The moral maze

To question 1, I would keep it quiet but enjoy drinking the beer until the situation changed (as it invariably would).

Q2: If I were the unfortunate landlord I would point out to the pubco that while selling a good local beer the pub stays in business - sticking to the usual rubbish drives away customers. I would also ask if the pubco was signed up to the SIBA scheme so that decent beers can be bought by landlords in this situation.

Finally I would look for an exit route into a genuine free house - I personally could not work under the restrictions that pubcos force on their tenants.

Charles.

Chris Palmer wrote:

Come on we all know this is the reality for a lot of licensees who have their hands tied by restrictive owners be it pub co's or breweries.

My choice would be neither of the above, so I'll add d) Promote the pub but speak to the licensee asking if they'd like their choice of beers promoted or not.

If the beer is good, the beer is good the vast choice of beer is just a bonus. The quality is the most important factor for me.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006 18:22:44 +0100, Brett... wrote (in article ):

Yes let's not forget this twatty practice is not only undertaken by 'evil' pubcos but also by several breweries beloved of the real ale fraternity. See:

Is it time CAMRA cut the regionals loose; given their propensity to act like any other twatty pubco; stood up to them, stopped the special pleading on their behalf and called for the abolition of the tie?

I know we've been through this before, but how can you abolish the tie unless you abolish the multiple ownership of licensed outlets?

The fictional publican in the first post pays a lot more for the "approved" beer than the guest ale sold by the local brewer. The tie inflates the price of beer because the tied brewers take a bigger cut per barrel than the small guys, and the pubcos just sit in the middle, raking in the money as the barrels go by. Are we suggesting that a publican in a tied house would be able to reject the in-house beers altogether and source all of his own? That would make it impossible for the pubcos. Investors wouldn't be interested in a business which had lost its licence to print money. Surprising they never nationalised the brewing industry in a big way, really. There's probably as much in the profit as there is in the duty, so why not have both?

If only there were enough free houses, we could vote with our feet. Until then, the fictional publican buys his under-the-counter beer in an attempt to level up the playing field, and as I sup my fictional pint in my dream, I wonder when the bubble will burst for him and what the consequences will be.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2006 22:01:27 +0100, PeterE wrote (in article ):

You outlaw mega pub companies as being anti-competitive. It's what the Competition Commission is there for.

But there is no market in which companies with a market share of under 20% (which is what the biggest pub companies have) have been broken up as anti-competitive.

And if I own 100 pubs, then surely it's up to me to decide what beers get sold in them.

The problem is that the latest wheeze the pubcos have involves getting all (or as many as possible) of the local small brewers to sign up to supply into the blanket scheme (the name of which escapes me but it has had mixed press). Said scheme means the licensee chooses a beer, the brewery deliver direct and payment is routed via the pubco.

The issue? The price to the pubco is so low the brewery is likely to make a loss if the delivery distance is much beyond a few miles, but needless to say the price to the licensee is stupidly high so he has to charge the punters more to make any money.

Meanwhile the pubco sit back do nothing and collect lots of money. Steve is right, while the pubcos exist there will be no fair market.