Stories about pubs always catch my eye, and there have been a few corkers lately, involving a shonky pint pulled by the Prime Minister, a wonky building demolished under mysterious circumstances, and time being called on pubs serving takeaway pints.
More on all that in a moment, but let us begin with a shocking statistic. Last year, we lost 386 pubs for good, and this year, an average of 51 are closing a month, well up on 2022's numbers.
Why does this matter? For many communities, pubs are a place you can go for company, and this is really important when it comes to tackling loneliness and isolation. We stayed in the North Yorkshire fishing village of Staithes last week, and I was delighted to find it still boasts three decent pubs, all serving good food and ale, filled with a nice mixture of friendly locals and visitors mixing happily. I particularly recommend the commanding views offered by the Cod and Lobster, along with their delightful chicken parmo, which probably contains a week's worth of Slimming World syns. They also more spirits than Most Haunted.
If villages lose their pubs, where do people living alone go to meet other humans? And for that matter, what about the jobs lost, and the effect on local breweries and the economy in general? I know some will argue pubs are an outdated concept, but I fundamentally disagree. It's been a perfect storm for many in the last year or so, with our inflation worse than most European countries, and a shortage of workers, arguably exacerbated by the B-word. Not to mention the fact customers are short of money themselves, and there's a fine balancing act in passing on rising costs in the form of higher bar prices. I'm just grateful we have people still willing to attempt this mindboggling plate spinning act.
So the shonky pint then...Rishi Sunak decided to attempt a PR stunt at a London beer festival on the day his government made changes to alcohol duty. He pulled a pint of Black Dub stout, in scenes reminiscent of him serving up a cut price katsu curry at Wagamama to promote the ill-fated 'Eat Out To Help Out' scheme during the height of the pandemic. The PM was heckled by someone saying 'oh, the irony - you're raising alcohol duty on the day you're pulling a pint'. See me after class, PR team. Another man quipped - 'Prime Minister, it's not Coca Cola', as Sunak is famously teetotal. No criticism from me of that fact, but I do sympathise with wine and spirit makers who are being slapped with huge duty increases.
The Government argues "the lower the strength of alcohol in a drink, the less you pay". Good news for fans of Skol and canned cocktails, anyway. Not so good for breweries making higher ABV products. It's being sold as a Brexit benefit, and as long as your tipple is not Scotch whisky, gin, or wine, then perhaps that could be argued successfully. I'm not sure 11p off the price of a pint of draught beer will make much of an impact, mind, a bit like the time fuel duty was cut by 5p and Rishi filled up a supermarket worker's Rio with petrol (PR team, double detention for you). It's apparently going to mean cheaper Baileys though, so there's a bit of festive cheer from Santa Sunak!
The wonky pub story is sad, as the Crooked House pub near Dudley has been demolished following a huge fire at the weekend after it was recently sold. It was dubbed "Britain's wonkiest pub", and the Mayor of the West Midlands has called for it to be rebuilt "brick by brick". Fat chance of that happening.. It was originally built as a farmhouse, and mining in the area caused it to slope before it became a pub. A good example of a community asset as I mentioned earlier, and a real shame to see it go up in flames.
As for takeaway pints, the measure brought in during the pandemic is to be allowed to 'expire' next month. The Government claims a consultation only received 174 responses, most of which favoured a return to pre-COVID rules. Easy to say you had a poor response when no-one knew about the consultation. It's an Eton mess, and pubs need all the help they can get when competing with the fierce discounting might of supermarkets selling booze in bulk. It feels like a step in the wrong direction to me. I need a drink.
