Blue skies overhead, foreign holidays a thing of the past, and here we are at the start of a summer that looks like it could be shimmering in lashings of hot sun. Across the threshold come hundreds of thirsty punters seeking the all-enveloping contentment that only the womb or beer in a well-run English pub can deliver.
But what to serve them? And how? My answer is 'theatre' and offering customers a mix of the theatrical in terms of beer and its dispense.
Lager and lime
I hated lager when I was young but drank it anyway, topped up with a splash of lime.
In Berlin, they go further. They serve their famous Berliner Weiss beers, a gorgeous pale yellow wheat beer, in bosomy chalices with the option of additions of raspberry or woodruff (a herbaceous plant) to turn them red or green. Theatre and extra margin!
And think pale ales as well as lagers. Hoppy ales will take on flavourings brilliantly.
If you can use interestingly shaped glasses, so much the better. Put up a poster of yourself surrounded with the three yellow/red/green glasses and it will help you sell them. Send the shot to your local paper and it could see you smiling from their pages too.
Ice buckets
Bottled beers are a great way of altering your range to reflect the heat of the British summer.
By adding ice-buckets to your bar top, you are altering the shape of the bar and adding excitement and theatre. Bottled beers tucked away in a low fridge out of sight fail to sell, but put them on the bar-top surfing on a heap of ice and they shout 'try me!' Ice buckets can be any watertight container, and can be painted to add colour to the bar.
Fruit beers
Britain has produced fruit beers since time immemorial, making them - perhaps surprisingly - more 'traditional' than your current British pint. Hops only arrived in Britain in about 1500 and before that all beers used fruit, spices, herbs, tree bark or honey added to their barley, oats or wheat.
So seek out bottled or draught versions of Belgian, American or British fruit beers - cherry or raspberry being most widely available.
Have a Wimbledon Week and serve them in beautiful glasses alongside chocolate cake, apple pie, croissants, crème brûlée or spotted dick. Mmmm.
Themed beers
Bottled beer sales can be spurred on by promoting them around themes, publicised by blackboards inside or outside.
The start of the Ashes in July offers the chance to pit the Ashes sponsor Marston's Pedigree, or other proudly English beers, head to head with Aussie rivals that could include classics such as Coopers' Sparkling or the floral orange fruited Little Creatures pale ale.
Also in July (Saturday, July 4), how about celebrating American Independence Day with some of the staggeringly zingy and outrageous American micro brews now available through the likes of James Clay, Belhaven in Scotland, or WaverleyTBS? n
Rupert Ponsonby is a beer writer and marketer, and number 50 in the Power List, The Publican's run-down of the pub trade's most influential figures, voted for by readers