Category: Opinion

If you’ve managed to stay Dry for the month of January we should immediately congratulate you for a sterling effort, the drinking excesses of the festive season can often by balanced with a fit & healthy Dry January, but given the current Covid 19 situation, staying fully Dry since New Year’s Day is a true personal achievement, we wish you luck during this final week of the month!

Resisting temptation is a touch easier of course due to the rapid expansion of No/Low Alcohol beers over the last five years & its now a much simpler task to get the flavour without the big ABV, with dozens of 0.5% choices now available. If you’re new to the No/Low Alcohol scene then watch out for fantastic beers from Big Drop, Nirvana & Lucky Saint alongside tasty 0.5% options from established brewers like Thornbridge, Sam Smiths, Northern Monk, Lervig & To Ol.

The flipside to Dry for many drinkers in January is of course, Tryanuary, with many people choosing to Try new things during the month to help support brewers, pubs & retailers during a normally quieter time for sales. If you’ve been a Tryer during January then please accept our thanks, we hope you’ve enjoyed trying lots of new styles or new breweries over the month. Despite the ongoing pub closures, breweries are doing a fantastic job in getting as much beer as possible into bottles & cans & with a week of Tryanuary to go as we write this, we wish you the very best in trying something new over the next 7 days!

February is likely to bring us all back together on the same page, as drinkers & customers settle back into a normal rhythm once January is out of the way. It also seems likely that Covid19 restrictions are to continue & so drinking at home is going to remain our only option. With that in mind we’re sure that the beer retailers of Sheffield & North Derbyshire are ordering some spectacular new brews as we speak, the cans, bottles & growlers will continue to fly out of the doors.

Here at Beer Central we remain open as normal (with plenty of safety measures in place of course) and you should expect to see new beers in February from a whole range of brewing superstars including, North Riding, Vault City, Nerd, Deya, Kees, Pomona Island, Five Towns, Northern Monk, Verdant, Cloudwater & North, in addition to an endless stream of local brews from Thornbridge, St Mars, Loxley, Bradfield, Kelham, & so on.

Whatever you did in January, whatever your plans are for February, give yourself a pat on the back. Life isn’t quite what it should be at the moment, but we’re all doing our bit, at some point along the way we all deserve a beer….. but the choices are endless, thank goodness for that!

Sean Clarke

BEER CENTRAL – AWARD WINNING BEER SHOP IN SHEFFIELD CITY CENTRE
Outlet MS3, The Moor Market. Sheffield. S1 4PF. Open Mon-Sat 8.30am-5.30pm. On Sundays we stay in bed.

The new book from Claire Pearson is now available. This detailed and well-researched tome includes a myriad of stories from public houses, past and present, from their early days until the eve of World War II. It is a  potted history of her local pubs, where generations of locals and a succession of travellers have spent their leisure hours. The 325 page book includes many stories from the pubs in and around the South Yorkshire town of Stocksbridge and the nearby villages of Bolsterstone, Deepcar, Green Moor, Hunshelf and Wigtwizzle.

Many of the pubs featured are no more: the Broomhead Mill Inn, the Butchers Arms, the Coach & Horses, the Miners Arms, the New inn, the Rising Sun, the Rock Inn, the Sportsmans Arms and the Travellers Inn. However, pubs featured include the CAMRA heritage listed, Friendship (Stocksbridge) and, in Deepcar, both the Bradfield Brewery owned King & Miller and the Royal Oak.

A Drink With Our Ancestors is available, on Kindle. In addition, Claire has put together a website which includes dozens of relevant images. She aims to produce second volume next year featuring the pubs of Midhope, Langsett and the surrounding area.

An excellent addition to your bookshelf!

New government rules came in from Thursday 24 September, which in addition to the existing Covid-secure guidelines (which are now law), includes a requirement for all pubs, clubs, restaurants and fast food outlets to be closed by no later than 10pm.

