South West: Cornish beers

Mike Fennell
BBC South West Political Unit

Twenty years ago closures, takeovers and mergers had reduced Cornwall's breweries to just three. In 2003 there are more than a dozen, many of them micro-breweries.

Many customers are looking for Cornish beers

Rolling out the barrel at a small Cornish brewery is a welcome sign of the resurgence in local brewing.

They could grow much bigger but they can not get a foothold into some local pubs.

The biggest pub owner in Britain is a Japanese Bank and 75% of the nation's pubs are owned by large companies that dictate which beers are sold.

Many customers are looking for Cornish beers. They look along the bar and all they can see is national beers.

The local Skinners beers are sold by pubs owned by the Scottish and Newcastle chain, but Skinners Brewery is up for sale.

If they are acquired by one of the large brewery companies that don't invite guest beers, Skinners could lose 10% of their business.

The beer orders

Fifteen years ago Mrs Thatcher's Government tried to crack the big breweries monopoly by introducing Beer Orders which allowed tenant landlords to sell a guest beer.

But the major brewers exploited a loophole and sold off their pubs en masse to companies not affected by the new provisions.

If you want to wash down a Cornish pastie with a pint of Cornish beer it is not the easiest thing in the world to do

Take your beer out of my pubs, so we did! Steve Willmott, Head Brewer, Doghouse Brewery

The Hawkins Arms is a fine example of a brewery that has actually purchased a pub purely and simply to sell their ales from their Doghouse Brewery.

The Beer Orders were repealed in 2003. The Labour Government claim they had served their purpose and they left to the Office of Fair Trading to crack down on any anti competitive practices.

So why is it so difficult to get a pint of beer in a Cornish pub?

Well it is quite clear, some big brewers refuse to allow local publicans to sell local brewed real ales in their pubs.

There are almost 400 small brewers across the country all looking for access to a wider market.

Restriction of trade?

Available in Edinburgh, but not in Cornish pubs!

What really sticks in the throat for the Doghouse brewery in Blackwater is while their beers can be sold in Edinburgh you cannot find them in nearby pubs.

In the early days the Doghouse brewery in Blackwater did get approaches from local landlords, so called back door trading.

Then the Doghouse brewery had a visit from an area manager.

"Take your beer out of my pubs", he said. So we did!

Obviously because it said Free House outside, the landlord had approached us, we thought that was fine, but we fell into that trap of not being on their selective list.

"There are breweries who are trying to sell their products locally, we as landlords want to sell it.

The issue will be the subject of a debate in the Commons.

Candy Atherton believes the Office of Fair Trading should intervene and persuade the DTI to bring back the Beer Orders and give Cornish beer its head!

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