Carlsberg delivers a heavy blow

Freetrade licensees are understandably furious that Carlsberg is to charge them £5 for scheduled deliveries and £10 for unscheduled deliveries from next week - and, in addition, to start charging for each keg too. Times are tough enough without this unprecedented bolt from the blue. For many, it may well be enough to prompt them to take their business elsewhere, even if it means getting out of a tied-loan arrangement.

Carlsberg must have anticipated these customers would be furious. Yet it still went ahead, and announced the news in a disingenuous letter, which trumpeted there would be no price rise for beer this year (of which there are two months left, so stand by for a rise in February) and also talked up football's Euro 2008 championship, which England may well not take part in.

Coming so quickly after the launch of its home-dispense system, which is a positive encouragement to punters not to bother with the pub, it will all be taken by many as a sign that Carlsberg is not nearly as interested in the on-trade as it is in the supermarkets and offies.

Now, no doubt Carlsberg is having just as hard a time of it as its licensee customers. Losing the Punch account, as it did earlier this year, was a major blow. Lager's disastrous summer must be hurting it badly. And it's true that fuel and transportation costs have risen sharply this past few months. But to attack the margins of freetrade licensees - and leave alone its national accounts - is still a very unwelcome development. Let's hope that no other brewers are tempted to follow Carlsberg, for if they do, it will another body blow to a trade that in some quarters is already on the ropes, just hanging on grimly and wondering how it will cope with the winter's impact on its smoking customers.

Scottish & Newcastle's fate matters deeply to the British pub trade. If it is bought, and then inevitably broken up, something very valuable will have been lost. Since 1749, when a 16-year-old youth by the name of William Younger began work as brewer in Louth, S&N has grown into a world-class operator of which all of us, whether in or out of the trade, can be proud. It is the last of the national brewers to be British owned, and its understanding of the UK market is rooted in that extraordinary heritage. We lose such a company, with its brewing and retail history, at our peril.