Since the monopolies and merger ruling of the mid 80's, brewers have been replaced by a whole host of companies who have become the new middlemen. I believe that some of these are no more than property companies, who are not interested in the role of the pub in communities.
Disagree As much as this can be the case in some pubs, a lot of these companies offer invaluable business, logistic, and commercial support to the pubs they own. They do charge the earth for their beer though! The whole tied lease system needs looking at, however it's a system that has worked to make many publicans a lot of money over the last 30 years. Yes pubs are closing at a record rate (26 a week, but down from 50+ a week for the last five years or so), but some of them were pretty horrible pubs that weren't capable of moving forward with the latest social trends. The world is a different place now and pubs need to adapt to cater for a lot more than just a pint. Saying that though, there's still plenty doing a fine job of just serving a pint. *appreciate this is full of contradictions!
Re: Disagree I don't know where you get this from, if it is true I would like to see evidence. I can only comment on what I see, I drink in worsboro common and Sheffield Road, my local for many years was The Rose and Crown (Pig) so I will talk about that but the same comments apply to The White Bear (now closed) The Prince of Wales Feathers (Dillington, closed) Coach and Horses (closed) Warncliffe (closed) and probably many more. The Pig was a vibrant busy pub in the 80's, Thatcher made breweries sell off some pubs, Wards took over the Pig, despite the beer it still kept busy, wards sold to pub co. The landlady did a good trade with meals, pub co said they would supply food pay her 50p per meal to cook, took over the pool table, bandits then put her rent up, tied her for beer, charged her top wack for beer she walked out without notice, pub shut. It re-opened with a continuous stream of stand ins and ne-er do wells all following the same pattern, come in on good terms, make a good job in first 12 months then it starts, rent up, beer up, can't make a living (never mind a fortune) moves out, pub shuts. This has happened so many times I've lost count, the pub gradually going down hill only kept open by a small group of regulars, thankfully it has now been bought by a good guy who sources his beer from where he wants and it is now back to a good pub. These pub companies are nothing but land banks who leech of guillable people who think (wrongly) they can make good money.
Re: Disagree You've just given an example of half a dozen pubs? I didn't say there weren't examples of the system not working. What about Punch Taverns who run well over 1,000 pubs through the tied lease system? If you want evidence, I personally ran six pubs through the tied lease system that paid me a decent enough salary considering I had no rent to pay, and made profit for the owner. These pub companies often support refurbishment plans through loans based on a retro system for the beer purchased, and if you make a success of the pub you can then go on to buy out part of your tie - cask ale being the most obvious tie to buy yourself out of as you need the 'larger boys' to fund other parts of your business plan. You appear to be basing your comments on a select number of pubs and a select geography region
Re: Disagree youre a top lad loko Yeah : Punch and indeed Admiral have learnt lessons on how to run pubs and how landlords need to run the places.HOWEVER Enterprise continue to buck that trend and t`owd man is spot on : irrelevant of GEOGRAPHY they charge inflated rents which makes it difficult for a boozer to be run anywhere near the profit margin needed to make the business fluid. My own local 3 Horse Shoes at Brierley closed (again) last tuesday : speaking to the cracking couple who ran it since last june they needed to take £200 per day before any profit was even thought about. Greedy barstwards
Re: Disagree Like I said, I can only talk about what I see, there are a few others I know about but only through word of mouth through the pool league. You say you didn't pay rent, if thats the case then we are probably talking about a different type of business model, all those I talked about paid rent, usually a low rent for the first 12 months then wallop, rent doubled.
Re: Disagree One of my locals the Victoria, in Highgate, North London was Enterprise. I'd seen 3 managers come and go and none of them were able to make it pay. They were getting stung on the price of the beer, with no flexibility to get punters through the door. Enterprise have recently sold the freehold and a small firm of owning 5/6 other pubs have bought it free of tie. They promoted a bar maid to manager on one meeting, promising a ton of support and ideas, but have since backed off and have left her to run it single handedly. She's making a fist of it but it's clear the new owners have failure written into the business plan. They paid £800k to Enterprise for the freehold, the site is worth nearer £3m.
