Brewpubs Stumbling In UK

 theguardian-observer  On a Tuesday lunchtime, Whitelock’s is doing healthy business. At Leeds’s oldest pub, a mixed clientele samples the 10 real ales and tucks in to hearty pub food. While Whitelock’s was revived, pubs are still closing their doors at an alarming rate. According to the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), 1,661 closed in the first six months of last year – 31 each week. Many have become supermarket convenience stores, some have been turned into homes or restaurants and others stand empty.
 Total beer sales fell from 35.5m barrels in the first quarter of 2000 to 27m barrels in the same period last year. On-trade sales slumped by more than 10m barrels in that time, while off-trade sales rose by more than 2m barrels as supermarkets sold beer at rock-bottom prices. The smoking ban, falling real incomes and the rise of the internet also kept people away from their local. Yet many pubs are thriving under new management, and new ones – more than 800 in the first half of 2014 – continue to open.
 Britain now has more than 1,200 breweries. The total has increased 10% in each of the last two years – a number not seen since the 1940s – and more per head than any other country. Independent brewers are helping keep pubs alive by providing interesting products, and, increasingly, by buying the premises.
 The “beer tie”is an arrangement that lets the pubcos charge their tenants rent and require them to buy their beer at more than the market rate. It's difficult to make money or to try anything different. It came down to what the pubcos charged me for beer. You’re forced to buy from them and there’s no way you can compete with other pubs.  Camra’s Neil Walker says: “There is a massive imbalance between the licensee and the large pub companies. If the company is squeezing the tenant by charging higher rent or too much for their beer there isn’t much they can do. The large pub companies are really property-owning companies. They are happy to sell off their pubs if they can get better prices by selling them to Tesco or for flats.”
 At the heart of Camra’s campaign to protect pubs is a belief that they are a special kind of business. They are, the argument goes, a peculiarly British focal point for community activity and classless interaction. A Camra survey found that three-quarters of adults thought pubs were a valuable part of British life. Some say there are many more pubs crying out for transformation. They’ve seen great pubs close that shouldn’t have closed – but a lot of pubs have closed because people weren’t using them; because the offer wasn’t particularly special and people’s drinking habits are changing.
 Gone are the days when a village can support four pubs. But there will be one pub: and if it’s well run it will be the most popular pub that everybody visits.