Protz on Beer Duty - NOT on Pubco's

Roger Protz is an institution not to be criticised.

A pretty good article by Roger Protz for once on the plight of pubs - attacking government on the Beer Duty Escalator - it's hard hitting and to the point about where the government fits in EXCEPT it misses TOTALLY, as always with beer writers, the point about pubcos charging DOUBLE free of tie prices and charging Over Market Rent for their run down falling apart dilapidated properties ...

When his name was mentioned in 'important' company when I first began meeting 'important' people in the pub industry because of my involvement with the Fair Pint Campaign, I used to be very critical of Protz's take on the pub industry, rather than about what his tastebuds do or the quality of his beer writing, and it always caused an uncomfortable, awkward, but rather quite pleasing, silence. No one would join me in tearing his position apart. People would mutter 'well, he's getting on now isn't he' and stuff like that.

Beer writer people like Protz, and there are a lot of them, rarely step out of line in supporting the national CON that is the pub industry. They avoid it by only talking about beer, never about the people who sell it at DOUBLE any reasonable price they ought to be able to charge for it - and which of course they could NEVER be able to sell it for were it not for the mechanism of the Beer Tie they have abused so comprehensively for the last three decades.

The main reason the beer writers don't talk about the real issues and stick to cuddly soft stuff like beer is that they fear they'd not get invited to the top table at industry shindigs which, after all is why they are doing the business: "we're only here for the (free) beer... (and wine with the £300 annual dinner)".

If these pubcos were operating in a freee market they would ALL have been out of business long ago - no one would have ever bought their beer.