No taxation without representsation ... true in 1776 ... still true now ...

Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

How much attention do you think your average MP pays to the plight of the average British pub and the hundreds of thousands of people that rely on them for employment and their respective social lives? 

Not a lot I would venture ... otherwise this wouldn't be such a frightening statistic:

"In the last five years the headline rate of beer duty has risen by more than 35%"

Nor would this:

"Despite falling beer consumption in the UK, we contribute 40% of the total beer excise revenue raised by 27 EU nations, whilst accounting for only 13% of total EU beer volumes"

Both of these alarming figures come from the SIBA submission to Mad King George ahead of  his latest budget, so will he remember this from the blurb on his own website: "I will never forget that my first duty is to those who elected me ..." or will it be these words he remembers “What this country needs is a Chancellor with his mind on the job not on inheriting the Prime Minister's crown.” ?

George III prophesied this: "Once vigorous measures appear to be the only means left of bringing the Americans to a due submission to the mother country, the colonies will submit."

So how did that work out for you Georgie Boy? Oh yeah, George Washington "opened a can of woopass on him at Yorktown!"

 

If only we had a forum for airing our grievances ... and someone to speak on our behalf ... if only we had an elected legislative body ... if only we had a slogan as good as that in 1776 ... might be something like:

 

That Was The Year That Was …

January saw England win the Ashes in Australia for the first time in 23 years. The Arab Spring starts in Tunisia. The Metropolitan Police re-opens its investigations into phone-hacking.

Pubs face up to the hefty increase in VAT to 20% as industry reports indicate that it could cost up to 8,000 jobs … over a thousand of you download my free VAT increase calculator … hope it helped!

February and Barclays Bank admits to only paying £113m in UK taxes on a £11.6bn profit … “you say to-mar-to, I say tom-a-to, you say evasion, I say avoidance”. Colin Firth bags an Oscar for the King’s Speech, whilst Gadaffi desperately clings to power.

SIBA (the independent brewers’ organisation) reports that indie-brewers are flourishing with over 40% reporting an increase of 8.8% in volumes despite a UK downturn in barrels brewed overall of 3.9%

March definitely came in like a lion with the earthquake off Japan’s coast, the ensuing tsunami and nuclear disaster at Fukushima. By the time we saw the Aides of March (15^th) it was only 500 days until the 2012 London Olympic Games and UK forces were actively engaged in attacking Gadaffi’s military at a reported cost of £1.75bn – good to see that HMG has that much to spare now other spending cuts have started to take effect! The euro-debt crisis deepens with a £21bn bailout for Ireland … and look another £7bn of "savings" get spent out!

RIP Elizabeth Taylor.

Pubs and brewers reel at the continued beer duty escalator as good old George imposes an eye-watering 7.5% increase in beer duty … way to go to stimulate the pub trade George!

April and we’re all asking “What the frack was that?” … or the residents of Blackpool were as minor earthquakes shake the area. Greece is set to get a 110bn-euros bailout, Wills and Kate get spliced and Charlie Sheen goes into melt-down live on stage.


Just when you think you’ve got enough red-tape to deal with whilst running a pub the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill gets its second reading in the Lords.

May, after 10 years of waiting and 40 minutes of gunfire it’s Bang Bang You’re Dead for Mr Bin Laden. It’s not the end of the world as predicted by Harold Camping – everyone knows that it ends in 2012 – come on! Love it or hate it (and the Danes hate it, it would appear) as the Danish government bans the importation of Marmite and shock-horror Queen doesn’t sup Guinness on visit to Dublin brewery!

Whilst she’s there the Irish government announces a reduction in VAT to 9% to help its ailing hospitality industry … how about it George?

June’s publication of an IPPR report shows that 2/3^rd of Britons think the pay gap between high and low earners is too wide – you think? “Happy Feet” – more like “Tired Feet” as an emperor penguin gets lost and turns up 2,000 miles away from Antarctica in New Zealand.

RIP Jeremy Allen the noted licensing solicitor. 


And if you hadn’t heard of BISC (the commons Business, Industry and Skills Committee) by now it announces the start of its follow-up inquiry into the pub trade.

July and The Guardian reports that the News of the World hacked Milly Dowler’s phone on the 4^th, by the 10^th that venerable (168 years in print) newspaper closes as Rupert Murdoch abandons his bid to control BSkyB. To paraphrase dear old Oscar: “To lose one tank may be regarded as misfortune; to lose £6.3bn of assets looks like carelessness” as the MOD admits it doesn’t know where all its highly expensive toys are.

