Heat wave brings mixed fortunes for pubs

As temperatures have soared to 34C in London and the South East pub licensees and managers have reported mixed fortunes from the exceptionally hot weather.

Beer gardens have been busy across the country as customers flocked to enjoy the good weather.

John Donohue, manager of the Dog and Duck in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, said: "Our beer garden has been packed out, when it's hot and the sun shines like it been we really fill up.

"We have made about 30 per cent more sales".

Not all pubs though have had such a boom in business, Wendy Deary, licensee of the Pig and Whistle near Totnes, Devon has seen sales drop as the high temperature has affected kept some customers away.

"People aren't coming in for Sunday lunch and families with children are staying away, it's just too hot for them to drive here," she said.

Mavis Harris, licensee of The Swan and Railway in Manchester also commented: "The day times have been really quiet, it has just been too hot to eat."

Whilst customers in beer gardens have been heating up, Cask Marque, the body that inspects tens of thousands of pints of real ale a year to guarantee quality, has criticised pubs for serving beer as warm as bathwater.

Cask Marque quality assessors found pubs in Cumbria, Keswick, Salisbury and Wiltshire were serving pints well above the recommended temperature of somewhere between 11 and 13C. One inspector in Dartford was served a 30C pint, which he described as being "more akin to bathwater than beer".