Back local beer!

An article from Friday's Guardian caught my eye. It seems the corporate owners of a pub in Lewes under-estimated the local's affection for Harveys bitter. Lewes, the county seat of East Sussex, is a funny little place. It's narrow medieval streets are full of antique shops, it's population consists mainly of fruit-tea drinking pseudo-hippies and it's home to some of the most raucous Bonfire Night celebrations in the country. But by far and away the best thing about Lewes is Harveys brewery. Now, I think I can safely say every P Club member would agree that Harvey's make a damn fine pint, but I can, and will, go further. In my opinion, for what it's worth, Harvey's is the best fekking beer on the planet.

"Eight-thirty on a Saturday night and the pubs are filling up in Lewes. The Elephant and Castle is packed with men watching rugby on the big screen. A mixed crowd is ready to boogie at the John Harvey Tavern, where local Madness-inspired band the Ska Toons are tuning up. Aficionados of real ale and roll-ups are settling down in the Gardeners Arms. And the youth are getting stuck into the lager at the noisy Rainbow.

There's a pub to suit most tastes in the East Sussex town. But the most popular of the lot, the Lewes Arms, which is normally packed on a Saturday, is all but empty. The only regulars here tonight are standing outside in the drizzle with placards and leaflets, politely requesting potential customers to boycott both the 18th-century pub and its owner since 1998, Greene King plc.

The main room, with its bare boards, sash windows, open fireplace, high-backed settle, dartboard and notice declaring that anyone using a mobile phone must buy a drink for everyone in the pub, is deserted. So is the backroom with its old photos and naval memorabilia. Only the tiny front bar, with a window giving on to the lane leading to the town's Norman castle, is occupied - half-a-dozen loud characters who seem to have been there some time. One spots my notebook and bellows: "Wanker!" The thirsty stranger might conclude it is better to go elsewhere.

Hundreds of regulars already have. They have been boycotting the 220-year-old pub since December 11, when Greene King, despite a petition signed by 1,200 locals, including Lib Dem MP Norman Baker, withdrew Lewesians' favourite tipple, Harveys Bitter, from sale.

Harveys has been brewed a few hundred metres away, beside the River Ouse, by an independent family firm since 1790. It was voted best bitter in 2005 and 2006 at the Great British Beer Festival. In the Lewes Arms, as a "guest beer", it outsold Greene King's own IPA, brewed in faraway Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, at least four-to-one. But GK, as supplier as well as retailer, made more from every pint of IPA sold than Harveys. Get rid of Harveys, the thinking went, and the locals, after a bit of grumbling, would switch to IPA and GK would make more money. But it hasn't worked out that way. According to the trade paper the Morning Advertiser, the pub has lost 90% of its business since the boycott, which was 100 days old on Wednesday, and now sells very few pints of anything. At lunchtimes and weekday evenings, hours go by when no one at all crosses the threshold.

But this dispute is not just about beer. Across Britain the traditional "community" local is under threat as never before. According to the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), 56 pubs close in Britain every month, most of them urban locals. Camra's head of research, Iain Loe, says: "The bricks and mortar are often worth more, in the short term, for conversion to flats than the place is as a going concern, even though it may have been making money for 200 years and would continue to do so. Then people move into the new flats and find there's no community, no focus, which the local would have provided."

Ownership of pubs is becoming concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The giant "pubcos", Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns, own some 9,000 outlets each, while Greene King itself has more than 2,600. "If a smaller pub doesn't fit into their business model they will sell it to a developer to be converted into fl ats or a restaurant without a second thought," says Loe. Last autumn Greene King sold 158 pubs, many of which were destined for redevelopment."

-snip-

...during an hour with the Saturday night vigil outside the pub, four people come out - and only one goes in. Three others go elsewhere after talking to the pickets. Two students, Olga from the Czech Republic and Gloria from Spain, study the Friends' leaflets. "You mean, they won't let you drink the beer you want in your own local pub?" asks Gloria. "These people, they must be crazy."

Quite right.

- Mr. Ed