Heritage Food - "Noshtalgia ain't what it used to be ... "

How often do you pass by a pub that advertises "traditional pub grub" or how often do you use that slogan in your own marketing? For many this sobriquet will conjure up dishes such as Cottage Pie or Sausage and Mash or Fish and Chips (and even Chicken Tikka Masala) but I am sure you won't be surprised to learn that these islands have an ancient, rich and varied culinary tradition beyond these examples.

With the Diamond Jubilee of HM The Queen and the inevitable celebration of all that is British that will open the London Olympic Games this summer, pubs have a unique opportunity to be part of the zeitgeist.

As well as being an opportunity to use local produce and seasonal ingredients you could add to your pub's USP by adding truly authentic traditional British dishes to your menu … and don’t forget wine. ale, cider and mead play an important part in the story too so plenty of opportunities for food matching. You could even go the full hog, so to speak, and dress up for the occasion too!

In this guide I will provide some recipes, food and drink ideas and point you in the direction of some really useful information on what is "Best of British". It really could be as simple as ABC - "Authentic British Cuisine". You'll even find deals from local food producers and suppliers.

I have in mind three ways to exploit what will undoubtedly be a huge resurgence in interest in our island's rich cultural heritage, but I am sure you will have your own ideas:

Concept One - "British Food Through The Ages"

 

 Whether you were to feature a menu reflecting British cuisine from Anglo-Saxon to Tudor and Regency to Victorian as a series of theme nights or add an ABC section to your standing menu you will find a fabulous heritage of cooking in this country.

 
Concept Two - "Lost British Food Rediscovered"

Another way to present ABC would be to look at obscure, but toothsome dishes from the past 1,000 years and as for the majority of that time many foods we take for granted nowadays were prohibitively expensive for most of the population you'll find plenty of inexpensive and delicious ideas on the web. For instance what about Pease Pudding, Angels on Horseback or Stargazy Pie?




Concept Three - "Elizabethan Food for the New Elizabethan Era"

To tie in with the Golden Jubilee celebrations forget Coronation Chicken (unless you have a brilliant new twist on it) and bring a little ABC to your customers in the form of an Elizabethan banquet. How about turning your traditional Sunday Roasts menu over to a Tudor feast on the Sunday of Jubilee weekend?

As the Anglo Saxon era is probably the earliest recorded time in the history of food in Britain, I guess the most authentic of British cuisine would come from that period.

Not all the foodstuffs will be familiar to you or your customers, and modern tastes might preclude using some of them, but with the minimum of substitutions you can still give your customers a flavour of the past.

Later periods such as the Regency and Victorian era are much closer to us and apart from the lavish decorations and sheer quantity of food consumed in one sitting that is a characteristic of these culinary epochs much more will be accessible to your customers.

Anglo-Saxon Staples

Fruit – figs and grapes, small apples (crab apples), plums, cherries and sloes

Vegetables & Grains - wheat, rye, oats and barley, carrots, 'Welsh carrots'; or parsnips, cabbages, burdock and rape, onions and leeks, wild garlic

Legumes - peas and beans

Herbs and Spices - ginger, cinnamon, fennel, celeriac, cloves mace and pepper

Honey

Wine & Mead 'apple-wine' (probably a form of cider) fruit juices including apple, pear and plum, herbal 'teas' and infusions, beer and ale

Nuts hazelnuts, acorns, almonds, walnuts

Fish - herring, salmon and eel, pike, perch and roach, flounder, whiting, plaice, cod and brown trout, oysters, mussels and cockles

Meat – pork, chicken, duck and goose, ducks, pigeon, plover, grouse, herons, goose, hare and rabbit, venison, wild boar, beef and veal, mutton and lamb, goat and kid

Anglo-Saxon Dishes

Small Bird and Bacon Stew with Walnuts or Hazelnuts; Pan Roasted Venison with Cherries; Lamb and Apricot Stew; 'Fenkel in Soppes' (Braised Fennel with Ginger); Nut and Leek Stew; Lozenges or Curd Cheese Pastries … to name but a few.  

To download a pdf of authentic Anglo-Saxon recipes click here

Useful Websites:

For finding local food and drink suppliers near to your pub why not try Big Barn - simply type in your post code and you'll find a list of local producers in your area, use the code BB1 and receive a 10% discount on selected purchases from their retailers.

