D ON ON L Oct Vol 34 Nov No 5 2012 The Hope, Carshalton becomes London ‘Pub of the Year’ EST 1721 23-25 NEW END • HAMPSTEAD VILLAGE • NW3 1JD A proper British pub • Immaculately kept local beers and microbrews • Hearty home cooked food and snacks • Sun trapped beer garden • 320 ales served in our first year Best Tel: 020 7794 0258 London Pub of the Year 2011 twitter: @dukeofhamilton Fancy a Pint Reviewers www.thedukeofhamilton.com Awards 5 PINT RATED PUB All ales £2.70 a pint Mondays and Tuesdays. See website for ales on tap. 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 Tony Hedger and Mark Davies. Tel: 07790 750024. 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 or by e-mail to [email protected]. Campaign to support your local pub For publication in December 2012, please send electronic documents to the editors no later than Monday 5 November. n my June/July editorial I quoted fall and small breweries without pub SUBSCRIPTIONS: £7.00 for mailing of six Iveteran real ale campaigner Roger estates will inevitably go out of busi - editions should be sent to Stan Tompkins, Protz in condemning the shameful ness. ” 52 Rabbs Mill House, Chiltern View Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 2PD exclusion of locally brewed beers One way to tackle alcohol abuse (cheques payable to CAMRA London). from this year’s Olympic venues. and its impact on the NHS is to sup - ADVERTISING: John Galpin This time I echo the theme of his two port the pub as a licensed and con - Tel: 020 3287 2966. page introduction to CAMRA’s new trolled environment where beer can Printed by Cliffe Enterprise, Eastbourne, BN22 8TR Good Beer Guide, our 40th an - be enjoyed sensibly and in modera - niversary edition. tion. But the beer duty escalator pe - Views expressed in this publication are those of their individual authors and are not Besides describing more than nalises beer sales in pubs as publicans necessarily endorsed by the Editor or the 4,000 pubs serving excellent real ale, do not enjoy the deep discounts of - Campaign for Real Ale Limited. the Guide now lists more than a fered by brewers to supermarkets. Advertise in the next thousand breweries operating in And loopholes in planning laws LONDON DRINKER Our advertising rates are as follows: Britain, the most since the 1940s. But mean that viable pubs can be con - Whole page £325 (colour) total beer sales fell by 3.7% in the last verted to betting shops, estate agents £260 (mono) year, with lager down by 2.9% and ni - and yes, increasingly to supermarkets, Half page £195 (colour), £145 (mono) Quarter page £105 (colour), £80 (mono) tro-keg ales by even more, and even without the need to apply for plan - Phone John Galpin now on cask real ale sales remained in decline, ning permission. 020 3287 2966, Mobile 07508 036835 [email protected] admittedly by only 0.3%. I would encourage all readers to So what is happening? Let Roger write to your MPs if you care about remind you. “Taxation is the major your pubs, and urge those of you with In this issue obstacle. British brewers suffer from email to join the Beer Tax e-petition: punitive rates of duty. Duty in the UK http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/peti - Conference report 4 accounts for 40% of all the beer taxes. tions/29664 . And let those of us with Duty in the UK accounts for 40% of all the means to do so try to visit our News round-up 10 the beer taxes within the European pubs more often, and especially to Union, but the British consume only sample our local breweries’ beers. Letters 29 13% of the beer produced in the EU. Ten of the 23 independent breweries Duty increased by 42% between 2008 within Greater London listed in the LocAle update 35 and 2012. The problem has been made 2013 Good Beer Guide are new en - worse by the ‘duty escalator’ introduced tries since last year. May they Branch diaries 36 by the last Labour Chancellor and con - all prosper! Capital Pubcheck 38 tinued by his Conservative successor. LD When the Coalition came to office Geoff Strawbridge Membership form 41 it promised to be a pub-friendly govern - ment. Yet, like its predecessor, it has Check the Beer Windsor & Eton 54 done nothing to support the pub, nor has it taken steps to tackle the market-dis - Festival Calendar Brewery visits 56 torting powers of the supermarkets. Be - tween 2009 and 2012, 4,500 pubs and visit your Idle Moments 57 closed – half of them while the Coali - LocAle pubs at tion has been in office. Cask beer can Crossword 58 be sold only in pubs. If pub numbers www.camralondon.org.uk continue to decline, sales of real ale will 3 CAMRA South East conference n the first of September a super-regional confer - sion, mission and value statements being created to Oence for the south east England regions of give the campaign a better, clearer idea of its goals and CAMRA was held at Questors Theatre in Ealing. The future direction. Christine Cryne gave the final pres - intention of this conference was for members of the entation before lunch on the importance of volunteers national executive to present for discussion the new and how to let people know how they can volunteer key campaigns that have been devised to keep the cam - to help the campaign. Ideas for activating the estimat - paign relevant. Although this started quite early in ed 75% of inactive, or occasionally active, members the morning, a good number of people from all over were discussed for presentation to the executive. the south east of England, including a number who At lunchtime, the bar opened to serve some of their are not active members, arrived at registration ready excellent beer, but the kitchens were out of action so for the day. most of those attending left to find a nearby café to The day started with national executive members have some well-earned food. and officers explaining how the CAMRA committee After lunch, the participants were separated into and staff structure has changed over the last year or two groups with one group looking at the more po - so. The main changes have been to simplify the hi - litical campaigns and the other looking at campaigns erarchy and make it clearer who reports to whom and aimed at the public rather than the legislators. The how they should do it. The addition of a new medi - aim of these group sessions was to create a lively dis - ation process for situations where there are serious dis - cussion of the campaigns at hand and to give the na - agreements between members was also introduced and tional executive more idea of what members think that discussed. The new key campaigns were unveiled along the campaign should be doing to promote and exe - with supporting strategic plans and a new website will cute these objectives. I went for the non-political of complement the newly revived campaign. The cam - the sub-groups and found that there was a good deal paigns in question relate to taxation, campaigning of lively discussion over exactly how we should go against pub closures, promoting the creation of a gov - about promoting pub going and trying new beer styles. ernment support package for pubs, raising the profile The other session was similarly boisterous and both of pub going, and getting people to try beer styles that overran as differing points of view were emotionally they may not have tried previously. There are also vi - fought. Not wishing to pre-empt other regional con - 4 CAMRA South East conference ferences that are yet to be held and being without the With the kitchen being unavailable, the small Walpole full results of the conference I will not go into much Park café is to be commended for managing to serve detail other than to say that the debate was spirited almost all of the visitors with no prior notice. I would and gave the executive members a great deal to con - recommend that members who have not been to a su - sider. per-regional conference in the past go to future events Questors Theatre and its adjoining bar did a very as this one was not only interesting and insightful but good job of looking after the conference in spite of it also a great deal of fun! being their pre-season ‘down time’ and the beer was as good as you would expect of a Club of the Year. Mark Davies TWO WINS FOR Advertise in the next LONDON DRINKER. Our advertising rates are as follows: REDEMPTION TRINITY Whole page £325 (colour), £260 (mono); embers of the North London and South Beds Half page £195 (colour), MBranches plus friends visited Redemption £145 (mono); Quarter page £105 (colour), Brewery in Tottenham to present Andy Moffat with £80 (mono). awards for his 3% ABV beer, Trinity winning Beer Phone John Galpin now on 020 3287 2966 of the Festival at the London Drinker Beer & Cider Mobile 07508 036835 Festival and Luton Email: [email protected] or Beer Festival.