I thought I would sent a copy of my latest post; UK Beer Sales Facts & Figures – David Cameron & Co; will you please now just fucking listen! - to the man himself. I found two EMail addresses and both Emails have since bounced back; I guess he is a busy man. (more…)

The Telegraph – Beer sales slump by largest amount in 14 years. Britain is turning away from beer with 212 million fewer pints being sold in the last three months than the same period last year, new figures show.

The Publican’s Morning Advertiser – On-trade beer volumes fall 4.5%.

Press Association – Beer sales slump by almost 10%.

The above were headlines in the beer press yesterday following the release of new figures from the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA). They show UK on-trade beer volumes fell 6% in the year to June 2011, with sales down 4.5% in Q2. The Royal wedding and decent weather in Q2 is credited with reducing the slowdown, although this was offset by the comparisons with the World Cup in Q2 2010. (more…)

I managed a day out of the office recently, for lunch with a former boss whom I hadn’t seen for 25 years. I went with my business partner. The choice of venue was left to us and as we had seen a good review on The Riverhead, in the Daily Telegraph only the week before and he resides in its general direction it seemed a good choice. Furthermore it was, unlike many other food concerns in the area, open on our chosen day, a Monday.

Marsden, seven miles or so west and uphill from Huddersfield, is a small Yorkshire mill town, set in a deep valley and hemmed in by the Pennines. Lowryesque 19th-century buildings – a decaying woollen mill, long terraces of workers’ cottages and the Mechanics’ Institute – dominate the townscape. Over the past 20 years or so, though, the place has reinvented itself as a cultural and tourist destination. (more…)

I was loading our car in Caherdaniel, Co. Kerry, Ireland for a trip to take me to Cork Airport for a flight back here to the UK, when I heard on Kerry Radio about her sudden and untimely death yesterday.

John Lennon’s death 30 years ago, last December, was one of those shocking, poignant “where were you when” moments that appear to fashion collective memories out of historic events. Following his death a wave of sympathy manifested itself in public grief. I still remember the day vividly; I was on a training course in London and heard the news on breakfast radio and was; just shocked. I also remember London being particularly quiet that day. I traveled on the Tube and the atmosphere seemed strange and everyone seemed to be affected. (more…)

Welcome to the sixth ‘episode’ of our all new co-produced Desert Island Beers which features Ian (Brad) Bradford. Ian’s brewery is a tale of two Staffordshire towns: Newcastle under Lyme, most famous for its hatting trade, and Stone, where they’ve been brewing beer for 1,000 years. Ian spent a small percentage of that time cutting his nose at Titanic Brewery in Stoke, where he brewed for 12 years before setting up the family-run Lymestone Brewery. (more…)

Marston’s first introduced the Retail Agreement to Marston’s  Pub Company, its tenanted and leased estate, in 2009 to address the challenging market conditions it faced in its tenanted estate. In particular the Agreement was aimed at wet-led community pubs and fair play to Marston’s because they started first with their basket cases.

Under the Agreement Marston’s Pub Company has responsibility for the retail offer, including drinks brands sold, food menus and retail standards. The “franchisee” earns a percentage of revenue and is responsible for staff costs. Marston’s Pub Company is responsible for all other costs. (more…)

THE human race, to which, as G K Chesterton said, so many of his readers belonged, turns out to have rights of all sorts and one of them may be the right not to be stuffed with a dodgy investment.

A lifetime ago I used to work in the City and during that life it was the high-minded people at HSBC who tightened their rules about share-tipping and decided there would henceforth be as many “sell” as “buy” recommendations and the bank would put its money where its mouth was.

The HSBC two-tone scale came as a shock at the time to the old-fashioned brokers in London, who believed that their own graduated scale of share tips was far more sensitive, when fully understood. (more…)

Managed one, very quick pint in The Taps on Saturday after picking the youngest up from his tennis lesson, after cycling to meet him.

The Taps for once was fairly quiet so I had a good look at the Guest Ales on the Blackboard and the pump clips. I was immediately attracted to the Whakatu, (pronounced “fakatu”), not by the clip itself, although to be fair its not bad, but by the words on the clip “Brewed with Nelson New Zealand hops”.

Nelson Sauvin is one of my favourite hops right now. A dual purpose hop, Nelson Sauvin gives a white wine “fruitiness” to beers and this combined with a complex oil profile gives this hop fairly unique new world characteristics. (more…)

Welcome to the fifth ‘episode’ of our all new co-produced Desert Island Beers which features Des de Moor. Amongst many things Des is a beer writer. Based in Deptford, London and though born in England to an English mother and speaking English as a first language, his father was Dutch.

This week Des has published his first book, The CAMRA Guide to London’s Best Beer, Pubs and Bars, a comprehensive guide to one of the world’s great beer drinking cities and a timely celebration of the current renaissance of London brewing.

Since 2002 he’s been writing regular bottled beer reviews for the member magazines of Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), first for What’s Brewing, then for BEER, as well as the occasional feature on topics like beer retailing and pub walks, and was a contributor to 1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die.

His areas of expertise are beers from the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and France. (more…)