From today's Twitter I note the somewhat startling information that pubs will need three weeks notice (ideally four) before they are able to open after lockdown. You can read it yourself in the good old Morning Advertiser. The source is the British Beer and Pub Association, (who I for one don't rate particularly highly.) You can read what is said here.
Of course there is a fair point about breweries needing to scale up operations again to get beer delivered to pubs and yes, pub operators will need to give furloughed staff notice that they will be required once more. But in the latter case any employer worth their salt will be in constant contact with furloughed staff anyway, as they have I assume, still got an ongoing duty of care. It follows that this in itself shouldn't pose a particular problem as much can be anticipated before opening is allowed again.
The point about breweries is well-made though. Larger breweries have arrangements with tenants, managers and free trade clients that will have to be re-introduced over a period of time, but the argument that pubs need four weeks notice to me seems unduly pessimistic. My best guess is that most will open readily with whatever they can get their hands on and with whatever restrictions are applied, just to get back in the game. There will though undoubtedly be a need for imagination here and a bit of leeway from suppliers and customers alike is most probably needed.
Going back to breweries, I'm again guessing that the hospitality sector will be near the back of the queue when it comes to opening up for business once more. That would imply by its very nature, that they will have a fair bit of notice. Either way both sides of the bar should be thinking now about how they will handle that day when it comes.
Sadly, though we can't expect that day or any sort of timetable for that day, anytime soon.
The photo above by my good friend Michael, shows the notice on the THT door. He walks his dogs that way, though I think I'd find it too traumatic myself.
Maybe some breweries might find a temporary loosening of the tie will be helpful in getting cash and beer flowing again. I'm not exactly hopeful of that though. It would set too many hares running.
6 comments:
I agree, as I said on Twitter yesterday. Four weeks' notice is gold-plating it. Plenty of pubs could reopen within a week, even if they can't offer the full range of products from day one. Unfortunately, that would probably include cask beer. Some one-person micro bars could probably reopen within a day without draught beer.
At present, it's hard to see it happening before the beginning of July, though :-(
Agree, Peter.
There'll surely be some innovative ways to restart pubs quicker. In a Kent village owned pub this year new tenants, inheriting a shell, had bought in bottles of Hobgoblin with cask a week away.
Pubs are primarily gathering places, which sadly is why they'll be a while reopening yet.
Realistically, and looking at what other countries are doing, pubs and restaurants are likely to get two or three weeks' notice anyway.
How long does pasteurised keg beer last if unbroached?
If could be said that some more modern breweries have painted themselves into a corner with the mantra that "hops fade fast"
They do but overall this does not impact on the shelf life of the beer itself per se.
Unfined cask can be pretty durable too and dark beers are even more robust but I'll assume all reading this know this already.
From experience; the brewing can start straight up away, provided you've got the yeast in and as someone who has used yeast slurries exclusively, which have a very finite shelf life of viability, it looks like sourcing packet/dry yeast will be the way forward for now, whenever that is.
As long as HMG gives plenty of notice of pubs being allowed to open, there's nothing stopping breweries gearing up and pubs ordering beer and getting ready for what is going to be an onslaught on what history might recall as DO Day - Doors Opening. One benefit might be that pubs become much less taken for granted and maybe even the temperance merchants might have to keep their necks wound in - they've been rather quiet about the massive increase in off sales when I'd have expected constant tickings-off for drinking at home.
Pubs opening will be the highlight of Xmas. Something to look forward to.
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