Merseyale Summer 2013
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CAMRA Liverpool & Districts Magazine S u m m er 2013 FREE www.liverpoolcamra.org.uk email [email protected] Circulation 11,000 The MerseyAle CAMRA Liverpool and Districts Branch MerseyAle Editor John Armstrong 67 Moorfields Liverpool L2 2BP Telephone 0151 236 1734 MerseyAle Contacts Comments/news/letters/photos The Lion Tavern (Grade II Listed) is Liverpool’s [email protected] finest Edwardian Pub. It is an extravaganza of FOOD etched glass, carved wood and beautiful tiling. See the board for MerseyAle Advertising selection of good Welcome to MerseyAle It has a wonderful ornate wood carved bar plus Cost - Full page £200 value food two cosy side rooms one with a fantastic Half page £100 and ManxAle stained glass dome. The Lion Tavern is an Contact QUIZ NIGHT [email protected] award winning pub serving excellent cask every Tuesday at 9.30pm conditioned ales, cider and a large selection of Our cover homage to the most Good news is the Victory for MerseyAle - Read online at famous railway poster in the world the finest malt whiskies. You can also enjoy a www.merseyale.com People Power in saving the welcomes you to what we hope will Caledonia pub from closure and our fine selection of tasty food from our new menu. ACOUSTIC NIGHT Liverpool and Districts CAMRA be a “bracing” edition of MerseyAle. best wishes for licensee Laura King Main Branch Contact The wind of change is certainly in continuing the pub’s ever Second Thursday of the blowing at the present. This is a Jean Pownceby upwards progress, see pages 28 – 29. Month 8pm critical time for the future of that This episode shows the importance [email protected] national institution, the British Pub. of eternal vigilance against the HAsuppNly a vDariedP seUlectioMn of PprizSe BOB DYLAN Contact for Socials and Research has shown that the rate of actions of the PubCos and the value Coach Trips only pub closures has accelerated from 16 of listing your local as an Asset of winning Real Ales (including at least one a week last year, to 26 a week at the Community Value under the SOCIETY Ian MacAdam 07521 741 586 locally brewed ale) plus hand pulled Cider Meets first Thursday of the end of March 2013. The very Localism Act. The message is, ‘List it Month 8.30pm Liverpool Branch Chair survival of the British Pub is now at or Lose It’. 8 stake. A major factor in this Geoff Edwards [email protected] acceleration is the excessive More good news is the impressive Over 80 Malt MEET THE BREWER demands of the PubCos which increase in the number of women Third Thursday of the Web Sites between them own nearly half of drinking real ale, up from 14% to Month 8pm Liverpool and Districts Britain’s pubs. On pages 4 to 7 you 34% in the last three years. Whiskies can read about the fight back against CAMRA Branch Liverpool CAMRA has played a big The Lion Tavern has one of the largest www.liverpoolcamra.org.uk the PubCos through the Fair Deal for part in Bringing New People to Real POETRY GET Pubs campaign and how you can Ale with its award winning selections of malt whisky on Merseyside wwwfacebook.com TOGETHER help to maintain pressure on the Snowballs Campaign – see pages 36 Fourth Thursday of the /CAMRAliverpool Coalition Government to introduce a and 37. Month 8pm @LiverpoolCAMRA statutory code for PubCos which has Yet more good news is that CAMRA QR Codes page 55 real teeth. membership has passed the 150,000 members landmark and V6 Adventure Isle of Man CAMRA Branch Close to home we have the winding that it has recruited 20,000 more www.isleofmancamra.org.uk up order for Cains RC Brewing women members in the last decade. Club Company and the cessation of CAMRA membership offers many CAMRA national site Meet every Wednesday brewing at the Stanhope Street financial benefits, so don’t delay, www.camra.org.uk at 8.00pm brewery. The Unite union described JOIN TODAY and support the fight Cover Cains handling of the affair and their for the British Pub and for Real Ale . treatment of the 38 staff made by Dennis redundant as “disgraceful”. This is Jones the second liquidation in five years Based on the of companies run by the Dusanj famous Great family, the first time with debts of WEEKLY Northern LOCALE CAMRA DISCOUNT £50 million and the second with Card carrying Railway Jolly See Board Fisherman debts of 38 million, leaving many for future CAMRA members 10 pence off pint of real ale poster. creditors seriously out of pocket. On Real Ales pages 12 to 15 we pose the question would you invest £50 million in the proposed Cains Brewery Village John Armstrong “One of the Hundred Best Pubs in the