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Welcome to my first edition of More Beer as your new editor and many thanks to Sue Barker for steering it through to this point.
You will read elsewhere in this edition that we will not have an Oldham Beer Festival this year due to circumstances beyond our control, but be sure we will be looking for opportunities to spread the real ale message in other ways and hopefully in other venues.
Cask ale continues to be the bright spot in British brewing, so all isn’t doom and gloom. Please let me know if you have any views about the magazine and pubs in our area. I’ll be delighted to hear from you. My email address is listed opposite.
Peter Alexander
Chairman: Peter Alexander
Email – peter@peteralexander.plus.com
Secretary: Pam Ellis
Email – pam@pamellis.fsnet.co.uk
Membership: Mike Robinson
Email - jmikerobby@aol.com
Social Sec: Ken Holt
Email – kenjan.holt@btopenworld.com
Treasurer: Clive Taylor
Email – camraclive@uk2.net
More Beer Editor: Peter Alexander
Email – peter@peteralexander.plus.com
MORE BEER is produced by the Rochdale, Oldham & Bury branch of The Campaign
for Real Ale Limited. The editor, the Branch committee or CAMRA does not necessarily
endorse any opinions expressed in this newsletter. The editor would be pleased
to receive contributions on relevant topics – by post or E-mail. Publication
cannot be guaranteed, of course, as space is a premium in any free publication,
contributions may be edited and certain grammatical errors corrected – if
spotted in time.
Copyright © 2010. The Campaign for Real Ale Ltd., Rochdale, Oldham & Bury
Branch.
POST CONTRIBUTIONS TO:
The Editor, More Beer, CAMRA ROB, PO Box 108, Oldham, OL2 5RE
OR POST TO:
CAMRA R.O.B.
P.O.Box 108, Oldham OL2-5RE
CAMRA HQ.
230 Hatfield Road St. Albans.Herts, AL1 4LW
01727 867201
Web: www.camra.org.uk Email:
camra@camra.org.uk
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Or Rochdale.gov.uk
THE NEXT ISSUE OF MORE BEER WILL BE OUT EARLY JUNE 2010 WE MUST HAVE ANY CONTRIBUTIONS BY 7th MAY AT THE LATEST
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The beer festival, which is organised by the Rochdale Oldham and Bury branch of CAMRA on behalf of the Mayor of Oldham’s Charity Committee, is traditionally staged at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Oldham in March. It brings more than 1,500 visitors to the town and has raised a total of £120,000 for local charities since it was launched in 1987.
The council has always offered the venue free of charge, but decided to levy an £8,500 charge. The hire cost would swallow up all the fund-raising of around £7000 and only the Council would have been in pocket.
Organiser Mike Robinson says CAMRA was left with no option other than to stand aside. "When we discovered that the council would be charging for the hall, I asked the Mayor's Charity Committee, to sort out the issue. Regretfully they were unable to shift the council’s stance, therefore we could not organise the event, disappointing charities, the public and also our local breweries, that have been denied a showcase for their wares.”
Oldham Council has defended its decision "It cost Oldham Council around £12,000 to actually put the event on. We simply cannot sanction providing a subsidy of several thousand pounds to the event again. We are genuinely disappointed to have lost the beer festival booking, however, and want to place on record our thanks to CAMRA, and their volunteers, for their efforts in the past.
The Branch Committee is looking at other options for the future.
Following the decision to cancel the CAMRA Oldham Beer Festival due to the problems with the Council and the hire costs for the Queen Elizabeth Hall, eight real ale pubs in Oldham Town Centre have rallied together to assist real ale drinkers and a local charity.
The loss of the traditional event and the consequential loss of financial support, which is
provided for local charities, will disappoint an enormous number of people. A group of Oldham Town Centre publicans are therefore collaborating to organise a weekend Festival of Real Ale to go some way towards replacing the event and the shortfall in funds for one worthy cause.
The Oldham public houses taking part in the event are;
•
Ashton
Arms,
Clegg
Street
•
Bank
Top
Tavern,
King
Square
•
Jackson’s
Pit,
Jackson’s
Pit
•
Royal
Oak,
Rhodes
Bank
•
Squire
Knott,
Yorkshire
Street
•
Three
Crowns,
Manchester
Street
•
Up
Steps
Inn,
High
Street
•
Whittles,
King
Street
The
theme
being
‘Support
Local
Pubs
Supporting
Local
Charities’.
The Festival runs from Friday 19th to Sunday 21st March (the weekend that the CAMRA Oldham Beer Festival should have taken place) and money raised by sponsorship of the event or from raffles will be donated to Dr Kershaw’s Hospice in Royton.
Each pub will have an extended range of real ales available over the weekend.
Pub News From Around the Branch. In Rochdale the good news is that the GBG listed Regal Moon under manager Chris Riley continues to improve and extend its cask ale offering with a new bank of six handpumps being recently installed. Nearby the ROB Pub of the Year, The Baum also has increased the number of handpumps available and additionally offers CAMRA members a discount on beer Sunday to Thursday.
In Castleton comes news that Cath Hague is leaving Robinson’s GBG listed New Inn where she has built up the cask trade, to move to Mayfield Sports Centre Castleton, where she intends to convert the mainly rugby crowd to cask ale. So watch this space. In Sudden, the Windmill (Burtonwood) has been sold and is no longer in use as a pub. The Royal Toby which for years featured Bass and Boddingtons on cask, now has Black Sheep and Marstons, though the beer range may vary.
The Gardener’s Arms in Rhodes (ex Boddingtons) has re-opened after a period of closure. Repainted and refurbished it sports, somewhat oddly, an OB Smooth sign outside, but inside you will also find cask Robinsons Old Stockport Bitter at £1.50 a pint. The Barber’s Arms also in Rhodes is closed and boarded. Gartside Ales signs have been revealed. In nearby Middleton the Bricklayers Arms continues to open and close again, while the Victoria (ex OB) in Grimshaw Lane is closed and boarded.
