Hardship Enterprise

I bought three pints in Cambridge on Saturday night for £8-something. Having had to acclimatize fast to the comparative cost of London ligging, I was inclined to ask someone to pinch me. Much as it feels like the right time to be based in the Smoke, and as much as one is keenly aware that the privilege of existing down here comes at an inflated premium, it felt bloody good in respect of the above to get out of town for the weekend.

As Pub Companies report the increasingly frequent passing of businesses once their bread and butter, and having had an opportunity to establish practical, first hand context of provincial pricing versus PubCo pressures, I'm minded more and more to commend the onus placed by an ex-employer - with whom I got comprehensively clattered over the weekend - on keeping the cost of suds sensible. As the person responsible for sourcing his pub's cask product it was drilled into me from the outset to push breweries hard for the best possible price. Not so as to compromise them, it must be said, nor to increase our margins of profit. Rather to keep retail prices at a level that we might sustain them, and so as to hold ground from which we were confident about, and genuinely perceived to be, offering good quality AND value (I rattle on about those two, don't I? Anyone would think I'd never stood a round in my life...).

Dealing direct with breweries tends to be easier and, as a service, a sight more reliable. In regard to quality, you know exactly what you're getting. Despite their own numerous considerations r.e. the cost to them of energy and raw materials, to say nothing of the growing concern surrounding the price of fuel and the hit they take just getting the stuff to you, you could invariably navigate any protestations producers might make against your demands by taking, say, 6 tubs at a time. They get to drop off a job-lot for sale in what, in terms of my old place, was always a local shop window (beers were all from the surrounding area) and the price points maintained ensured the brews' careful conditioning went a long, long way.

Compare that to a tied house. Is it any wonder wet-driven pubs are folding at a pace when they're obligated to buy stock at up to 60% over the odds? No it's not. Just as it's no wonder normal folk fear the pricing-pinch that'll come with any landlord's levy to try to perm a worthwhile profit. If they can't now have a fag to calm the nerves born out of surrendering £3.50 plus for a pint without going outside, I'm half tempted to talk them down to Tesco myself. Even if the outlay did warrant it, chances are the cask from which the beer's been drawn has been kicking around some delivery depot for time beyond that which its producer's would now confidently endorse its contents. No exaggeration either; I've gathered first hand that as a PubCo tenant/licensee, one must somehow earn one's stripes before being allowed access to, or to purchase from, the best available pool. What a game.

The pub at which I was pleasantly surprised was a brewery-owned pub. A local brewery with an established presence in London, renowned for making their own ale accessible on-site, but whose product we would regularly overlook based on their lack of flexibility when it came to its outsourcing. A good example to start with then? In light of the horribly narrow Saturday night turnout there, betraying an extraordinary class of beer along the bar but which may have been narrower still if not for it being offered so economically, a pertinent one for sure. There has to be a sense, whatever the terms of a pub's ownership, that steps are at least being taken to account for the considerations and constraints of the customer. A sense, if you will, of community. And I'm talking PubCo to Tenant as much as Tenant/Landlord to Lush. Lose that and get set to lose a lot more.