Raise a glass to legendary pub licensee Ian Rigg

But it’s the greatest privilege of my working life that I often get to meet and share a beer — OK, several beers — with people who do.  

Judging awards for good pubs, you get to see a lot of people who do nothing wrong whatsoever, who were implementing everything we’ve recommended in the Cask Report years before that report had ever been thought of.  

And then there are those publicans — just a few, mind — who make a perfect score seem like an entry level qualification.

If you’re ever drinking with a group of those guys (and don’t plan anything too important for the following morning if you are) if there’s anyone they look up to and admire, anyone they trade tales about — the legendary publican’s legendary publican, if you will — it’s Ian Rigg.
Riggy will be well known to long-standing readers of this magazine. Since taking over the Taps in Lytham St Anne’s, Lancashire, 20 years ago, he’s become a national institution. Even people who have never been near Lytham will tell you about how he turfed the pub floor when the British Open was in town, or how he’d dump six tonnes of sand in the pub for a beach party, or how the Christmas tree would traditionally by affixed to the ceiling, trimmings and all, so it didn’t reduce floor space for drinkers.

Ask people about Riggy and the first thing they’ll tell you about is his complete and utter devotion to cask ale. He’d show you his cellar the way other people might show you photos of their kids. It was part of the pub. The barrels in it were actual barrels, not nines or firkins — they weren’t worth bothering with, because they’d be gone in minutes. But he wouldn’t even let his staff in there until they’d convinced him they had a total understanding and love for cask ale, in a pub where even the cleaners had to do a Beer Academy course online.

But Riggy’s secret is that the one thing he cares about more than cask ale is the customer. “He’s the ultimate social engineer,” says Titanic’s Keith Bott. “He has an innate ability to put people at their ease.”
He moved the pictures around in the pub, so people who stayed in their regular seats every day would get something new to look at. He installed a padded head rest at a height of five feet eight inches above the men’s urinals for members of his infamous ‘gallon club’. Refreshingly in today’s age of moral panic surrounding alcohol consumption, Riggy embodies the joys of drinking beer as well as serving it.

“I’ve so many stories I can tell you about Riggy that you could use,” says Batemans sales director Andy Reed in relation to this column, “but I’ve got even more that you’d never be able to print.”

We often talk about the contribution the pub makes to its community.  Over 20 years, Riggy and his wife, June, raised more than £1m for charity. “That works out at an average of a grand a week,” points out David Bremner, marketing director of Robinsons. “Few pubs manage that once, let alone every week.”

Riggy ran the Taps like a freehouse, even though it was a managed pub — something that consistently exasperated his employers. “He’s broken more area managers than I can count,” says Bott, “but he was always happy that he was working for a brewery rather than a pub company, that they respected and understood beer, and there are a lot of former Greene King area managers out there with nothing but the utmost respect for him.”
The Taps was always a partnership between Riggy and June. After she sadly passed away in 2010, it was time for this maverick manager to start winding  down. A relationship with Greene King that had become fractious was eventually resolved amicably, and last month the Taps hosted Riggy’s epic retirement do.

Happily, this gives him more time to spend on this side of the bar, where he will no doubt still be dispensing his mix of wisdom and ribaldry. “He’s taught me so much that I try to implement in my business,” says Bott.

 
So if you see him, buy him a pint — it’ll be well worth your while.