Licensees along Transpennine real ale trail defend decision to ban lager

Members of the Real Ale Trail Licensees (RATL) made the move to ban lager, shots and spirit doubles between midday and 8pm on Saturdays after ongoing anti-social behaviour problems along the rural rail route, which covers eight pubs from Stalybridge in Lancashire, to Batley, West Yorkshire.

Hen and stag parties will also be barred from 15 June and large groups hoping for a drink will be urged to call pubs in advance.

Disturbances include people urinating in gardens and drinking on station platforms while waiting for the next train along the route.

Ossett Brewery owns the Riverhead pub in Marsden – one of the pubs along the route – and brewery boss Jamie Lawson wanted to stress that they were not trying to be killjoys.

“We don’t want to stop the trail, but we need to reduce the number of stag and hen parties who would otherwise be better served in a city-centre environment.”

Lawson said that while the majority of people are well-behaved, villages along the route were not set up to cope with the high volumes of people.

“In Marsden, we get one train an hour in both directions, so at any one time we can have up to 300 people hanging around what is a sleepy little village. People walking around in fancy dress at two o’clock in the afternoon is somewhat incongruous with the environment.”

He added: “I’d like to say that this isn’t an anti-lager move either. We run 20 pubs and lager is a big seller for us. Of course, you can get as drunk on ale as you can on lager – and although it’s a large generalisation, large groups of stags and hens generally tend not to be real-ale drinkers.”