Re: Disagree I'm talking about rent for the place you live. If you live above the pub, you obviously don't have monthly rent or a mortgage to pay, which in London is worth the equivalent of over 8k a year almost. You also don't have any bills, so in theory it is a lot more. Some tennants also put the council tax through the pub as well. They're giving figures at the moment in the House of Commons that pub owners are living off £10k a year, but for those in the south they don't have any monthly outgoings (or might not do). Personally I'd never enter in to a lease agreement that allowed the rent to go up after 12 months, but I've been out of the loop for the last three years on whether that's still possible. You can also agree that rent will only go up based on percentage of takings, so the pub co benefits in the rent increase from supporting you making the business profitable, and you benefit from the support and increased profit.
Re: Disagree You're right mate. Enterprise are the devil. They're the ones causing the issues really, right set of robbing gits. For those that don't know the difference, if you have an Enterprise pub you might pay (and this is going back some years) £150+ for a keg of Fosters, but if you bought that from a wholesaler you might get it for £80 with a buy ten get one free thrown in.
Re: Disagree Ayup mate, is The Pig worth going in again now? Haven't been for a few years as it was just getting run in to the ground and it was depressing to go.
Re: Disagree I've quite a few friends in lease pubs and non of them make a decent living,certainly not for the amount of hours they do,you only have to look at the amount of pubs that have 'business oppotunity' signs outside,they'll practically take anyone on as most business people with any experience know they are a waste of time,they really are no more than a franchise and a poor one at that. there maybe some areas that buck the trend,but given the amount of pubs that close and the amount of tenants that are left without a penny to scratch their arse with,its not difficult to see that the whole set up is ruining the industry.
Re: Disagree It's not the whole setup though, and that's my point. It's a shame so many pubs have closed, but the reality is they didn't function the community in the same way they might have done a decade ago. People have changed, trends have changed, and the function of a pub has changed. We don't have the same amount of youngsters coming through with the same ideals as even I did a dozen years ago. The pub model is flawed in certain areas, but not everywhere. It just needs tidying up, not revolutionising.
Re: Disagree Sorry to disagree Loko...as you may have guessed from my username,I've been in the industry for 27 years and the model is not working,over the years I have met dozen upon dozen former tenants or leaseholders who've lost everything after being screwed by Pubco's..and the big brewers before them..including the ones you mention..you only need to look how long people have been in a pub to see the state of the trade(as you say though times have changed,and certainly not everything is the fault of the Pubco),someone lasting longer than 18 months in a pub now is considered a veteran...and some of those are just managers keeping the doors open till an unsuspecting mug can be found(I'm sure thats how they view it,I spoke to a senior manager from one of the Big six nationals in the 80's who said 'we regard our tenants as the scum of the earth' As to the Beer orders..they were well intentioned and certainly would have benefitted the consumer,benefitted the small brewer,and to be honest would have not been detrimental to the large brewer,the big mistake was in the wording of the orders,the wording said 'Any brewer with more than 2000 pubs must allow its tenants a guest beer of their choice'(just paraphrasing there)what is should have donr is replaced the words Any Brewer with the word Anyone. I would say the business model works only for a small minority.As a member of SIBA,the small brewers association,we have a system called DDS that allows us to deliver to some of the Pubco groups,but we have to go through the system,by the time the beer gets to the leasholder the price in some cases has almost doubled.
Re: Disagree I'm probably either not being clear (very likely), or the BBS is being hit by it's usual extremist stance that doesn't allow anyone to sit in the middle of an opinion. The pub co model needs reviewing, and has done for years - example in the Commons today that 400 pubs could have been saved in the last six months if the government had discussed the issue in the Summer. But it doesn't need revolutionising as there are success stories out there. It's all about fairness, and that's where the industry is at a loss. The model itself works, providing the pub cos aren't greedy. There doesn't need to be a move to free of tie (which was actually the original question in the opening post) as not all pubs need to be able to buy there own wine, soft drinks and cask ale. Appreciate you've got vast experience (much more than me in terms of years), but for someone who only just turned 30 I've got a fair bit of experience as well, working in various positions within the industry and for some of the best pubs in the country. All I've tried to say is the pub tie doesn't need ripping up and discarding, it just needs reviewing and made fair. In fact, fairness has been the key word running throughout the debate today. A fair deal for locals.