The Tudors is a mine of information on all things relating to the Tudor period including such recipes as Almond Jumballs, Taffatty Tart and Poor Knight's Pudding. For your Elizabethan Banquet and a vast list of dishes. Crow Pie has a great collection of recipes, a glossary of British cuisine and food, calendars detailing farmers markets throughout the UK

You'll even find the World Carrot Museum that will introduce you to the wonderful world of all things of Daucus Carota (Latin for carrot). Ivan Day's Historic Food - another great site with lots of information and he even runs cookery courses.recipes4us - has some more palatable recipes for the less adventurous amongst you. Rediscover Devilled Kidneys, Kedgeree, Beef Cobbler, Apple Charlotte and much more at Good British Food

For me the definitive history of  English food and a great source for recipes is …

… although currently out of print you can find second hand copies online. Author Maxime McKendry, Published 21/01/1994,  Publisher  Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN 9780802132963
 

"This Royal throne of Kings, this sceptre'd isle, this earthly majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress nature built, for herself, Against infection and the hand of war..."

William Shakespeare, "King Richard II", Act 2 scene 1

 

p.s. if you like this blog piece then visit the How To Run A Pub website and buy me a pint !

Reality TV ...

Father Jack about to let loose ...

It's a guilty pleasure for a non-driver, watching the BBC's flagship motoring show and for the life of me I really don’t know why I do it. But as I sat there glued to the latest pointless comparison of cars I could never afford let alone drive I had a bizarre thought - what about Top Beer?.

It could still go out on Sunday evenings, it could be set in a huge keg and cask store, feature three presenters, one a fusty old cask ale drinker complete with sandals and beard, one a feisty youngster with all the bounciness of a puppy on steroids and finally a rude old git who'd not really contribute to the show except for random outbursts of profanity and bile (I'm thinking the demented Father Jack from Father Ted here, "feck, girls, beer!").

Just as the motoring show has its nemesis in the form of the caravan, so could Top Beer and it could lampoon lout (I understand this is the vernacular for lager), it could feature a Star in a Reasonably Priced Bar, where a celebrity goes for a pint in a regular community pub and tries to last a whole evening without getting into grief with the locals (I'm thinking Alastair Campbell for the first show, after all he's already done the car thing); the Power Laps would be a different craft or real Yard of Ale and watching a Stig try to consume one with thick driving gloves and through a gap in the full face helmet would be a hoot.

And how about those whacky races the petrol-heads compete in? I know … a Wild Mild Trail where the old git tries to beat the other two from one side of Belgium to another - I can just see the old git abusing Trappist monks as the pupster and beardy sip away at the finest Flemish reds. Of course the old git would always win the race but only by a whisker. It would be real "car-crash" TV!

Beer (and other alcohol) is being demonised on a daily basis so in the spirit of balanced journalism I call on the BBC to commission my idea for Top Beer immediately … it would be as relevant to the world of the average British pub-goer as Top Gear is to the average British driver … I mean if you're going to stick to such a tired old format … or I could take it to Five … Fifth Beer … oh no, we'll be accused of binge drinking!

and on that bombshell …

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:

 

Craft Beer vs Cask Ale ... who cares as long as it sells by the shed-load!

(Many thanks to Cooking Lager for pointing out on Pub Curmudgeon's blog that the above headline might give the impression that I condone irresponsible retailing ... I would just like to point out that this is not the intention of the header, the piece below or my stance on responsible retailing ... 22:20hrs 9/2/12)

For a long time there has been (at times) a quite visceral argument waged by the proponents of Craft Beer and the old guard at CAMRA over the relative merits of craft beer and cask ale.

It seems to me that the figures speak for themselves, this article in the Huffington Post is proof enough and if you don't believe all you read in the press then here is the information direct from the horse's  brewer's mouth.

(courtesy and with the permission of the Brewers'Association  - thank you kindly peeps)

 If cask ale has been the saviour of the British brewing industry and by dint of association the British pub trade (or at least help keeping it afloat) then craft beer is the next "big thing" that will help struggling pubs win new customers and keep existing customers using their businesses.

If the growth in the US market (right) can be achieved then we as a trade can keep ahead of the trend if we stop the squabbling and start promoting these varied and exciting beers.

The "talking points" that apply to the US market should be just as valid here:

• Craft seasonal & variety packages are in the top 5 in total U.S. scan data. Your shopper wants a better beer experience!
• Cross merchandising opportunities—there are almost too many to count! Cheese, meat, fish, deli, chocolate, & even bakery departments present great opportunities.
• A point of differentiation—a craft tasting offers you the opportunity to communicate directly with your shopper AND your shopper wants to speak to you!

