Book Review Christopher Hutt The Death Of The English Pub

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Arrow Press 1973 Nicely illustrated with lots of photos, this short prophetic warning cries out about the dangers of corporate changes in brewery attitudes to traditional English (should be British) pubs. The book comes at the time six major breweries crushed the competition from many small independent brewers, replaced pub tenant landlords with business managers and asset strippers and imposed on pubs to sell the pub-co products regardless of customer wishes. This was the time real ale was most threatened by dead tasting carbon dioxide injected keg ales. Customers who were too old or too angry about the changes found themselves barred. Traditional pubs steeped in history were torn apart in refurbishment programs, oak panelling replaced in Formica, and plastic. Some pubs were given short-lived gimmick themes, like discotheque, Mississippi River Boat, and airliner. Live entertainment was imposed even when customers didn’t want it. Everything came down to productivity and profit. A pub that was open all evening but rarely got busy before 9pm could suddenly be closed for not being good enough. The little book is full of horror stories, beers so weak that they could legally have been old in the US at the height of Prohibition. One pub (that I have been in), Dirty Ricks, (actually starts with a D but Mylot mistakes a real name for a dirty word) in London, tried to convince punters it was selling real ale by having its beer lines going into a wooden ale barrel, but on investigation, it was found that the lines went through the barrel, out the other side and into a keg instead. The book shows a counter-battle to save the pub, noting the birth of the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) at the time of publication, and the now successful call for pubs to display the gravity (strength) of beers on offer. At that time, weak beer were sold as if they were stronger causing higher payments for weaker watered down ale. Much of the struggle continues, with pub-co’s and Wetherspoon’s still dominating a market rife in pub closures. Much of this book is still relevant over 45 years after it publication. Arthur Chappell