Tsunami event shows trade's true face
Do you sometimes feel you are stuck in a gap between reality and fantasy? It happened to me last week when I read the Morning Advertiser's report of its Best Pub Awards evening in London.
On stage were men and women picking up prizes for running excellent pubs and serving top-quality beer, wine and food. The photos showed charming, attractive people clearly dedicated to their work and the communities they serve.
That is the reality of the pub trade. But the London Hilton, where the awards dinner was held, is just a five-minute walk from the offices of the Daily Mail and there a different story was being prepared.
It's a story about depravity, drunkenness, hooliganism and violence. The newspaper has been running a campaign against what it calls "24-hour pub opening" in which it depicts an image of the entire country going to hell in a handcartas a result of changes in the licensing law.
It's a story based on a monstrous lie. There is no such thing as 24-hour opening. Publicans or their landlords will have to apply for extensions to existing pub hours. The applications will be scrutinised line by line and they can be opposed by the police and members of the public.
Few licensees or pub owners will apply for extensions. As the MA has shown, some pubs in city centres will take the opportunity to open for a few more hours. But most of the nation's 60,000 pubs will continue to pull down the shutters at 11pm.
But the Daily Mail has never been known to allow the facts to get in the way of a screaming headline. Its campaign against the straw man of 24-hour opening has done immense damage to every person working in Britain's pubs and the brewers who supply them with beer.
Honest and decent people run our pubs. And honest, decent, generous and warm-hearted people run our breweries and the consumer movement dedicated to promoting cask beer.
Last week I took part in a public beer tasting in which all the proceeds went to victims of the Asian tsunami. When I suggested the event, Mike Benner, chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale, immediately said that Camra's head office in St Albans would be made available.
I devised a list of beers that would present the "Best of British", drawn from many parts of the country. On a voluntary basis, above and beyond the call of duty, members of Camra's staff contacted the breweries on my list. All of them, without hesitation, offered to send beer free of charge for the event.
A poster was designed for distribution to local pubs. A press release was sent out and tickets were booked over the Camra phone. The generosity of spirit was astonishing. What's Brewing editor Ted Bruning drove to Cambridge and back to pick up a cask of beer. He also donated substantial amounts of Belgian beer for an auction that augmented the tasting.
Barry Bremner, the former secretary of the British Guild of Beer Writers, arrived for the tasting with two carrier bags full of books about beer which were also donated to the auction.
And the room was full with the good people of St Albans and surrounding towns. People had to be turned away. It was a splendid evening in which those present marvelled at the range of beers and the diversity of choice available in this country.
So, in sharp contradiction to the poison and bile of the Daily Mail, let me thank the following brewers for their generosity: Cains, Fuller's, Hook Norton, Kelham Island, Nethergate, Ridley's, Woodforde and Young's.
In addition, let me add my thanks to my friends and colleagues at Camra HQ who not only sold tickets and gave out posters, but also humped casks and bottles, and tapped and spiled. Extra special thanks go to Cressida Feiler, Louise Ashworth and Georgina Rudman for serving the beer on the evening.
Brewers and Camra employees raised £1,000 on the night. It was a wonderful achievement by brewers and drinkers, the real face of Britain, not the one presented by the purveyors of poison in the press.