So stop the squabbling and get behind British pubs and let's all support British craft brewers and traditional British cask brewers and celebrate the wealth and diversity of brewing history this country has to offer ... whether it's in a cask, a keg or a bottle!

Roony, Ted, Roger ... come on lend us a hand ...

Bank of England

I was interested to read of an initiative in the motor manufacturing industry by Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) to assist its component suppliers secure vital bank lending to gear up for its expected £400 million expansion of its Solihull and Wolverhampton plants.

JLR are giving 22 bankers detailed briefings of its financial plans regarding its growth plans, which, will see downstream purchasing contracts for its suppliers worth £2 billion. By taking the unusual step of disclosing this usually confidential information not only is JLR reassuring lenders that its suppliers will be able to service any debt associated with gearing up but also reassuring the wider market place of what steps it is taking to secure JLR's future.

From what I read, in the trade press and varius forums, publicans, especially those who are tenants or lessees of the pubcos and brewers find it very difficult to get lenders to support their businesses. Perhaps pubcos and brewers with tenanted estates could take a leaf out of JLR's book.

Securing short to medium term finance for Small and Medium Enterprises (and none more so than pubs) has always been problematic as lenders  view these businesses in vacuo and not part of a larger concern. It's time for industry "leaders" to start leading and add value to their customers' businesses and thankfully for these cash-strapped behemoths it shouldn’t cost them too much.

The knock on effect for those in the free trade who really are on their own would be increased confidence in the pub industry and a clearer understanding of our complex and varied industry by bankers.

The boost for our much benighted, but vitally important, sector of the wider economy has the potential to deliver an exponential return for all stakeholders and allow the pub trade to be one of the engines of economic recovery … so come on Rooney, Ted, Roger how about co-operating to present a united front to support your thousands of tenant customers?

From Russia With Love ...

Once again the redoubtable Mark Hix (restrauteur and contributor to the Indpendent newspaper) has come up trumps with a fantastic set of recipes for duck.

The one that really catches my eye for the average pub menu are the Duck Bitok, a version of traditional Russian meat balls, served with sour cream. 

I have, for a long time been a fan of Russian cuisine, blini, bortsch, pashka, koulebiaka, stroganoff and, of course, good vodka to wash it all down.

With sub-zero winds rushing in from the steppes and a cold snap across most of Europe I can't think of a better way to cram in some comfort food and liquid central heating ... get yourself over to this site for authentic Russian recipes.

The great thing about most of the Russian food I've ever cooked is that a lot of it is peasant food and is accordingly inexpensive to source and thus of interest due to its potential for good GP%.

Water, water, everywhere ...

So yet another utility company falls short on its responsibilities to get its billing right ...as a Stoke on Trent Licensee discovers his water bill is wrong

As business customers we are all subject to the dreaded standing charges on our utility bills but seldom do the utility companies tell us how we might reduce these liabilities.

Here is a useful leaflet from OfWat, the water industry's regulator that shows how you might reduce your standing charges for the rainwater that discharges from your pub into the public sewers.

Worth a look especially if you have a significant external and roof area.

For more information and advice on how to save money on your utilities look at How To Run A Pub website in The Buildings section.

A distraction from filling out your tax return ...

As many of you approach the deadline for filing your tax returns and the realisation of exactly how much profit (or loss) you made last year I thought I would share with you some extracts from the company report for Punch and for your convenience have worked out a few figures for you to digest whilst you work out how to pay your tax bill.

If you are one of the 2,000 pubs in the "turnaround" division of Punch (i.e. "non-core "or non-essential to the long term plans of company) this is Punch's stated policy from the company report:

"The plan for the turnaround division is to maximise short-term returns with a clear focus on costs and cash flow. It is expected that these pubs will be disposed of over a five-year period and will be phased to ensure a balance between speed of disposal and value. "

From the accounts published in the report  the EBITDA  (operating profit) the following figures can be calculated.  For those of you in "turnaround" the earnings per pub was  £33,122, from core pubs the amount per pub was £73,873 .The average per  pub (for all of Punch's pubs)  was £51,558.

Now look at your tax return.

