Are They Able to do this?

Can Redbutterfly( not their real name) restrict the landlords choice

In a word - Yes

It happens all the time unfortunately :o(

Remember the very rare victory of the Lewes Arms against the might of GK?

They purchased the Lewes Arms and stopped the pub serving their local Harveys Ales.

Probably better to have Redbutterfly (we know what you mean) than a Greedy King.

Did it happen in April this year? Maybe some of the changes, you are only noticing now.

All major brewers impose some sort of guest list.

Even one of the better ones in our area Adnams. They only allow their tenants to pick from a page (about 9 - 12) ales which change every month.

In a GK pub you dont seem to be allowed any that are not already owned by them (Ruddles, Speckled Hen, Hardy and Hansons). Most of the other breweries they have purchased, are now only available in a bottle. I have noticed that one of our old favourites before it was sold - Ridleys 'Old Bob' does not even merit a mention on their web site now.

It will not be long before they will faze that bottle out now to history.

What on earth did they gain from the buying of Ridleys? Other than of course the 73 pub estate.

I would be very surprised if any of the previous Ridleys Landlords are still in their same pubs now under GK ownership. With the expensive restrictive ales that no one wants.

GK do allow selected outlets to order true guest beers from a limited list. Not all eligible landlords can be arsed to do this of course, either not understanding the issues, or thinking that their customers will be too stupid to spot GK house 'guests'.

Paul

On Wed, 10 Oct 2007 18:33:37 +0100, Stephen Allcroft wrote (in message ):

CAMRA, in its "wisdom" explicitly supports the "tie" system which allows this sort of thing to happen. It is illegal in the rest of Europe and the US.

This isn't about tied houses, i.e. those pubs which are owned by breweries.

The majority of pubs in this country are owned by property companies who don't give a damn about anything other than squeezing as much profit as possible out of them. If the pubs don't perform, they close them, pull them down and sell the land (or sell the property for other uses, often with a covenant preventing its further use as a pub).

CAMRA is well aware of these issues.

As for your comment about Europe, that's not true. There are plenty of tied houses with restricted choice in e.g. Germany and Switzerland. Even if a tie does not exist, a brewery will often sponsor the fitting out of the pub against a commitment to buy its beers solely from that brewery, which has the same effect.

It is exactly about tied houses - a tie is a tie whether or not the company that owns the pub also owns a brewery or not.

I might be wrong here - In Germany don't brewery-branded outlets sell exclusively the brewers beers? Were that so in Britain! My problem with tied houses - even those owned by reputable brewers - is that they are so often swamped by Guinnes, Stella, Fosters etc.

Switzerland is not in the EU so is not signatory to the Treaty of Rome which recognises the restrictions inherent to the tie system. Britain - stupidly I believe - argued special case exemption for it's "tradition" of the tied pub when joining the EEC.

But you see it isn't. > > The majority of pubs in this country are owned by property companies

[1] The tale or two includes two large breweries (let's call them Gass Muck & Bits, and I Corp) Now if perchance the breweries had employees for their tied estate leave and set up pub companies with a bit of a loan from their former employers then the breweries sold off their pubs to a set of pub companies who happened to be run by the ex-employees and the pub companies signed agreements restricting the beer range to only include the beers from the breweries that formerly employed the directors - well it's because the beers are so good and they are all good friends, innit?

Of course that could all be made up.

Too true.

Good, but can anything be done... Eg can a mere consumer get the Competition Comission interested, could there be a remedy via Holyrood, anyone got a clue?

offers a way forward for both consumers and large pubcos/breweries.