Something special

I haven't said much about the economic situation. I'm hoping the exchange rate is going to stop people going abroad, hopefully the summer, for the pubs that are still open, will be quite good. After all, everyone likes a drink with good company and even better on a hot lazy sunny day.

I don't say too much about Wetherspoons either. I do not like the places and will not ever pretend to. I do admire Tim Martin, however. Anybody who can make people part with money for such a low quality product is a wizard. That does mean I should admire McDollop and Bugger King as well. Perhaps, in a way, I do.

As a result of the Credit Crunch^TM our usual man who acquires our continental fizzy stuff has cash flow problems. He's owed a large amount of money by some corporate prats. He owes a lesser amount to James Clay, the company who imports the beers. James Clay is reluctantly putting his account on stop. In normal times the bank would extend my suppliers overdraft and everything would be OK. But despite the government giving money to the banks to stop this happening, they are tightening up on all businesses. Nobody is happy about this, not me, not my man and not James Clay. Perhaps the banks are happy, because they now have taxpayers money and seem to be able to keep hold of it.

Today we had to go to James Clay ourselves, browse through a large warehouse full of beer and choose what we wanted. I was like a kid in a candy store. We came back with rather more than we went for, I just hope we can sell it all. It was worth going though. We got given a much larger than usual quantity of point of sale freebies, you know, branded glasses, bar runners, chalk boards etc.

On the way back we called at a very good pub, chosen by Ann from the good beer guide. We needed lunch so a call at the Fox and Goose was in order. As soon as I walked in I knew it was a good ale pub. I also guessed, fairly quickly that food was not a driver behind this pubs success. 4 hand pulls all with something interesting. Nice beers, nice chap running it and worthy of a visit. But no food for us.

So we ended up stopping at a motorway service station for a crap baguette pizza thing and a coffee. Left on the table was a copy of the Daily Mirror. We wouldn't buy it normally, but it was worth every penny we paid for it. Reading through Ann found an article on Wetherspoons. There he goes again, I thought, the master of PR, Tim Martin. And it just goes to show the target audience he has, Mirror readers.

Eventually, I reluctantly read the article. Through the rather smug comments about how he's still going to do OK, because he's selling crap beer for 99p a pint, he is also pointing out that people want something different in a pub. This is how he is winning. Yes, OK, he's playing dirty by selling volume at knock down prices where other pubs can't, but there is something else there. There is something that has got the run of the mill pubs, well, running. Like no other chain pub they also provide variety. I think there is lots the rest of the pub trade could learn from Tim Martin. He does say "customers are willing to spend a bit extra for something special". It doesn't take that much to be special compared to Wetherspoons.

So now I'm sitting drinking something special, and it's all Tandleman's fault. His blog alerted me to the NWBF, where I tried Budvar Dark. Now I've gone and bought a keg of the stuff. I think it's quite nice and when trade is slow I can still have a dark beer on without the problems of a cask not selling. And I can hold my head high because I'm selling something special.