Whilst you compare your EBITDA with the company's here is some more interesting reading from the report:

"Punch as a Group achieved 21st place in the Sunday Times Best Big Companies to Work For 2011, the only major pub company to be listed. This is a fantastic achievement and reflects our commitment to develop our team and our Company culture to make us a ‘Great Place to Work’. We were rated highly for open and honest communication from managers, staff feeling they could make a contribution to the success of the Company and teams being fun to work with, as well as being nominated for a special award for wellbeing."

How open and honest were your communications from Punch last year? Do you think it's fun being a Punch tenant/lessee? Are you bathed in the glow of "wellbeing" emanating from Burton on Trent?

And whilst they were all feeling so well and having fun here's some details from the Remuneration Report for Directors:

CEO Roger Whiteside earns a base salary of £430k, plus a chance to earn  250% in bonus (1/3rd in shares) and a contribution to his pension pot of 25% of his salary.

The total Roger got last year, including all benefits and bonus  was £931,000

The total all the 12 directors earned from Punch last year was £3,363,000, an increase from £2,432,000 in 2010.This means a total increase in their remuneration packages of 38%, with average pay of £280,000 a year.

Now look at your tax return again.

Picked yourself up off the floor yet? Now work out if the profit you made from your pub increased by 38% last year or were you able to give your staff a wage increase of 38% last year?

For those of you that have invested in Punch let's also have a quick look at how your investment performed from 2006 to 2011 compared to FTSE indices:

I know it's a bit blurry, but the orange line is Punch, the other to look at is the grey line which shows the Travel and Leisure sector's performance and shows that for a nominal £100 what your 2006 investment was worth in 2011. Bet that investment is looking just dandy now isn’t it?

Now over to Solihull for news from Enterprise. They report, for October 2011, an EBITDA of £366 millions, which means they earned £58,196 per pub.

From £500 millions of sales of beers, wines and spirits they made £200 millions of gross profit, not bad for just sitting there taking orders.

On the £198 millions of rent they collected (average per pub £31,483) they spent out £5 millions on repairs and maintenance (average £795 per pub) or just 2.5%.  Measure this against a total revenue of some £711 millions and it is just 0.7%! Compare that to the ALMR Benchmark Report (October 2011) on the running costs of a pub which puts average spend on premises repairs by pub operators at 5.6%

Look at your profit and loss account and I'll wager you spent out more than £795 on repairing and maintaning their assets (your pub) last year. 

And the directors? Nine of them, in total, earned £3,070,000 or on average £341,111 down 3.6%  on the previous year. Mind you they did increase their earnings from £2,240,000 in 2009 to £3,185,000 in 2010 which was an increase of £945,000 or 42%.

Ted Tuppen the Enterprise CEO still managed to claw in a staggering £910,00 in 2011 and £1.223 million in 2010;

So how did Enterprise investors fair compared to the market places then? Take a look at the graph below:

Not much better than Punch's poor benighted investors.

At least the Enterprise Annual Report spares us the PR waffle and cuddly graphics so prevalent in the Punch document.

Inevitably I am, again, drawn to the definition of 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”  when I read these reports.

And you wonder why the likes of Vince Cable want to introduce shareholder vetoes on board salaries or wonder why the BIS committee in the Commons queries if tenants and lessees are getting a fair deal from pubcos? Not!

Shock, Horror! Bad Service annoys customers!

My industry spies report that bad service is biggest deterrent for restaurant diners.

According to Langton Capital (whose excellent daily intelligence email I receive (go here for more details ). 

"The new 2012 Square Meal Complaints Survey has concluded that bad service is the biggest annoyance for restaurant diners in the capital, amounting to 45% of all complaints in the industry. Ambience and decor make up a further 19.5% of complaints according to the survey of around 8,000 London restaurant consumers, which also found automatic service charges and disappointing or overpriced food to be significant sources of irritation in consumers."

So if you want some tips on Customer Service click here

How to make sure your pub is attractive to your local MP ...

According to a report in today's Telegraph you'd better make sure of the following things:

House of Commons Dining Room

Don't charge more than £2.60 a pint (this against the average national price of £2.90 according to Pint Price . com or the eye-watering price of £3.50 other London drinkers pay) 

Don't charge more than £4.15 for pan-fried red mullet with carrot purée and a soft boiled quail’s egg or serve Artichoke and tomato salad with truffle dressing for more than £2.05 (the cost of those meals in the House of Commons dining rooms).

Make sure you serve your chips in a tower so the chips don't go soggy and heaven help you if you charge more than £2.35 for a glass of Merlot.

