Brewers should move forward to the past
"Cokes and hire knaves cryden, ‘Hote pies, hote! Goode gees and grys! Go we dyne, go we!' Taverners until hem tolden the same."
Times have changed since the 14th century and William Langland's street cries have been replaced by more up-to-date advertising and imagery. People, on the other hand, have not altered very much and they still cling to the idea of Old England. The prospect of making a journey - as Langland did in his book Piers Ploughman - and discovering towns and villages where there are "backsteres, brewesteres and bochiers manye" continues to hold the prospect of delight.
Britain is rich in tradition. Local and regional produce is as colourful, plentiful and diverse as anywhere in the world - so are our inns, taverns and hostelries where the produce is prepared and sold. Local and regional accents, legends and recipes abound and add substance to our rich heritage.
Envy of the world
Our pubs, inns and taverns have been the envy of the world for generations. They have always been an integral part of our local communities and they provide an ideal vehicle for the continuity of our ways of life.
But we must make haste to defend these institutions before the major operators in the sector reduce them to nothing more than a distant memory.
We now work in a world of concepts. Corporate giants see the use of concepts as the way into the next millennium. This would be perfectly acceptable under normal circumstances but these companies are not run by brewers who have had their fingers on the pulse of the industry for generations but by accountants and their marketing acolytes.
The effect of these two groups is not a new phenomenon. Accountants and marketing executives have been infiltrating our industry for some 20 years and they have had a devastating effect. Their concept of a good pub or good hostelry is one that makes the most money.
It would be wrong to assert that profit should be forgotten, but surely profit should not be the only target, to the exclusion of all others. On the other hand, something must be fundamentally wrong when we have the situation that currently exists. On-trade sales are in free fall, breweries are being closed down, pubs are being boarded up and licensees are going bankrupt.
Large operators understand that a pub's location normally decides its profitability. Most managed houses and superpubs occupy prime sites where high levels of trade are more or less guaranteed. As a result, their operations are geared to maximum throughput.
Tradition and heritage are not normally part of the philosophy of these places - unless you include the funny writing on the menu, the reproduction furniture and the prints of the coaching houses of Olde England.
The food - from the "sharing plate of nachos chips" with three bowls of bottled dips through to the "sizzling steak" - is uniformly predictable and mediocre. What really gets to me is that the people who prepare this sort of fare are referred to as cooks and chefs. In reality they are little more than assembly-line workers.
Head office
The menu is usually designed at head office and organically produced foodstuffs, local specialities and regional recipes are not normally high on the agenda. Real cooking takes skill, dedication, time and flair.
But no one can deny that managed houses and super pubs are taking most of the trade. The combination of location and ample funds for decoration, refurbishment and publicity have proved too powerful for many customers to resist. Rather like corner shops in their battle with supermarkets, many pubs have ceased to trade.
I am sure that smaller pubs will find success by specialising in aspects of hospitality which the big operators find im-practical or impossible to do. It seems that real cooking is one of those aspects, so why not start there? n
David Best is publican at the Bushell's Arms, Preston Lancashire
