Robbed

Many years ago a young man, probably slightly before his 18th birthday, discovered a drink called Old Peculiar. It was probably 1982 and the pub was in a well known Lakeland Valley. This young man had on several other occasions disgraced himself drinking far too much fizzy Scotch Bitter to only be subsequently calling out on the great white telephone. OP was found to be quite therapeutic and provided many a jolly evening of convivial socialising in this classic Cumbrian pub and little ill effects suffered except for a thick head the next day.

Thinking it was bitter that was the problem and that dark beers were OK a Guinness drinking career ensued for many years. Unfortunately this young man did not understand the difference between real ale, bitter, old ale, stout or keg beer.

A little while later a small up and coming brewery in Cumbria found this pub to be useful as an outlet. Yates brewery, started by the late Peter Yates, found this pub to be ideal for promoting his beers. Yates beers have been sold there ever since. Possibly, without the likes of this type of establishment, the little brewery would never have got going. Drinking OP, and remembering about Yates, contributed significantly to the young man in this story and his fascination with beer.

The young man is a little bit older now and is of course me. I run a real ale pub and micro brewery and my introduction and understanding of the trade was helped significantly by my time drinking and working at the above mentioned pub.

In a recent local CAMRA branch meeting Yates and Robinsons were both commented upon. Yates is a Cumbrian microbrewery. Robinsons is not. Which do you think the branch likes. Yes, your right, Yates. It's a damn good beer and much better then Robinsons. But the sad ending to this story is that Robinsons have bought the aforementioned pub. The end of Yates in one of the first pubs to support the brewery. Now do my readers understand where I'm coming from when I object to the tie?

Please excuse the rubber bands in the picture. The Landlord is quite rightly demob happy. I wish him all the very best in whatever he does. He's a good guy and I don't blame him one bit. I hope the incoming lessee can make it work - I doubt it personally, he'll be paying too much for the beer.

Hitches and problems

If you were a beer fanatic and had a fiancee that also liked beer what better place to get wedded than a real ale pub? Perhaps, if it were a brew pub you could commission a special nuptials ale for the occasion. A good friend of ours had this very same idea and approached us with the idea of registering our Inn for such events. We'll, give it a go we thought, after all it might get us some extra trade. I was apprehensive though as there was bound to be some procedural legislation driven bureaucratic problem, as there generally is with these licensing people. Undeterred we progressed with the application, paid the £915 fee, and awaited the inspection of the property, which was scheduled for today.

The appointment arrived and the very nice lady loved the location and the proposed rooms. She was really keen to see us get a successful application. But then came the question: "Where are your disabled toilets?". Uh oh! Well...we don't...sort of....really have any. "What about wheelchair access?"...Nope. Apparently, if we are not Disability Discrimination Act compliant we might well have the whole idea thrown out.

I agree with the DDA principles. Something that goes along the line of disabled people have the right to an independent and dignified way of joining in with life as if able bodied. Fantastic. If a disabled person came to my pub I would bend over backwards to provide what I could for them and attempt to preserve their dignity as best I can. However, I have a roof to replace soon which will cost around £40,000. This is a more important spend than the likely modification costs of around £20,000 to this 475 year old building required to comply with the DDA.

In the 5 years we've been here wheelchair users have spent around £20 in this Inn. We are in the middle of the mountains, they don't come here. It would be a bit like providing facilities for elephants at the South pole, because they would have the right to be there. So, the result of this particular piece of legislation is that a nice little wheeze, that might help to give this Inn a little more life and provide people with an interesting place to get hitched might get stopped by bureaucrats.

Lets hope not.

It's often about the food

I've been thinking quite a lot about the negativity that exists in the trade. It's certainly there. One commentator recently noted that the licensed trade can be worse than farmers for complaining about how bad things are. Although things are pretty bleak right now there are some good things if we look for them.

Whilst thinking about the positives I remembered a piece I wrote sometime ago that never got used. It mainly talks about pub food and the style that should be considered. I realise this is probably biased towards the remoter rural pubs. Town centre pubs have a different situation. I hate writing stuff that doesn't get seen, so here it is:

How to survive the recession - a guide for pubs.

Before the worldwide economic situation revealed itself, pubs and beer brewing was already under great strain. Put simply, the size of the market is shrinking; people are not willing to spend as much in pubs. To compound this problem the costs associated with running a pub are increasing at an alarming rate. This equates to a very simple outcome. Many pubs will have to close because they will not be able to make money. The current economic situation is simply making this worse.

Does this mean all pubs are doomed - are we all going to close? No, I don't believe so. There are many ways that a pub can mark out its differences and ensure that it builds a strong customer base. In our view this is the secret; mark out the differences. The way that pubs fail in the first instance is that the landlord tries to please too many people, running themselves ragged in the process, increasing costs trying to deliver a watered down version of what could be delivered.

Pubs that provide the bland, one size fits all service are likely to have problems unless the establishment footfall is captive. It is difficult for the landlord to say "sorry we don't do that" and watch the potential customer leave. Whatever you do though, some will not enjoy the experience, so deciding who you want in your pub and delivering for them gets you there quicker.

Sadly, the most important thing to consider is what style of food offering is to be provided. The size of the market for most pubs for just pure "wet" trade is small; and getting smaller. The smoking ban, health issues regarding drinking to excess and a significant reduction in drinking and driving have affected this trade. The main revenue for most pubs now is going to be food. So deciding what type of food is going to work best is the key to shaping a customer base. Trying to deliver too big a menu is often a mistake that is made. The overall quality will suffer and the style of operation will be unclear.

