. Its unit, the effect on trade could be this is unclear, given that their initial priorities are childhood argued as being acceptable value has largely been discredited obesity, the early diagnosis and because it only affects the bottom – not least in these pages. It may screening of cancers and, end of the market. Then again, if of course have something to do inevitably, alcohol although it you can only afford supermarket with the investigation into the isn’t yet clear what it will be own-brand rather than a £30 top- subject currently being carried doing in this respect. quality malt or a visit to the pub, out by the House of Commons In Scotland the SNP how fair would this be on you? government is trying again to Science and Technology But then again... Committee. introduce minimum pricing for CAMRA’s submission to the alcohol and this time they are ccording to a report by the committee was that an absolute likely to get the legislation AHealth Protection Agency, a upper limit is unrealistic and the approved, although according to third of the ice cubes used in current system did not both the Law Society of Scotland Britain’s pubs and restaurants acknowledge the gap between and the Scottish Whisky contain hazardous levels of those limits and the point where Association there will almost bacteria arising mainly from a drinking will have a severe health certainly be a challenge in both failure to properly clean ice impact.