Good morning,
I live near what was an outstanding cask ale pub, a continually changing range of locally brewed cask ales which were always in great condition and being drunk. For those who don't know, once a cask is opened it has a very short lifespan, generally after a couple of days it tastes noticably worse and after 7 days is undrinkable.
As the couple running it are getting older they are looking to the future and that is keg because it is so much easier to manage. The reason that we got Watney's Red Barrel and why CAMRA was formed.
The trouble is that they are in the intermediate stage, they don't yet have enough keg cutsomers to drop the cask ales but many of the cask customers have left, so many of the cask ales are selling too slowly and I never know what is a long way from its best but not totally off.
As there is a limit to how often you can complain, I go there a lot less.
...... I missed the pub during the pandemic and I'd miss it if it was gone,try and support your local for me.
I get what you are saying but in the above case the pub is also at fault for selling what it knows is past its best. Of course they can't afford to throw the remainder away and so they started off a feedback loop,
the beer is not perfect so less people drink it, so it is less good for those who do.
If they can get through this transistion stage then the future looks good for them but another interesting cask ale pub has already pretty much gone.
I suspect that a lot of the problem has been customers who say
Why aren't there more pubs like this as they drink very little whilst taking up a lot of space.
The new set of customers are much less emotionally attached to the pub, don't really care that the beer they drink is £5-£6 per pint rather than the £4-£5 for the cask ales as they only come out for a few once or twice a week or are on a Friday/Saturday booze up.
I understand why the landlord/landlady are doing what that are doing, but it is still sad. The only real risk for them is that they are getting rid of the established client base and the new client base may only be temporary.
.......... I used to be a seven night a week, seven or eight pints a night drinker. The cheapest pint at the only local left in our village is now £4.00 so based on my ex drinking habits that would be circa £220 a week!!
I did a similar calculation about 8 months back, just after I had spent £850 on a new frame and I was thinking wow that's a lot for a frame, humour me as I am old and my first 531 frame was well under £100.
For me the numbers came out as this was 6 week's beer bill, since then there has been another 10%-20% increase in prices. This means that the prices have double since about 2004 when I first started going there, but my income is about the same. I eat extremly well and pay little attention to price valuing convenience over cost and even after all the recent food price hikes my weekly food bill is around £60 or 2 pints day.
Certainly in the past I didn't give much though to those who run a pub, in the same way as I don't give much though to those who run Tescos. But I really see can't why anyone would want to run a small wet lead pub.
I am possibly spoilt as I remeber the late 1980s/early 1990s when many independent pubs were springing up and had keen landlords. Nowadays we seem to have slipped back the 1970s/early 1980s where it was just a case of going through the motions, open the doors, do as little as possible and the customers came in anyway as that was what you do after work.
Bye
Ian
