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Pub Guide

Riverview Hotel - Earith

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Opening Times

Issue 142 Spring 2010

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A LOOK BACK IN TIME
25 YEARS AGO

National brewing group Watney Mann and Truman closed their Norwich Brewery production site 25 years ago. The closure of the former Morgans plant represented the loss of the last of the city’s four major breweries after previous closures of Bullards, Steward & Patteson, and Youngs, Crawshay & Youngs. CAMRA’s then East Anglia Regional Organiser Paul Moorhouse blamed the latest closure on an ‘artificial lager demand created by mass advertising for Watney products such as Fosters and Carlsberg, whilst traditional British-style ales have received little backing’. Rodney Mann, Norwich Brewery’s Managing Director, also blamed ‘the swing to lager from ales’ for the closure. A company statement explained that the plant was an ale brewery with no capacity for lager production. Brewing was moved to Watney group breweries in London and Manchester. Production of Norwich Brewery’s cask Bullards Mild, reintroduced in 1982, ceased before the brewery closed.

Scottish and Newcastle tabled a £91 million takeover bid for Matthew Brown of Blackburn, sparking an intense CAMRA campaign of opposition, which included a protest in the streets of Southport during the national CAMRA AGM weekend.

The Biggleswade-brewed version of Greene King’s cask dark mild, XX, was under threat after the brewery announced that its production was down to only 12 barrels a week. The pale mild, Greene King KK, brewed at Bury St Edmunds, was also under threat and had recently been dropped from Eaton Socon pubs the Old Sun and George and Dragon.

Brian and Meg Walker at The Angel in St Neots won the ‘Best Kept Cellar’ award for the third year in a row in a competition run by owners Charles Wells (the pub is now a Thai restaurant).

Charles Wells became the first independent regional brewer to open a home brew pub. A brew house using malt extract was installed in their new Ancient Druids pub next to the Grafton Centre in Cambridge. Two beers were in production, Kite Bitter and the slightly stronger Druids Special.

There were new licensees at Charles Wells pub the Three Horseshoes at Southoe. Brian Brocklehurst, a former police inspector, took over the village local with his wife Janice. A major refurbishment had remodelled much of the interior, and work was planned to improve the garden area.

St Neots CAMRA ran a visit to Greene King’s brewery at Bury St Edmunds. There were also spring socials visiting pairs of pubs at the Prince of Wales, Hilton and Kisby’s Hut at Papworth Everard, the Three Horseshoes and the Bell in Southoe, and the Crown at Litlington and the Darby and Joan at Abington Pigotts (now the Pig and Abbot). A meeting was held at the Crown in Eaton Socon and the 1985 AGM was at the Falcon, Buckden.
10 YEARS AGO

A favourite pub of many local CAMRA members was lost in 2000 with the closure of the Golden Miller at Longstowe, named after a famous racehorse that was once stabled nearby. The demand for food and family facilities in pubs was blamed for the closure. The Golden Miller had been one of the few rural pubs in the area continuing to focus on the drinks trade alone. St Neots CAMRA responded to the continuing threat to rural pubs by urging Huntingdonshire District Council to adopt planning protection for pubs in its Local Plan.

CAMRA struck a powerful blow against the tide of rural pub closures ten years ago with the launch of its ‘Public House Viability Test’. The test provides local authority planners with a means of deriving impartial evidence concerning the viability of pubs subject to closure plans. Such pubs are often run down by owners wishing to cash in on high residential property prices. A checklist enables consideration of factors such as population density, tourist potential local competition and public transport.

Scottish and Newcastle decided to sell its l leisure operations and concentrate on brewing and pubs, despite the likelihood that other national brewers Bass and Whitbread would sell their breweries to concentrate on hotel and leisure businesses.

St Neots CAMRA held meetings at the Exhibition at Godmanchester and the Lord John Russell in St Neots, and there was a curry evening at the Kushiara in St Ives following beers at the Royal Oak. The branch’s 2000 AGM was at the Rivermill Tavern in Eaton Socon and there was an April Friday Five at Catworth Racehorse and pubs in Ellington, Spaldwick, Old Weston and Leighton Bromswold.

Greene King attacked the trend towards nitrokeg beers and accused national brewers of dumbing down drinkers’ taste buds. Brewing and Brands MD Brian Field said in an interview with the Brewers’ Guardian, ‘Their focus is on nitrokegs and lager. Whether they have made a mistake only time will tell. I do not want this smooth rubbish. I want cask ale’. Mr Field emphasised Greene King’s commitment to cask beer and hoped that as the nationals continued to ignore real ale a gap would open in the market for regionals to prosper.

Oxfordshire CAMRA members gathered in Abingdon to hand over a petition to Greene Ling’s brewing director John Redman in protest against the closure of the town’s Morland brewery by owners Greene King, scheduled for February 2000.