The summer rapidly turns into the Summer of House Committees and Rupert Murdoch has a flantastic time in front of the Culture Committee, as we said goodbye to Amy Winehouse and hello to the world’s newest country – South Sudan.

BISC (remember them?) roundly criticises the British Institute of Innkeeping for not publishing online the level of beer discounts available against pubco rents.

August and it’s a return to the charts for “We Predict a Riot” as civil unrest spreads from London to cities as far apart as Birmingham and Manchester. Blackberry crumbles and Twitter calls to brooms the great clean-up brigade.

In the pub world Punch formally split in two (leased and managed businesses) and promptly  saw the share price for the leased company fall to an all-time low of 9.14p, some market analysts determine that Punch is now officially a zombie corporation.

Definition of a Zombie: “the body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose.” – does this apply to pubcos too?

September we remembered the Twin Towers ten years down the line and Manhattan was Occupied (as were cities across the globe in protest at the failure of capitalism). A big hit on the TV was “My Big Fat Gipsy Eviction” as Dale Farm was cleared at a cost of some £18m – I mean, I know bailiffs were well paid but this is ridiculous!

Meanwhile back at BISC and it’s report published this month calls for the government to introduce a Statutory Code Of Practice to curb the excesses of some pubcos.

October and Dr Fox just “doesn’t know him from Adam” (Wherritty that is) and promptly resigns. On the 5^th we saw the departure from this veil of tears of Steve Jobs, a passing that many mourned, unlike the passing of Muammar Gaddafi on the 20^th.

Hooray for the underdog as Karen Murphy wins an historic victory over BSkyB in the European Courts of Justice.

November saw the release of “Clueless” a movie starring James Murdoch set in the House of Commons and featuring the cast of the Commons Culture Select Committee in an everyday tale of media folk and parliamentarians. Murdoch declines to take on the role of the Godfather though!

Another landmark as long-term Youth Unemployment surpasses 1 million – well done the Coalition for a stunning 18 months in office!

RIP Gary Speed manager of the Welsh national football team.

Gee, thanks again to Mr Cameron for refusing to introduce a statutory code of practice for the pub industry as his response to the BISC report.

And so to December as Edinburgh welcomed its pandas and Cameron vetoed the Europe-wide treaty to save the euro (hands up anyone that thinks this will come to haunt him and us?) Some good news amongst the doom and gloom, though, as the Large Hadron Collidor at C.E.R.N. announced its first glimpse of the Higgs boson or sometime called god particle.

This reminds me of an old piece of graffito, which I will slightly adapt as “God is Dead” – Frederich Neitzche … “Christopher Hitchens is dead” – God. RIP Christopher - noted atheist and polemic. 


Let’s hope that 2012 is a better year, especially for the pub trade and that this time next year I don’t have to lead my review with "RIP – The Great British Pub".

If you do one thing this coming year make sure it’s that you support your local pub and your local brewer … remember if you don’t use it you lose it!

I’ll be supporting my local and many more I hope with this blog, the HOW TO RUN A PUB website  ... and with that I wish a ...

Happy New Year To You All

(P.S. my new year’s resolution is to stop using exclamation marks so much – cheers!)

Taking it easy, easy like Sunday morning ...

... that's what I trust the team at Great Oakley Brewery (near Corby, Northants) will be doing this morning after having what should have been a fantastic weekend at CAMRA's Robin Hood Beer Festival in Nottingham.


Congratulations to them on winning overall champion of the competition with their Gobble, they also won a couple of other gongs for speciality and bottled beers.


That's the only thing about judging at these competitions, you only get a number not a name to identify each beer, so having carefully assessed appearance, aroma, taste, aftertaste and "saleability" and totted up the scores you don't ever know the name of the one(s) you really like.


If their's was the one I and others seemed to agree was the best on our table (as we were judging their category for Gobble) then at least I know what to look out for ... must write to SIBA and see if they'll let me know which number corresponded to which beer.

Judging at beer festivals ... or how I learned to love drinking in the morning!

10.30 a.m. Slightly overcast but a mild 15 degrees C in Nottingham, the wind is light and the sun is desperately trying to push its way through the clouds, whilst I desperately try to push my way through the crowds.


