Woodies, New Malden (See Page 26) Tel: 020 7281 2786
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D ON ON L Dec Vol 32 Jan No 6 2011 Woodies, New Malden (see page 26) Tel: 020 7281 2786 Steak & Ale House u We’re now taking bookings for all your Christmas parties and dinners. u Now serving festive ales! u 3 course Christmas meal for £21.00 u We’re open Christmas Day 12-4pm u Book your place at our popular free New Year’s Eve party Christmas ales, Christmas food ...Six Cask Marque and Christmas cheer! accredited real ales We hope to see you soon 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 pub sign up at www.northnineteen.co.uk 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 12-7pm 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 Branches of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real NDO Ale Limited, and edited by Geoff O N Strawbridge. L Material for publication should preferably be sent by e-mail to [email protected]. Correspondents unable to send letters to the editor electronically may post them to Brian Sheridan at 4, Arundel House, Heathfield Road, Croydon CR0 1EZ. Press releases should be sent by email via [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]. For publication in February 2011, please Some thoughts on the real ale market send electronic documents to the Editor no later than Wednesday 12th January. t face value, things are looking “That’s basically a clever way of SUBSCRIPTIONS: £4.00 for mailing of 6 Agood for real ale. This year’s saying variety is the spice of life and editions or £8.00 for 12 should be sent to Stan Tompkins, 52 Rabbs Mill House, edition of Pete Brown’s Cask that more discerning tastes can be Chiltern View Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex, Report (volume 4) tells us that the good for the economy.” UB8 2PD (cheques payable to CAMRA cask ale market is growing by 5% as Interesting but to what other London). ADVERTISING: John Galpin against a 2% decline in lager sales. areas, apart from food, could this Tel: 020 3287 2966. Furthermore, 25% of real ale theory spread? Also, if you look at Printed by Cliffe Enterprise, drinkers are under 25 and the the total UK beer market including Eastbourne, BN22 8TR number of women drinking real ale Carling, Fosters, etc, and include Views expressed in this publication are those has doubled in two years. At off-sales as well as on-sales, cask of their individual authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Editor or the 15.2% of all on-trade sales, cask beer is still a very small proportion Campaign for Real Ale Limited. beer now holds a stronger position of the whole. To put this in Advertise in the next than for over a decade. context, writing in the Guardian LONDON DRINKER Mr Brown also picked up on recently, Simon Bowers noted that Our advertising rates are as follows: some research that I had spotted in this summer for the first time beer Whole page £300 (colour) £240 (mono) an earlier Press Association report. sold in supermarkets and off Half page £180 (colour), £135 (mono) Having examined the history of licences outstripped that sold in Quarter page £95 (colour), £70 (mono) Phone John Galpin now on brewing in England, experts at pubs and bars. The amount of beer 020 3287 2966, Mobile 07508 036835 Nottingham University Business sold in Britain has fallen 14% in the [email protected] School have decided that Britain’s last six years and the steepest beer drinkers can serve as role decline has been in pubs where In this issue models as the nation struggles to beer sales have dropped 31%. The Responsible drinking 6 emerge from recession. We real ale average cost of a pint of draught drinkers apparently represent the lager in pubs was £1.40 in 1991 News round-up 10 perfect example of how greater but rose to £2.81 last year – an London breweries 23 consumer awareness can revitalise increase of 68% before inflation – a struggling industry and the ever- whilst supermarket promotional Awards 26 growing number of microbreweries deals regularly offer multi-pack Letters 36 offers hope for the UK’s small deals equivalent to 70p a pint or businesses. Professor Peter Swann, less. Branch diaries 38 the author of the study, explained, Within the real ale sector there East London Line 40 “The range of products and the is also the issue of Progressive Beer number of centres of production in Duty. Without going into detail, Capital Pubcheck 44 brewing in England declined what we call microbreweries pay Membership form 47 dramatically between 1900 and substantially less duty than the 1970. As is widely accepted, that bigger regional or ‘family’ brewers. New keg threat 55 process began to reverse with the This skews the market and whilst it Greene King 56 formation of CAMRA and its fight has led to an otherwise welcome against bland, mass-produced beers.” increase in the number of Verhaeghe hospitality 58 Apparently, in technical terms, this breweries – not least in London Idle Moments 60 represents ‘horizontal product over the last few years – the market differentiation and a reduction in must inevitably become saturated Crossword 62 the importance of the economies and these breweries will be of scale’. Professor Swann adds, competing against each other 3 Editorial whilst the regionals are unable to pub closures – generally and on a sales opportunities rather than grow because they cannot case-by-case basis – and against cutting prices to compete for the compete with the micro- any misguided measures that will existing ones? breweries on price. make decent pubs less viable in If we are to take full So where does this leave us? I the cause of health and ‘law and advantage of the expansion in am not convinced that a larger order’. brewing, then the market for real share of an ever-decreasing Although I know that SIBA ale – in other words, pubs – must market is healthy. Real ale needs will disagree, I would also like to grow. My worry is that if it does pubs yet, as we all know, pub see Progressive Beer Duty not, real ale is going to become a closures continue, even if now at reformed to a ‘sliding scale’ basis niche product that will be aimed a slower pace. I accept that a lot so that there is no ‘brick wall’ to at the young and relatively of the pubs being closed probably stop development. And dare I wealthy and it will cease to did not sell real ale but, if they are suggest that more microbreweries be the national drink that closed, they never will. CAMRA spend some of their PBD savings CAMRA was formed to save. LD must keep campaigning against on investing in pubs to expand Tony Hedger Advertise in the next LONDON DRINKER Our advertising rates are as follows: Whole page £300 (colour), £240 (mono) Half page £180 (colour), £135 (mono); Quarter page £95 (colour), £70 (mono). Phone John Galpin now on 020 3287 2966, Mobile 07508 036835 Email: [email protected] THE FINAL COPY DATE FOR ADVERTISING IN OUR NEXT ISSUE (FEBRUARY/MARCH) IS THE FIRST OF JANUARY 4 The Bree Louise 69 Cobourg St. NW1 2HH CAMRA North London Pub of the Year 2009 --10 Up to 19 ales and 10 ciders permanently available. www.thebreelouise.com CAMRA members -- 50p off a pint Campaigning Drink responsibly and in hope! n 3 November, the Prime Minister, David health professionals in recent years attributing the OCameron, spoke at Parliamentary Question UK’s high incidence of alcohol abuse at least in part Time of his big support for pubs and his wish to to the low cost of strong drinks in supermarkets. deliver a ‘pub-friendly Government’. This This perverse incentive to irresponsible drinking commitment follows his decision to appoint a grows stronger with each annual application of the Community Pubs Minister in response to vigorous last government’s notorious beer tax escalator, campaigning from CAMRA and others. which forces prices for pub licensees and their CAMRA’s website notes that we will now be customers ever upwards while supermarket chains pressing the Prime Minister and the Community can smugly absorb the increases. And the Pubs Minister to continue their support for pubs by forthcoming hike in VAT will inevitably have the backing the Protection of Local Services (Planning) same effect. Bill which will give Councils powers to close In theory, we should have joined-up planning law loopholes which developers use to government. Commitments to support community demolish or convert a pub without the need for pubs and to encourage responsible drinking should planning permission. be understood as almost identical objectives. By However, we should perhaps more urgently contrast, the recent, hurried consultation about continue to press our pub-friendly Government for licensing reform seemed concerned much more reforms to the pattern of alcohol taxation it with making it easier to close pubs than with inherited.