St Austell hit by wet summer

The recent wet summer has hit Cornish brewer St Austell hard, the group's chief executive James Staughton has admitted.

The county is a key holiday destination for many visitors every year, but the poor weather dampened people's enthusiasm to visit the area and, crucially, its pubs, Staughton conceded.

"We had a good first half the year to the end of June, but our pubs had quite a disappointing July, compared with last year, while August and September were about level year-on-year," he said.

"The only 'plus' to come out of the summer was that it wasn't really lager or cider drinking weather," he added, noting that the group was brewing its Tribute cask ale to capacity, around 1,000 barrels a week, while food and wine sales had done well.

Staughton said it was "absolutely impossible to assess" the impact of the smoking ban, although he admitted it was quite likely that the group had lost some trade as a consequence.

"We have had some new business, with people wanting to come into smoke-free surroundings, but we realise that we need to market the new environment better and exploit its potential."

There are other challenges, he warned; landlocked pubs where customers smoke on the pavement could risk prosecution.

"Allowing people to drink in an unlicensed area can attract the attention of the police and some pubs in the county have already fallen foul of the law for doing so," he said.

But it was not an easy issue to resolve, he warned. "Licensees asking that customers leave their drinks in the pub when smoking outside might be seen as unreasonable, especially when the weather is good and you have large groups of people who want to smoke and drink outside."