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Pub Guide

Opening Times

Issue 140 Autumn 2009

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A LOOK BACK IN TIME
25 YEARS AGO

In September 1984 the Barclay Brothers abandoned the proposed sale of their Camerons brewery at Hartlepool when the planned merger with Scottish and Newcastle was referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission after a campaign by CAMRA. In East Anglia, CAMRA was concerned that the other brewery owned by the Barclay Brothers, Tolly Cobbold of Ipswich, appeared to remain under threat.

A plan to convert the 400 year old Cross Keys, a listed building in St Neots, into 20 shopping units was approved by the district council, despite objections from CAMRA.

25 years ago, St Neots CAMRA held branch meetings at the White Swan in Bluntisham, then a Tolly Cobbold pub, and the Royal Oak, Hail Weston. There were autumn socials at the Swan, Offord Cluny, the Montagu Arms at Grafham, the Three Horseshoes, Longstowe and Ind Coope pub the Pickled Skittle in St Ives – now the Haywain.

Adnams of Southwold tried out a new light cask bitter, LBA, brewed to an original gravity of 1032. The light coloured, dry beer was selected from number of new experimental brews.

In St Neots, Charles Wells pub the Globe was enjoying a new lease of life following its refurbishment at a cost of £100,000. Tenants Geoff and Jenny Gouch were happy that the new decor was in keeping with the pub. Sadly, the Globe closed in 2008 and its future remains uncertain.

25 years ago beer swaps between brewers were rare, but Greene King set up a deal to sell their cask Abbot Ale in Whitbread pubs in London. In return Greene King took supplies of Whitbread’s Gold Medal barley wine. Their own bottled barley wine, Audit, was discontinued.

Mansfield Brewery, the large regional brewer, opened a new £4million brewhouse to replace its original brewery, built in 1906. The new computer-controlled plant provided a 50% increase in capacity. But Mansfield was not a real ale brewer, and had only recently launched cask beer, XXXX, on trial. CAMRA was hopeful of more cask ales from the new plant.

Whitbread began producing Everards’ Bitter, and Bass were expected to win contracts to brew Everards Tiger and Mild, following the closure by Everards of their Burton on Trent brewery. A small new brewery being built by Everards in Leicester was planned to produce its Old Original real ale.

10 YEARS AGO

In the autumn of 1999, local real ale drinkers were celebrating the arrival of Lincolnshire brewers Batemans, who had purchased the Lord John Russell in St Neots and the White Hart at Great Staughton from Pubmaster.

Greenalls, once Britain’s largest regional brewer, became purely a hotel and leisure group after selling the final tranche of its pubs to Scottish and Newcastle. Greenalls had met troubled times after abandoning brewing ten years earlier, and were considered to have overpaid for the Boddingtons and Devenish pub estates.

Another large regional brewer, Mansfield, was under threat after trustees decided to sell their 48% share of the firm. The most likely predator was seen as Wolverhampton and Dudley, even though they had bought Marstons brewery earlier in the year.

St Neots CAMRA held monthly meetings at the Black Bull, Godmanchester, the Prince of Wales at Hilton and the George and Dragon in Eaton Socon. There were also visits to CAMRA’s Bedford beer festival and Adnams Brewery in Southwold.

Suffolk brewers Greene King announced its plans to close Morlands after buying the Oxfordshire brewery and its 450 pubs in July 1999 for £180 million. Greene King’s Director of Strategy Jonathan Paveley said that ‘brewing on one site instead of two will increase the viability of cask ale production’ CAMRA pledged to fight the closure and its head of Campaigns Mike Benner warned that ‘consolidation was killing Britain’s independent brewing sector as everyone was obsessed with getting bigger’.

Ten years ago national UK brewers were investing in the cask beer market. Courage announced a £750,000 press and poster campaign for Courage Best and Bass published inserts in two trade papers proudly proclaiming its cask beer range – Draught Bass, Worthington Bitter, Hancocks HB, Stones Bitter and Brew XI. In truth this range was considerably pared down compared with earlier years, and previously Bass had been criticised by CAMRA for its focus on alcopops and nitrokeg and comments by its marketing head Mark Hunter that publicans couldn’t be expected to look after a ‘living organism’ in their cellar and ‘brewers should not be investing in cask beer’.

CAMRA’s East Anglia regional director Paul Ainsworth urged CAMRA to focus on quality and answered the often-asked question of how CAMRA can identify beers of quality and distinctiveness, given the disparate nature of the judgement of individuals. 300 CAMRA members scored a list of real ales regularly available in East Anglia. At the bottom of the list were 10 national brewery offerings, whilst the top scores were achieved by local brewers including Oakham, Adnams, Woodfordes and Nethergate and independent brewers from outside the region such as Batemans, Fullers and Hook Norton.