Publicans have put a lot of work, time and money into ensuring their venues are clean, safe and in line with government Covid-secure guidelines. This includes a reduced capacity (with reduced income!) to ensure tables are socially distanced, cleaning tables between every customer, signing customers in for NHS Test and Trace, everyone wearing face coverings when moving around the premises, installing perspex barriers where necessary, operating table service and more. They are also enforcing the ‘rule of six’ with groups of no more than six people allowed together and reminding customers they should not mix with other groups.

Back in 2005, Tony Blair’s government introduced reform of our licencing laws, which included the ability of pubs to apply for whatever opening hours suited the location instead of the established rules where every pub had to close at 11pm and nightclub at 2am, which saw large numbers leaving every venue at the same time putting huge pressure on late night fast food establishments and transport infrastructure with queues in takeaways, taxi ranks, bus stops etc. with arguments and disorder breaking out. Many of these problems were now history to some degree.

So back to the present, September 2020, with pubs, clubs, restaurants and fast food joints all closing their doors at the same time, 10pm… how were the first few days?

Many venues reported poor trade on Thursday and a disappointing Friday. The issue of course, for a viable evening out that finishes earlier, is it needs to start earlier – which isn’t always possible on days when people are at work or university all day. Saturday was a different story with areas such as the City Centre and Kelham Island buzzing by around 5pm and queues forming in some locations, with an hour wait for a table reported at the Benjamin Huntsman Wetherspoon as an example.

Note this week was Freshers’ Week, when the new university students have arrived and enjoying discovering their new home city ahead of the academic year starting next week.

What was observed on both Friday and Saturday night was come 10pm when the pubs closed, the off licences and convenience stores – which have not been hit by any requirement to close early – were doing a roaring trade in alcohol and snacks to take back to house parties (which of course are totally unregulated and a much bigger health risk than a pub!). It is also worth noting that while fast food takeaways and restaurants have to close their doors by 10pm, they can still do home deliveries all night if they wish, catering for house parties quite nicely!

While public transport appears to have coped in Sheffield, there was clearly a higher than normal demand for taxis with Uber implementing surge pricing, charging double the normal fare. In some cities the crowds in the streets that had all left the pubs at the same time apparently formed impromptu street parties, although there doesn’t seem to have been any reports of this in Sheffield.

So the conclusion – the 10pm curfew is potentially killing hospitality businesses and the jobs in that trade as well as putting people at greater risk to Covid. I would encourage all to raise this with their MP and get this policy overturned.

CAMRA’s response to the government’s 10pm closure announcement

The Welcome to Yorkshire website includes a page which claims to list ‘fine establishment[s] in which you can enjoy a pint of Yorkshire’s finest ale.’

This seems to be a totally inaccurate phrase as there are only three entries in South Yorkshire: two in Barnsley (not Sheffield as is inaccurately stated for the Wortley Arms) and one which does not serve beer.

In his 2016 seminal report, beer-writer Pete Brown described Sheffield as ‘the world’s greatest beer city.’

Since then, things have only improved. Sheffield has niche pubs, and an excellent, diverse beer scene: a mix of traditional heritage assets and modern bars. It has 30 pubs in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide, more pubs on the CAMRA Heritage Lists than any other city in Yorkshire and, outside London is the only UK city, to have its own heritage pub guide. It also hosts the only pub to win the CAMRA National Pub of the Year Award in successive years.

Beer tourism brings vastly more income to the city than the annual two-week World Snooker Championship. And the Neepsend Brewery Trail is becoming a ‘must-see’ attraction.

Within the city boundary, there are 27 functioning brewing companies, more per head of population than any other UK city. These vary from the long-established: Abbeydale, Bradfield, Kelham Island and Sheffield to the new: Heist, Lost Industry and Saint Mars of the Desert (SMOD). The oldest brewery in the city, Kelham Island, continue to produce a past CAMRA Champion Beer of Britain, Pale Rider, while earlier this year, SMOD were included in the RateBeer top ten list of ‘the world’s best new breweries.’

So, why are there no entries for Sheffield?

On Tuesday 15 September, Paul Ainsworth (Barnsley CAMRA) and Dave Pickersgill (Sheffield & District CAMRA) had a short meeting with Miriam Cates, the recently-elected MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge.