Fast, cost effective food will work in a busy pub. Where the pubs location provides a good residential customer base the trade will grow as people understand that value for money is provided; Volume provision for a volume market. Providing good quality, wholesome, honest, beer soaking food might be the route for developing a great pub.

But value for money does not mean the same as cheap. Quality, that demands a premium, can be considered good value to an increasing proportion of the population, providing that the quality promised is delivered. Looking at the numbers of potential customers and providing added value might increase spends per head, but this will be at the expense of footfall. If the establishment is unlikely to achieve volume then this might be a way forward. The result will be a more select establishment.

So where does real ale fit? I have long argued that top quality real ale fits well alongside food in the same way as a fine wine. Irrespective of the pubs food offering, be it fine dining or beer soaking, always provide the best real ale that can be found. Choose some beers that are not served in the pub down the road, don't continue to buy off the brewery if the quality is poor or inconsistent, and learn how to keep it in tip top condition.

Quality, that's the good news

We were without any electricity today. United Utilities were replacing stuff in the valley electrical supply. There is one line up the valley so any work necessitates a complete power down. We decided that we should be closed for the day. We decided to attend a Cumbria Tourist Board Members Meeting instead. They can often be useful if they have relevant subjects by the speakers. Today it was about food and drink, so right up my street.

On the way out we met the Post Lady and so grabbed the post. As my knee is still slightly swollen Ann was driving. To prevent me from nagging about her gear change I read The Morning Advertiser which was amongst the post. Andrew Prings editorial was mainly encouraging readers to find some good news. Too many of us are "talking down" the trade. I think he's right and I'm just as much to blame as everyone else.

So, that put me in the right mood to look for good news. Luckily, despite some serious potential problems for the tourism industry in general, there was indeed some worthy points of optimism. It is a message I've heard many times before and indeed has contributed to shaping what we do here. It is the message of quality.

When running a business it is important to look at ones competitors. I have regularly done this. I look at similar businesses that are doing well. Crucially, it is the businesses that have decided to focus on quality that have consistently provided better business results. Food, in particular, is the area that has been most successful in nearly every single case study I have heard about. A pub, inn, hotel or restaurant that makes an improvement to the quality of the food does better. That seems obvious doesn't it?

This really does explain to me the "Gastro Pub" phenomena. The reason why more and more I see comments about such and such a pub doesn't do pies, or sausage or chips anymore. It's because this is the good news in the pub industry. I have been to so many business seminars where the examples of success are not the regular pub stuck in the 70's doing something not much better than chicken in a basket, but are the ones doing something a little more fancy.

One speaker pointed out today that the majority of decisions about the venue for a night out or a weekend away was being made by the female of the relationship. For the ladies, value for money is not just about how many calories are on the plate for £9.99, but the quality of what is there. The majority of social spending is made by couples.

Of course the other bit of good news I heard about today was that quality goes hand in hand with local. Chianti was discussed alongside locally produced Real Ale. The Michelin experienced chef was very much in favour of the local stuff.

The King Canute effect

Canute the Great, also known as Cnut, or Knut is of course famous for the legendary story about him trying to hold back the tide, and failing. The act was of course to demonstrate to his subjects just how powerless he was to stop some inevitable forces.

We all know that pubs are closing and this is of course a terrible problem we are facing. It does distress me though that What’s Brewing, and many other CAMRA publications are banging out mantras like “Stop 1 in 8 pubs closing”. How do they intend to do this? They intend to do this by metaphorically lying down in front of the demolition bulldozer.

The reason 1 in 8 pubs are going to close is that they need to. The industry is not viable as it stands. There is over capacity and under demand. Please CAMRA let the poor ones close and you’ll end up with a better industry.

I want CAMRA to succeed in achieving something. It would be better if the organisation worked with the industry for once. We’re all in this together and it’s tough, resisting a change that is inevitable will only alienate the industry that you want to thrive.

There might be things we can do to help but I do not believe the current CAMRA approach is one of them.

A Screw Loose

Tomorrow I exchange my normal cocktail of caffeine and alcohol for an unknown general analgesia. Unknown to me that is, the anesthetist will presumably know exactly what he's giving me. After midnight tonight I am Nil by Mouth. They are trusting me on that one........better get the pints in now.

I'm having a screw removed. Yeah, yeah, it's already been said, I need all the loose ones tightened. Anyway, having broken my leg a couple of years ago it's been decided that it's a good idea to remove the 2" No10 that held the break together. The procedure includes something called an arthroscopy. Hopefully, I'll wait until I get home before becoming legless.

So, probably be a couple of days before I post again as I'll have to readjust my body to all these unnatural drugs with which they will no doubt contaminate my alcohol stream.

Kids and Dogs

Meet Duke. Isn't he nice? He came into the pub today for his daily supply of ice. He likes ice. He also likes our supply of doggie biscuits we keep stashed behind the bar especially for our doggie customers. He came in with AJ and Mags and it was good to see all three especially when they noticed our improvements. Mags though does insist on drinking Kriek in pints, much to Ann's distress as we'll have to order a new keg now.

We like dogs. I might have mentioned this before. Providing they come with well behaved and discerning drinkers all is well*. However, kids, well they can be a different matter.

I relate an exchange between our barman and a customer. "Can we bring our children in?" questions the customer "We've left the dogs tied up outside". "I'd rather you did it the other way round" replies my barman.

Now it's not that we don't like children. I have some of my own which I tolerate from time to time. It's not even that I object to them in pubs, per sae. But I do object to parents who treat pubs as kindergartens. Get them to sit down nicely and then the adults can get the drinks. It is so irritating when a bar is lined up with children peering over like it is a sweetie shop counter.

*Badly behaved dogs are only that way as a result of bad owners. Mind you, you could say the same thing about children.