There are two companies in the pub industry I don’t like. The first is Greene King, mainly for the fact that their beer across all brands in spectacularly average at best with very few exceptions, however some of their corporate traits as a pub owner, especially in the Scottish Belhaven subsidiary leave a lot to [...]
Archive for the ‘Pub Paper’ Category
Pubpaper 709 – Enterprise Inns – The Ted Tuppen Approach
Posted: 15th May 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, Writing3
Pubpaper 708 – The Fox and Goose, Hebden Bridge and the Wetherspoon Stirling Situation
Posted: 10th May 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingI’ll start this week with an update on a story I covered a few weeks ago. Wetherspoons were attempting to open new premises in Stirling, but had encountered hurdles after Greene King, who operate in the town under the Belhaven brand lodged a judicial review to try and overturn the local council decision to approve [...]
Pubpaper 707 – The essential pub atmosphere
Posted: 8th May 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingAs Russ Abbot once warbled in his 1984 hit song Atmosphere “I love a party with a happy atmosphere, let me take you there…”. The same can be said of pubs, especially when considering the casual visitor. A relaxed welcoming feeling will stop non regulars passing by your pub and putting the money behind the [...]
Pubpaper 706 – Budweiser US, deceptive packaging and reviving a brand
Posted: 25th April 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingThe Anheuser Busch InBev (AB InBev) company is one of the largest brewers in the world. It was formed between 2004 and 2008 in a series of mergers and buyouts which saw Interbrew (then a major Belgian brewer) merge with AmBev (the dominant beer producer in South America) to form InBev who then brought out [...]
Pubpaper 705 – Its cider season, even for the fake ciders
Posted: 20th April 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingTags: aspalls, bulmers, Cider, magners, Thatchers, westons
Cider and Perry are fairly simple products, pressed apples or pears left to ferment and produce alcohol. Even relatively mainstream producers such as Thatcher, Westons and Aspalls produce a variety of ciders which are interesting to drink. You can go from Thatchers Gold at 4.5% to Westons Vintage Cider at 8.3% and get an cider [...]
Pubpaper 704 – Greene King, Wetherspoons and the Stirling situation
Posted: 10th April 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingTags: competion, greene king, stirling, wetherspoons
This week I want to kick off with one of my favourite brewers, Greene King, those purveyors of high quality unique beer who freely encourage a wide choice of guest beers in their tied pubs. You may detect a large pinch of sarcasm in that last sentence. The sight of a pub having three Greene [...]
Pubpaper 702 – Snow Trapped Pubs
Posted: 31st March 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingTags: snow, Southowram, tan hill inn
Snow glorious snow, in the week before Easter you couldn’t avoid it, especially if you live atop a hill like me. Older locals are saying that they haven’t seen this much since 1963 or 1969 according to who you talk to. Buried cars and hitting 7 foot walls of snow on country lanes become the [...]
Pubpaper 703 – Good Beer Guide 2000 Retrospective
Posted: 31st March 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingTags: Beer Orders, CAMRA, Carlsberg Tetley, Roger Protz, Websters
In the third part of my Good Beer Guide retrospective we jump forward 11 years for the turn of the millenium. The first thing you notice is how much thicker the 2000 edition is, approx twice the thickness of the 1989 book, the second thing you notice is there is a lot more editorial content [...]
Pubpaper 701 – 2 pubs in the village, pity we lost the best named one.
Posted: 20th March 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingI’ve lived in Halifax for 15 years now, all of them residing at various locations on Beacon Hill, however most of the time up here has been spent living in Southowram, a village it would take a lot for me to move away from now with the open countryside on its doorstep looking down over [...]
Pubpaper 700 – The Good Beer Guide Retrospective 1989 edition
Posted: 14th March 2013 by santobugtio in Pub Paper, WritingThis week brings you part 2 of the Good Beer Guide retrospective, the year in question being 1989 this time. Thanks again go to the Sportsman at Ploughcroft for lending me the book from their collection, I hope to bring you the final part of this series in a few weeks covering the 2000 book [...]