Standing up to the pub trade's Four Horsemen

If our pub business was to have its own Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse the nominees would probably be the unfair use of alcohol as a loss leader by supermarkets, the perceived iniquities of the pubco business model, the monstrous growth of crippling official meddling in our trade and the smoking ban.

I warmed to local government minister Grant Shapps when he suggested recently that the Labour Party should apologise to the UK pub trade for having allowed the horsemen to trample rough shod over it during its time in Government.

To be fair, however, it could be argued that it was the Tory Beer Orders that started the rot and Shapps didn't mention any easing of the smoking ban. That, plus things like our new political masters considering further levies on the business, the kicking of the community pub fund into touch and giving the local community (almost inevitably a polite term for local busy bodies) a greater say in licensing decisions has left me with a plague-on-both-your-houses feeling.

All this hoo-ha aside we do need to recognise that the pub trade has undergone a fundamental transformation since the Beer Orders.

It's about life-style changes rather than Government ineptitude and malevolence. This is what is really behind the decline in the number of pubs, matched by a decline in pub visits with more drinking being done at home.

We face a great challenge, but one similar to that faced and overcome by the cinema business a few decades ago. Television swiped the mass market the movies had enjoyed, making the punters housebound.

Cinema fought back, transforming the cinema visit into a high-status, almost luxurious occasion, with an ambience that could not be replicated at home. They got it right with profit before volume, quality before quantity.

That's the way our business is going. At Budvar we are doing our bit by introducing our yeast beer into selected pubs because there is no way you can get this unpasteurised draught brew, with its life of days rather than months, into take-home. To enjoy it you have to go to the pub.

It also demonstrates one of the positives of our present situation: it brings out the best in us. In the past, introducing an unpasteurised beer would have seemed a bridge too far, but now cometh the hour cometh the beer.

I'm convinced that all good brewers have something similarly unique to offer the on-trade that will both keep the Horsemen at bay and get us on the road to a great future.