Re: Disagree Please don't think I'm somehow trying to browbeat or in any way belittle your experience Loko..I'm most definitely not,but my experiences of the trade are vastly different,I think the answer may lie in your words that you've worked in some of the best pubs in the country...the vast bulk however are not like that,years ago you would have had to have a track record of running the kind of dive you can only use a baseball bat to control..prove yourself there and you may be offered a step up the ladder,by the time you're in your 40's you may have graduated to a flagship house..to have until retirement..this seems to have gone out of the window and the jobs will be offered to anyone(again please don't think I'm having a dig at you),I delivered beer last week to a pub in Barnsley,the two people running the pub were in the 18/19 yr old age group,not too long ago this would have been unthinkable,but I think it is indicative of the way many Pubco's view the trade...my guess is that no Pubco director has ever been at the sharp end of the trade...actually running a pub. As to the tie issue...I think the original beer orders were the right way,just that as I said they weren't worded properly.The Pubco's should be investigated very closely..many people I have spoken to have lost everything and their stories are consistently littered with the same themes of broken promises,refusals to do necessary work as promised,trade levels in the pubs never having reached in recent history the kind of volumes needed to reach the high rents expected...I know no-one is forced to take a lease..but often the figures presented initially, usually verbally,are little short of sharp practise..these companies are not the relatively benevolent companies (in many cases)of family owned breweries in the past..but more akin to the modern city banker and much more likely to use the same discredited methods ...not good for the people as far as I can see.
Re: Disagree I only worked with some of the best pubs in the country by working at the opposite end as well. That's not to say that the opposite end was the worst, I had some great times. The first pub I ever looked after was when I was 19/20, and that was the Conservative Club next to the Wakefield Trinity ground. I wouldn't argue with anything you've said above, all true and valid. Lots of pub cos though have tried to change their stance over the last few years to make life easier for the tennant. I think there's a good chance of success with the likes of Punch (and Admiral as someone mentioned before), but never with Enterprise Inns. My only challenge back would be on the issue of age. A lot of these younger managers are showing the old guard how it needs to be done. I wouldn't say this has anything to do with the pub cos view on the industry, and more to do with the way the functional need of a pub has changed. I've regular attended the Publican awards and lots of the nominees are under the age of 30, many in their early 20's. That's just the way pubs are these days. There's a huge amount of pubs that are suited to a more modern vision, and the younger people getting involved in the trade know what the guests are looking for. Also, a lot of work has gone in to the industry in the last decade to make people think that running a pub is a well made career choice and not just something you do when all other options are exhausted. Lots of big companies offer qualifications and courses now for everyone involved in a pub, not just management.
Re: Disagree All depends what you want, the guy thats got it now (Phil) is a good bloke, he's not one of these in yer face happy chappy type of landlords, friendly but a bit reserved, serves a good pint with a smile on his face. He's been in about 2 years, it's still not as busy as it used to be but it got so bad under the last idiot that it will take ages, if ever to get back to what it was. Through the week it's mainly a tap oil pub, but thats what I like anyway, it's got a solid base of regulars but I think thats how Phil likes it, rather than being rammed with idiots. Try it, you might like it. Anyway, are you from that neck of the woods, will I know you?
Re: Disagree There's definitely more than a grain of truth in what you've said there Loko..in fact I've had to learn a few lessons from my own son in his 20's..so hopefully none of us are too old to learn new tricks. As to the Publican Awards...I wouldn't set too much stall by them...I've had the magazine all the time I've been in the trade,and to be honest it's pretty unrepresentative of the wet trade only sector.Like any trade magazine,it likes to project a feelgood factor emphasising only success,they are often a standing joke amongst all but the biggest companies...who usually fund it through their advertising...a typical award reads something like this...congratulations to The Old Barley Mow in Henley on Thames,after a £2.2m refurbishment, adding 40 covers in the new bistro area,licensees Maxim and Henrietta have smashed the record selling an extra 20 cases of Fosters Radler and 10 of Sol... Perhaps I'm too old and cynical...but whatever Loko, if you're up this way and fancy a pint send me a pm and I'll stand you to a jar or two while we carry on the discussion. PS see if the publican ever holds awards for leaseholders completing a full 25 years...somehow I don't think there'll be too many.
Re: Disagree I live in Ward Green now, but I'm not from this end of town, I was brought up in Kexbrough. However, my wife was brought up on Sheffield Road and I've been dating her since I was 18 (24 years) so we used to go in The Pig back then, before we both moved away. Her dad went in more than us though. Then when we moved back to Barnsley about 10 years ago we started going in again, but it was always quiet and it started getting worse, so we stopped going. We tend to go in the Edmunds Arms in Worsbrough if we stay local(ish).
Re: Disagree Right, I'm trying to think who the landlords would have been then, 10 years ago the rot had set in. I might know your father in law then. If you ever fancy a pint and a game of pool pop in on a weds and make yourself known.