Numpties

All this sage advice, of course, if you want to make sure your pub is full of whingeing, self-serving numpties who really have lost touch with life in the real world ... wonder how much their £5,8 million subsidy to their catering would have bought in the real world ... maybe it's time to ask your MP if "we're all in this together" still?

(Just as a matter of interest according to Horse and Hounds £5.8 million would buy Fermyn Woods Hall the home of the Brigstock Horse Trials) 

So our esteemed PM has spoken out about the need for morality in capitalism, here are some highlights from his speech yesterday: 

"We won’t build a better economy by turning our back on the free market...we’ll do it by making sure that the market is fair as well as free.  While of course there is a role for government, for regulation and intervention...the real solution is more enterprise, competition and innovation."

This has to be a triumph of dogma over logic if ever I heard one, whilst we are still reeling from the lack of regulation of bankers that has wrought so much damage to the world economy. That's why, despite cross-party support and a seven year inquiry into pubcos that under his leadership HMG still refuses to impose statutory control over pubcos.

"In this debate about the kind of economy we want to see, my position is clear. I believe that open markets and free enterprise are the best imaginable force for improving human wealth and happiness. They are the engine of progress, generating the enterprise and innovation that lifts people out of poverty and gives people opportunity.And I would go further: where they work properly, open markets and free enterprise can actually promote morality.Why? Because they create a direct link between contribution and reward; between effort and outcome.The fundamental basis of the market is the idea of something for something – an idea we need to encourage, not condemn."
 

It's a pity then that he doesn't realise how empty his words seem when pubcos continue to get something for nothing and his much cherised open markets don't exist within the pub trade whilst pubcos continue unfettered. Never has so much been taken by so few from so many with such little effort than is the case with pubcos (apologies to a truly esteemed previous PM for the pastiche).

Orwell himself would have been proud of this quasi-Adamsian doublethink!

Beer, gas, electricity ... should all be local "utilities"

Sunday newspapers can be a great inspiration at times and reading the various reports of how energy companies are able to squeeze extra margin out of we impoverished consumers by use of dynamic pricing (see article on the howtorunapub website) and how much local government will be strapped by the cuts imposed by central government ... here's a thought that should satisfy the free markets ... allow local councils to become energy suppliers in addition to all the other services they supply to us business rate and council tax "customers".

Very few of us alive today will remember when every town used to have its own water company, gas company, brewery ... it worked well in the hayday of Victorian capitalism so why not now in the time of the unfettered market?

If the energy companies can make £billion pound profits why couldn't local authorities do the same? I, for one, would rather buy my energy from a truly local supplier (such as my city council) as I prefer to buy my beer from local brewers (of which my city boasts several). Think of how much profit (or surplus as governmental agencies prefer to call it) that could be ploughed back in to local economies (jobs, infrastructure, revenue) and how much more our local authorities would be able to then put back in to local services (housing, the eldery, education, health, police, the arts).

Isn't this the point of the Big Society where Big Government gives communities the power to manage their own affairs... in the era of big government and old style socialism this was called nationalisation ... perhaps we could call this communitisation? We could have a whole new set of share issues in local utlitiy companies with councils holding the majority share held in trust for their electorate - I know it may not seem a huge amount but imagine the £125 profit per customer the Dirty Half Dozen made from their customers in 2010 was put back into your local community - in mine it would come to some £42.5 million. My city council slashed £26million from essential services last year alone!

(If you'd like to see how they made £8,55billion profit in 2010 click here for the Friends of the Earth report)

Like I said if local beer is better for the environment, local economies and the great beer drinking public why not local utlities?

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!)

Render unto Caesar ... but only as much as you should do ... & other stuff

September is the month when HMG takes the then current inflation rate and calculates how much the Universal Business Rate will be in the ensuing April.


This year the with inflation at over 5% HMG look set to rake in an extra £1.35 billion in commercial business rates. 


With all the pressures on pubs such as increased rents, increased supply costs, increased energy costs and the iniquitous beer duty escalator still in force we should all be looking very carefully at our business rates and where appropriate doing something about reducing them. To that end I have written a small piece on the How To Run A Pub website covering this very subject. You can find it by clicking here


Other recently added articles are on Customer Service and Staff Pensions


I hope you find all three articles useful.

Of Mice and Men ...

... and rats, cockroaches, silverfish and all things that you really don't want to find in your pub.


