Why I'm crossing swords over Young's - Roger Protz

Crossing swords with a fellow columnist is a dangerous course of action. The dispute could rumble on, turn and turn about, until we both disappear up our own contradictions.

But Andrew Jefford's views (Morning Advertiser, 22 June) on the move from London to Bedford by the Young's brewery deserve a reply.

He is right to say it is a ground-shaking decision and London will lose an iconic brewer of cask beer.

I share his grief that this magnificent site, with its Victorian coppers and mash tuns, and the menagerie of birds, rams and horses, will be gone in a puff of malt-laden smoke in the autumn.

I have spoken at length on several occasions with Michael Hardman, Young's public relations spokesman, and have also read an interview with him in the July edition of What's Brewing, the Campaign for Real Ale's newspaper. Andrew knows

that Michael - one of the founders of CAMRA - is a man of absolute integrity. All three of us have worked for the Evening Standard and therefore have a grounding in honest journalism.

On one point there is no dispute: Young's had to move from a cramped site that had become a large roundabout in a traffic snarl on the South Circular. It was almost impossible for it to conduct its business from the site. The company needs additional brewing capacity and new equipment but cannot do so at the Ram Brewery.

Courage was forced to move from its London base by the Thames in the 1980s for precisely the same reasons: that London is a permanent traffic jam. Breweries built in the days of the horse and cart are ill-suited to modern roads and means of transport.

The nub of Andrew's column was that the £80m Young's will gain from selling the Ram Brewery should have enabled it to find an alternative site in London. At first glance it seems a clinching argument, but the stark truth is that £80m doesn't buy much in London today.

I have been involved in talks since January about the need to develop a museum dedicated to beer, brewing and pubs in London. So far I have been unable to identify a site that is affordable. I visited the basement of the Hop Exchange in Southwark, which would be the ideal place, geographically and historically, for a beer museum.

But the annual rent of £800,000 sent me reeling to the nearest pub for a pint of Young's Ordinary as balm for the shock.

Not only would Young's have had to use the £80m to buy a brownfield site in London but it would also have had to invest in a new brewhouse, offices, warehouse and all the

add-ons of a large modern brewery. The brewing kit in Wandsworth is, to use the jargon of the moment, "not fit for purpose".

Young's is brewing to capacity; Charles Wells has a modern and flexible brewery in Bedford that can accommodate the Young's brands. Shifting beer, bottles, casks and kegs in and out of Bedford is a relatively smooth operation, and lorries and drays are often going against the traffic

on the A1 and M1.

Those are hard and, I think, unassailable facts. But, as Andrew says, there is emotion as well. Young's drinkers are London drinkers.They love the grassy, herbal, resinous and uncompromisingly bitter nature of Young's beers, true Cockney ales, made with hops plucked from the nearby fields of Kent. There may well be a reaction when drinkers taste

the beers brewed in Bedford. But Young's will expect that and no doubt Michael Hardman has a strategy for tackling it.

There was an additional strand to Andrew's argument: that we are witnessing the "twilight of the gods" where family breweries are concerned. Well, at least Young's will still be involved in brewing, unlike Gale's, Ridley's and more recently Hardys & Hansons, where the owning families have trousered a small fortune and booked their retirement homes in the sunshine.

It doesn't have to be that way. Batemans, McMullen and Refresh/Brakspear show that independent breweries can survive and thrive if there is passion and dedication to continue.

Young's beers are not disappearing. Three million cheers for that.