country” The opinions expressed in MerseyAle scheme given this track record? are not necessarily those of the Editor, Editor Daily Telegraph the CAMRA Liverpool Branch or CAMRA Ltd. PUB OF EXCELLENCE 2012 CASK MARQUE CAMRA NATIONAL INVENTORY PUB 3 Curbing th e Power of the PubCos said the Fair Deal for Your from the profits of each pub– so Massive Response Local campaign was licensees and pub goers alike Sign up to be a Fair Deal for Your Local particularly strong as it suffer. A fair deal will result in the to Government Campaign Supporter to hear more about united beer drinkers, average tied pub being £4,000 the campaign and how you can get involved licensees and better off annually Consultation on www.fairdealforyourlocal.com politicians. PubCos Labour’s shadow small The Pubco Model business minister Toby Around a third of pubs in the UK Campaigners were pressing for Perkins claimed the are owned by large Pub statutory controls on PubCos “forces of darkness” were Companies – property companies right up to the close of the also meeting to try to who lease pubs out to tenants to government’s consultation on the work against the run as their own business. These reform of the tie. campaign and added it pubs are contractually obliged to Business secretary Vince Cable was good when politicians could buy their beer only from the has revealed more than 7,000 Fair Deal Rally do “the right thing and know it Pubco preventing pub licensees online and 1,200 written was popular”. buying on the open market – this Call for Government responses, many from CAMRA is known as the beer tie. Action on PubCos Norwich-based publican Dawn members, were made before the consultation ended on 14 June. Hopkins read out messages from Pubcos make huge excess profits PubCos “a big If implemented, the government licensees unable to attend the by using the beer tie to force corporate scandal” plans a code of practice and an rally – including one which simply licensees and ultimately the adjudicator to settle disputes said: “ Sorry I can’t attend after consumer to pay high prices. “Forces of Darkness” between licensees and pub being totally shafted by my Licensees can pay at least 50% working to block Fair Deal owners. had failed to deliver effective pubco.” more for beer than a free-of-tie for Pubs self-regulation. Large pub company reform was a publican. Alongside this pubco Cable said the measures would “social justice issue” according to licensees often find themselves help pubs that were being treated The government is expected to vice chair of the APPSPG Grahame paying above market value rents unfairly by the big PubCos and respond to the consultation in Morris, who claimed the system and have no independent could save tenants £100 million the autumn. was “unethical and immoral”. adjudicator to settle disputes. a year. Get Involved The plans are targeted at Time for Reform Your support in getting us this far companies with more than 500 Fair Deal For Your The Government is now really has made all the difference. tenanted and leased pubs and proposing a package of measures However, the battle isn’t won yet Local: aims to prevent them abusing the to deliver a fair deal for local and we now need to ensure the PUBLICANS and campaigners tie that obliges licensees to buy pubs, with: Government sees its plans packed the largest committee Time for Pubco beer from them. Companies that through. not to sell it from under them room in the House of Commons would be covered by the code Reform without telling them.” Bob Neill to demand a fair deal for • A powerful new Code and a include Enterprise Inns, Punch Emily Ryans MP formerly Community Pubs licensees. More than 120 We have a very real opportunity Watchdog to stop abuses by Taverns, Greene King, Admiral CAMRA Public Affairs Officer Minister supporters of the Fair Deal for to save the Great British Pub and big pub companies Taverns, Marston’s and Spirit. Your Local campaign , run by the we need you to get involved. • A new choice for licensees to Enterprise PubCo On the 21st May, MPs gathered in All Party Parliamentary Save the The Government backed beer and opt out of restrictive tied Cable said that despite four pub sell the House of Commons to Pub Group (APPSPG) and pubs in the recent Budget by agreements and just pay a fair official reports in a decade discuss the impending conversion supported by CAMRA , attended. abandoning plans for a beer duty market rent to their pubco highlighting the problems faced off is “Shabby and of the Porcupine Pub in hike and instead cutting beer duty • Fair rents and beer prices for by publicans self regulation was Mottingham to a Lidl store.