The discussion included several areas: the effect of lockdown on pubs and breweries (both local and nationwide), the pubs code, business rates, community pubs and international trade.

Pubs and bars were closed from late March until, at the earliest, 4 July. Many pubs have struggled to  reopen, having invested their dwindling reserves to do so safely and securely in line with Covid-safe guidance. We believe that support is required as they struggle to reestablish.

Last month, the British Beer and Pub Association said more than a third of pubs failed to break even in July, and a quarter of pubs and bars were uncertain their businesses would still be viable by 2021.

Sales at pub, restaurant and bar chains halved in July compared with last summer. Trade in bars was down almost two-thirds (63%) and pubs saw a 45% slump in the first month that businesses were able to reopen.

The furlough wage support scheme has allowed many pubs to retain their staff. In lockdown areas and in struggling areas, many pubs and bars will be forced to close unless the government agrees to extend the furlough, which is due to be withdrawn. Miriam believes that this furlough scheme ‘was one of the best in the world.’ However, she is also in favour of the scheme ending as it is not financially sustainable beyond October, especially given that debt is now at 100% of GDP. Other support schemes are available but the priority must now shift to creating new jobs  She also mentioned the ‘possibility that pubs won’t be able to operate at full capacity for a year.’ Miriam did, though, agree that ‘pubs are vital to local communities’.

Alcohol was excluded from the government’s six month VAT cut from 20% to 5% designed to stimulate the hospitality industry. More than 60% of the UK’s 47,000 pubs are “wet-led”, meaning they make more money from alcohol than food. This puts them at an immediate disadvantage. Miriam defended this difference.on the grounds that lines have to be drawn somewhere and often difficult decisions made.

Pubs are also facing huge rent bills with nearly all of the major pub companies (the exception being Admiral Taverns) opting to defer their demands, or offer a discounted rate, instead of cancelling payments as business has dried up during the pandemic. This is likely to lead to opportunistic planning applications, as pubs continue to close. Miriam mentioned the impact of ‘Big chains not willing to have a conversation about rent.’

There are currently 153 community owned pubs in UK. None has gone bust. Miriam was very interested in how this figure could be increased. It was agreed that we would provide suitable written background material. She ‘wants a return of small independent retailers.’

The Pubs Code was introduced in 2016. Since then Publicans have expressed bitter complaints about the financial impact of the “beer tie” – the arrangement that governs the relationship between large pub companies that own thousands of pub premises and the tenants who run the business. We believe that an urgent review of the not-working Pubs Code is required. Miriam committed herself to writing to the Small Firms Minister, Paul Scully, on this point.

CAMRA will be asking for extension to the  business rates holiday which runs out in March 2021. We also want to see business rates system for pubs to be reformed with a low business rates multiplier for hospitality business generally.

Miriam stated that Business rates in general need looking at compared to other European countries. She ‘completely supports the need for business rates reform’ saying they could be based on takings not the size of property. She is also concerned regarding  possible holes in Local Authority finances given that rates revenue goes directly into their coffers.

During lockdown, breweries saw a much reduced outlet for cask beer. There was much ullage, and many staff were furloughed. Some breweries increased their direct sales while others had no income as they had no packaging facilities. Some took the opportunity to deep clean, rebrand and/or  review. For example, Penistone-based Brewery Whitefaced (named after local sheep: the Whitefaced Woodland) have put in a planning application for a new bar and location for their nano brewery in central Penistone. Miriam promised her support for this development. (The other brewery in the constituency is Korrupt Brew Co (also Penistone)).

We also discussed the effect on breweries of current trade talks. Many UK Breweries, including both Korrupt and Whitefaced, make extensive use of aromatic hops from Central Europe, New Zealand, and USA. We have major concerns regarding supply after the end of this year – both continuity and cost – it is likely to be more difficult to import (more/new paperwork).

Miriam stated that it is vital that ‘vital that we get a free trade agreement.’ We should ‘put everything into negotiating that deal.’

All breweries need support as they reestablish.

Paul Ainsworth & Dave Pickersgill