Scottish and Newcastle Breweries that is. The last vestige of that proud company which was taken over by Heineken (well the British bit was) is no more. Scottish and Newcastle Pub Company has been "rebranded" as Star Pubs and Bars.
One interesting point is that they intend to be the "nice" PubCo and propose a low cost entry to the trade and an easy get out clause and want to be "good business partners". Probably they'll install some fairies at the bottom of your garden too.
That would be a change from those PubCos that see their tenants and lessees as cash cows to be milked, but lets be fair and just wait and see how it actually turns out. Records aren't good on this one I'm sorry to say. Not even theirs!
Needless to say they don't mention beer in any of this or on their main site. There's a lovely cynical comment here by J Mark Dodds, the founder of the Fair Pint Campaign. He doesn't seem to be a fan. In fact he has a go at a lot of folks. Worth a read.
Hardly radical, just a few differences in how they intend to fleece recently redundant people of their redundancy money.
ReplyDeleteUnlike other pub companies they do actually have an interest in selling beer through their pubs.
ReplyDeleteThe Star was the emblem of Newcastle Breweries, of course.
It was Mudgie, but it IS the emblem of the Cruel Heineken too,
ReplyDeleteI doubt that any of their tenants' hearts will go all a flutter at this news. All the PubCos claim they are nice to their tenants, but I've chatted to a few, as I'm sure you have TM, and I've an idea what really goes on.
ReplyDeleteOh look! That leopard has changed its spots.