www.hertsale.org.uk www.watfordcamra.org.uk www.heb-camra.org.uk www.camranorthherts.org.uk FREE HERTFORDSHIRE’S Pints of View The bi-monthly publication for every discerning drinker October/November 2008 Circulation 7500 No. 231 The Sun Shines on Herts Festivals See our North and South Herts Beer Festivals special Features Pages 15 - 20 The trip to Sheringham that never was Page 25 Focus on the Estcourt Arms, Watford Page 29 Accreditation Scheme for Herts ales Page 3 PLUS: Pub and brewery news from around the county, features, and lots more! Increase your business profits for as little as £17.99 per week with RBS~StoreVision With over 10,000 installations worldwide, at Retail Business Solutions, we are adding to our existing customer base every day. Public houses have reaped considerable advantages since converting from basic cash registers to an automated electronic, touch-screen EPoS till system. These businesses are enjoying the following benefits:- • Kitchen Printing. 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Please Call John Morrison on 01908 226226 for an informal discussion and to arrange a no obligation demonstration. www.rbsretail.com Email: [email protected] Local Ale Accreditation Scheme Launched AMRA has launched a new accreditation stocking a local real ale by their lease or tenancy scheme to promote pubs that sell locally- agreement that requires them to purchase real ales C brewed real ale, reducing the number of only from a central list. The situation however is 'beer miles' and supporting your local breweries. improving. The Society of Independent Brewers’ Called LocAle, it is all about increasing the sale of Direct Delivery Scheme allows an increasing local real ales in local number of Punch pubs. Taverns, Enterprise Inns The benefits of a and Admiral Taverns successful CAMRA LocAle lessees the option of scheme are: stocking a real ale from • Improved consumer a local brewer. choice due to more The objective of the locally brewed real LocAle scheme is to ales being available in pubs ensure that all accredited pubs have a minimum of • Local brewers selling more real ale allowing one local real ale on sale at all times. There will them to expand, benefiting the local economy however be times where this is not possible due to and real ale choice the llocal real ale selling out faster than expected or • Fewer “beer miles” resulting in less road because the cask is being changed. congestion and pollution In South Hertfordshire the pubs below regularly • Thriving pubs due to the wider availability of sell a CAMRA defined real ale brewed in local real ales in pubs boosting the number of Hertfordshire: pub visits Harpenden: Amble Inn - Red Squirrel • An increase in local identity and pride Hertford: Old Cross - Red Squirrel, Great Eastern In short LocAle is about consumer choice, local Tavern — McMullen. jobs, supporting a sustainable environment, South Mimms: White Hart - McMullens creating local distinctiveness and promoting local St. Albans: pubs. Cross Keys — Tring, Farmers Boy — Alehouse, The scheme was created in 2007 by CAMRA’s Farriers Arms — McMullen, Hare & Hounds - Red Nottingham branch, who wanted to support their Squirrel, Mermaid — Tring, Lower Red Lion — remaining local brewers following the closure of Alehouse, Waterend Barn — Tring local brewer Hardy’s and Hanson’s by Greene Ware: Crown King. LocAle is there to promote pubs selling a Wheathampstead: Nelson - McMullen locally-brewed real ale, on sale at all times Wildhill: Woodman - McMullen throughout the year and in perfect condition. This list of course is not exhaustive, but please let In Hertfordshire that means a pint brewed within us have further nominations so that we can publish twenty miles of the pub where it is sold. a formal list of accredited LocAle pubs covering The Sustainable Communities Act, which CAMRA the whole county. Up-to-date information was on strongly supports, provides a definition of local as display at our recent St Albans Beer Festival. up to 30 miles from the place of sale. We have set a slightly stricter limit. Brewers Raise their Prices for Unfortunately some real ale is delivered 50 miles away to a distribution centre before being the Second Time this Year delivered back to a pub only ten miles away from Daily Telegraph, 14 September 2008 the brewery. Because the brewery is local to the arston's, the Midlands-based brewer, has pub then the real ale still qualifies as a local real added 10p to the price of a pint and ale. Encouraging more pubs to serve local real ales MTetley's will follow suit in the first week is the first step to reducing “beer miles”. As of October. licensees become more familiar with their local "We have done everything possible to limit the breweries they will be more likely to arrange direct price increase, but there have been unprecedented delivery. Some licensees are prevented from levels of increases in raw materials in recent 3 months," said Stephen Oliver, managing director of Marston's Beer Company. The price of barley and the metal used in cans has risen by more than half in the past two years. The company's energy costs have jumped 150 per cent in some areas. Lagers such as Stella Artois, Beck's and Tennent's, all owned by InBev, have gone up by 3p a pint in September, with a similar increase for Carling and Grolsch. Although the average price of a pint of lager is now around £2.82, drinkers in London and the South East will be paying significantly more. "The current wave of price increases means £4 a pint will be far more commonplace this year," said a spokesman for the British Beer & Pub Association. Ed Says: The price increases may be genuine but £4 a pint - I don’t think so. Let’s face it; the price of metal for cans, most of which are sold at discounted prices in the off trade shouldn’t worry us. Of course our friends the brewers may well pass this cost onto the pub trade to allow them to continue their subsidies. I think it is finally beginning to sink in that the price of a pint is shutting pubs, and if you have nowhere to sell your goods you are out of business. If £4 a pint is to become commonplace how is it The Strathmore Arms that Belal Hussain of the Marksman in West Bromwich, in the Midlands can sell all his beers St Pauls Walden, Nr Hitchin, SG4 8BT including Guinness and Cider at 89 pence - yes 89 01438 871654 pence per pint. He claims he can do this because [email protected] he bulk buys and takes a lower profit margin. It shows what can be done, but this only applies to the free trade. Your local is being charged more than he is selling the beer for under Tied House system mentioned in “The Bitter End” article in our last edition. Tenants' Opposition to “Beer Tie” Mounts his year’s Market Report by the Publican magazine has revealed that 72 per cent of tenants would be willing to pay more rent to Hertfordshire Pub of the Year 2004 T be free-of-tie. The annual Publican Market Report, published in Woodforde’s Wherry & London Pride + 3 August gives licensees’ views on the issues constantly changing guests, over 1900 so far affecting the industry. The report has revealed that the gap in discounts offered to the free-trade Mon 6pm–11pm, Tue–Thu 12–2:30pm, 5pm–11pm Fri/Sat 12pm–11pm, Sun 10am–10:30pm compared to tenants has grown to £26 per barrel 4 of beer. move the blame of the company’s demise to the Lincolnshire brewer Bateman’s has announced it is Chancellor and the 4 pence per pint tax increase. scrapping rent reviews from its tenancy Plight of Lessees: He seems to finally be slightly agreements. Instead it will offer a fixed rate concerned about the plight of his licensees, and agreement which will allow tenants to have although his company have sent in bailiffs to evict complete certainty about their future and the a large number of tenants from their pubs, it is knowledge that their endeavours will not be offering a £10m package of rent concessions and 'rewarded' by a significant upward rent review. drinks discounts. The £10m in all fairness is too The “Fair Pint” campaign is trying to reassure little too late - if you divide 8448 into £10 million tenants that the removal of the tie would not lead it works out to less than £1,200 per pub. Yes, not to a corresponding rise in rents, as rent would still all Punch’s pubs are in trouble but the ones that have to be calculated using the profit assessment are report to us that they do not get support or method. financial help from their Business Managers. We Meanwhile, Greene King is the latest to turn down highlighted the plight of Gary and Sandra Fair Pint’s invitation to meet its members before Higginbotham of the Old Fox Bricket Wood, who the start of the government inquiry later this year.