This piece appeared in the Independent newspaper on 21/11/11 "Infestation Nation" and it strikes me that with the reduction in public services under HMG's austerity program that we as publicans and sometime caterers should use our usually high standards of hygiene to add to our pubs' USPs.


All too often you can switch on the telly and see news articles and "grime-fighter" shows where they point up the horrendous conditions that exist in many restaurants (especially take-aways if you care to dignify their operations as restaurants) and the threat to public health poorly run establishments pose. 


Seldom do public houses feature in the media in these stories and we should trumpet our efforts to keep the British public safe from pest-borne disease. 

Now more than ever, with so much pressure on our industry we should be looking for ways to talk up our successes (both the glamorous and the indelicate).


If you think you've got an infestation that needs dealing with and you need a local contractor go to The British Pest Control Association - you'll find a register there and general information that might help.

The Game's Afoot ...

... well not so much a foot as a shoulder, a shoulder of venison that is.


Kindly donated by a friend who had no idea what to do with it, I agreed to use the meat in an old recipe I have for a venison and smoked sausage casserole. For added good measure, for those dining with us who wanted an additional sauce (some people need to mask the gaminess of it all) I also dug out an old recipe for redcurrant and port sauce - not only good with game but also a great compliment to chicken and turkey and can be served warmed of cold.


For the venison, once the meat was stripped from the bone and trimmed of as much fat and sinew as possible and diced I marinated the meat (about 1.5 kg) over-night in the fridge with a couple of table spoons of olive oil, some chopped garlic, 100 gm of fresh redcurrants, a teaspoon of finely chopped root ginger, a good sprig of Thyme and half a bottle of Castle Rock's Elsie Mo - a full bodied and very flavoursome beer. (Save the other half for the casserole if you can resist the temptation, if not go buy 2 bottles in, 1 for the cooking, 1 for the drinking!)


Next day I popped the venison (drained from the marinate) into some olive oil in a flame proof casserole dish on the hob to brown and seal the meat, diced 4 rashers of unsmoked bacon and 400gm of smoked pork sausage to add to this glorious meat fest. Once it was all nicely browned, I removed the meats and kept the juices in the dish to sweat a couple of large finely chopped onions, 2 large diced carrots, 500gm of button mushrooms and 500gm of diced white potatoes.


Once everything was nicely coated in the juices I added about 100gm of plain flour, the marinate and the remainder of the beer and turned up the heat until it was just simmering, keeping it moving to prevent the flour lumping. Then I put all the meat back in and put the whole lot in a pre-heated oven at 165C for three hours, taking out on the hour to stir gently and keep anything sticking to the bottom of the dish.


For the accompanying sauce I took the juice from a large lemon and a large orange and reserved. Then I finely sliced half the skins of both fruits and put to boiling water for about 5 minutes (you need to cook them until the skins are soft). Once softened refresh them under cold running water. Now take a quarter bottle of port, the reserved lemon and orange juice and slowly bring to the boil, once boiling reduce to a simmer. Now take a small jar of redcurrant jelly (Asda do a brilliant one with added port for a quid) and continue simmering until the jelly has melted, stirring all the while. Take 100gm of redcurrants, the blanched lemon and orange skins and a teaspoon of chopped root ginger and add to the mix, simmer for another 10 minutes or so and then allow to cool. 


For both the casserole and the sauce you can substitute fresh cranberries if you like, I've prepared both versions and they are both equally toothsome.


I served the casserole and redcurrant sauce with diced and roasted potatoes with chopped curly parsley and steamed savoy cabbage. 


Even for a couple of guests who hadn't eaten venison before this lovely autumn dish was well received.


I've not priced this one up in the usual way as the meat was free and I was cooking at home, however, had I been buying everything I would have spent about £26 on the ingredients. The recipe above would serve 8.


If you've never cooked venison or considered serving it to your customers I think the method I employed is a great way to introduce some game to your menu, the richness of the beer gravy and the sharpness of the redcurrants are a great juxtaposition of flavours and all in all it proves that game can go on the menu at a price that your customers can afford.

(Profuse apologies for the Sherlock Holmes reference hence the piccy, seemed like a good pun at the time!)

Time for a change?

Further thoughts on my post in October on energy costs ...

If you are changing supplier to get a more favourable deal then checking your meter readings at the point of supply change is really important.

If you would like to know more about getting the right deal then see my article on my website about things every Business Electricity & Gas customer needs to know.

For advice and tips on devising and implementing an energy saving strategy see my article on how to control and reduce your utility costs on my website.