Now call me old fashioned, but I've never been a fan of beer in the morning, even as hair of the dog, so the prospect of judging beers for a SIBA competition at a CAMRA beer festival was slightly daunting. I mean it's not as if you can taste, swill and spit like those light-weight wine tasters, you have to swallow.


The Robin Hood Beer Festival in the magnificent setting of Nottingham Castle's grounds is now in its 35th year and quite frankly I was absolutely gob-smacked at the sheer scale of it. One of the largest marquees I have ever seen set atop the castle mount overlooking the city centre plays host to a truly staggering array of artisanal ales, ciders and English wines, along with various hand crafted foodie offerings.


The statistics are simply amazing - over 300 brewers exhibiting and 31 of them fitting the CAMRA criteria for LocAle (i.e. from within a 20 mile radius of Nottingham) offering up an incredible 900 different cask ales and 91 real ciders. 


Luckily I only had to sit on two tables this year, both for Premium Bitters though, so the head is still banging a bit as I write this ... even by strictly limiting consumption to a third of a pint this means I quaffed getting on for 8 pints in less than three hours and starting at 11 in the morning! I can only thank the organisers for not putting me on the final tasting table for the SIBA Midlands champion beer (that would have been a further 8 ales to try from the other categories) as I feel an ambulance may have been required.


The feeling of bonhomie and camaraderie (or should that be CAMRAderie?) was palpable not only amongst the judges' tables (must have been well over 60 of us) but amongst the hundreds of paying visitors, exhibiting brewers and volunteers running the event. With all the doom and gloom prevalent nowadays it was joyful to see so many smiling faces and all well before the sun had hit the yardarm. 


Even if you were to visit every day of the three day festival and spent all day long sipping thirds of pints you wouldn't be able to sample everything on offer ... but that's the great thing about beer festivals you can re-visit old favourites and discover new favourites to be. At this year's Robin Hood you could spend the three days just sampling the wares of the 55 new brewers that have been added to the roster. That is 55 new brewers who have set up this year alone and produced a plethora of varying ambrosias ... to name check a few of the locals Black Iris (Peregrine Pale - 4.6% - crisp), Wentwell (Farm Hand's Bitter well rounded copper ale at 4.1%), Wellbeck Abbey (Spyke's Gold full of Goldings Hops at 4%) and one from a pub from my student days in Hull over 30 years ago ... The Wellington Inn (a darkly serious brew at 4.5%).


My final thanks have to go, albeit posthumously, to Spyke Golding, the recently deceased legend of the Nottingham CAMRA branch who gave so much encouragement to both brewers and publicans in the area. His monumental frame and good nature is still missed so it was a nice touch for this year's festival to be dedicated to his memory - including a cracking festival ale from Castle Rock of Nottingham bearing his name.


Now I must go lie down in a darkened room, keeping one foot placed firmly on the floor to ground me and drift into the arms of Morpheus ... 

Cask Ale – the real “must stock” brand

There aren’t many things you “must stock” in your pub, Guinness, clean toilets, friendly well trained staff being a few, but the one that stands out whether you are food led or wet led is Cask Ale.

The publication of the fifth annual Cask Report by award winning beer writer Pete Brown, with the backing of brewers, CAMRA and Cask Marque is full of well researched and documented analysis of the Cask Ale market.

It’s not only packed with statistics about this sector of the UK beer market but also comes with case studies on how to benefit from Cask Ale and even if you don’t read the full 50 pages the 10 Point Action Plan on how to maximise cask ale sales is a great place to start.

Download the Cask Ale Report 2011 here

Well done, once again, Mr Brown and all the others involved in its compilation and publication.

Hobsons' Choice - be green and produce great beer

Shropshire-based Hobsons Brewery, founded by the Davis Family in 1993, scooped the awards for Best Overall Business and Best Green Business at the Society of Independent Brewers (SIBA) Brewing Business Awards yesterday.

Hobsons was praised by judges for its "exceptional attitude" towards quality and the culture of local brewing; to which can be added praise for employing 14 local people and producing the highest energy efficiency industrial building in Shropshire.

The brewery has reduced its carbon footprint by 17.5 tonnes over the past three years after designing its own solution to recover heat from its cold barrel store to heat its bottle conditioning room as well as installing a wind turbine and a rain harvesting system.

For more details on how Hobsons reduced its carbon footprint, see the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4llYWGcf-w&feature=player_embedded

What a fantastic achievement for both their brewing and their commitment to the environment - small is beautiful after all! Their website is at:  

http://www.hobsons-brewery.co.uk/