Marston's seasonal beers, which are rarely seen on in our patch, have been appearing in the Three Crowns on Manchester St. Autumn offerings which included Ploughman's Ale and Pomp & Circumstance proved a hit and Marston's Christmas ale, Ugly Sisters, sold out in little more than a day.
The Grouse on Lees Rd is one of Oldham's lesser known real ale houses. It was once owned by the long defunct Openshaw Brewery, passing to Bass Charrington in the Sixties, before joining the JW Lees estate in 1985. The lesser spotted Brewer’s Dark (ex GB Mild) is a regular here and seems to be a good seller.
Peter Alexander
(Oldham news by Peter Bramwell)
Lees has announced the return of their famous passport trail. The trail involves visiting as many Lees pubs as you can, drinking a pint or two halves and getting a stamp on a specially issued passport, available from
any participating Lees pub. The more pubs you visit, the more prizes you can claim and the good news is you have until February 28th 2011 to do it!
Prizes are: 25 pubs: JW Lees Passport Trail 2010 t-shirt, 50 pubs: JW Lees Passport Trail 2010 polo-shirt, 125 pubs: JW Lees half-zip fleece and JW Lees Passport Trail 2010 engraved Grip Glass with gift box.
Visit all 162 pubs and you will be invited to a VIP trip to Greengate Brewery. For more info on what’s involved, visit:
CAMRA is pleased to announce the launch of a new Complimentary Club with JW Lees Brewery. This is a free club for CAMRA members to join and it will offer you exclusive competitions, promotions, and news from JW Lees. Not a CAMRA member? Join now. There is a form in this newsletter.
Lees seasonal range for 2010 will kick off in March with Brassed Off (3,7%), a golden beer with a rich, colour that’s down to the Styrian Goldings hops and crystal malt used to brew it. Next up in June will be another golden beer, Strawbeery(3.8%), which promises Northdown hops, the finest pale ale malt, and real strawberries thrown in for an authentic taste. In September comes Fools Gold (4.1%), a golden, rich, hoppy ale made with Zeus and First Gold hops and pale ale and crystal malt. In December we are promised Chocaholic (3.6%), a dark beer for the sweet toothed, made with chocolate and Goldings hops with crystal and chocolate malt. December also sees the welcome return of Plum Pudding (4.8%) specially made with Christmas in mind. Brewed with pale ale malt, Styrian Goldings hops and a hint of ripe fruit, it is a rich dark beer full of Christmas pudding fruitiness. In addition, Bohemia Regent, a genuine imported Czech lager is now available to all Lees pubs. Holsten has been dropped from the range.
Award winning licensee Michelle Fenton is leaving the Tandle Hill Tavern, Slattocks after three years at the helm to take up the tenancy at Thwaites White Lion in Delph. Maeve Thomas is leaving the Horton Arms at Streetbrige, Chadderton to move to a Robinson’s tenancy in Marple Bridge. Both are outstanding licensees and will be losses to the pubs which have featured in the Good Beer Guide for many years.
Other local Lees tenancies available include the Apple and Pear and the Assheton Arms in Middleton and The Swan in Radcliffe. The Waggon and Horses in Milnrow is closed and will be demolished.
During many weeks this winter there was only one word to describe the Saddleworth scene – white! Along with many other parts of the North West the area was badly hit by heavy snow and freezing temperatures which had a severe effect on travel around the region, including access to the more remote pubs on the hills. With prolonged snow falls followed by strong winds, drifts of up to eight to ten feet were commonplace and caused major problems getting to and from some of our favourite hostelries.
One of the worst hit was the Royal Oak (Th’Heights) nestling on the hills above Delph. With Oldham Council ineffective in clearing the smaller roads in outlying areas it was left to individuals to tackle the problem themselves and in many cases to protect their own livelihood. Step forward Mike Fancey, landlord of the Royal Oak, who had noticed a major fall in the pub’s trade when it was cut off from the rest of the world! With his trusty tractor and front bucket Mike and others spent over 100 hours and £135 in diesel clearing and gritting
1.5 miles of roads up to his pub. Fortunately this major effort was rewarded with one of the busiest New Year’s Eves ever, with standing room only and overspill through the French windows at some stage in the proceedings. As well as problems of access for the customers, many brewery drays were also struggling to make the much anticipated deliveries over the festive season. For the Cross Keys, one mile up the hill from Uppermill village, JW Lees were only able to deliver using 4x4vehicles.
However they were successful - hooray! One of the beers which reached the pub cellar was the new seasonal Christmas Cracker, which was a disappointment and seen as a step back from last year’s offering, Plum Pudding. Fortunately, Moonraker strong ale was available in bottle to keep out the winter chills.
Just below the Cross Keys the Church Inn used a snow plough and mechanical digger to clear the road to the pub, although severe weather still caused the cancellation of a number of parties booked there. In a somewhat bizarre offshoot from this activity, a funeral at the nearby St Chad’s Church was only able to go ahead when the shovel of the digger was used to transport the coffin of a local farmer to the graveyard!
In a more positive vein, the Church Inn has won the Good Pub Guide’s ”Own Brew Pub of the Year” Award, describing the pub as an “appealingly unconventional place” and “a lively good value community pub in a great spot, selling good pints for £1.50”. As well as offering around 6 home-brews, cask beers from other brewers such as Black Sheep are usually available. The Taylor family who run the brewpub have introduced Blue Tree Bitter (3.8%), which is very bitter and named after a sports psychology term relating to the mental preparation for a challenging task – in this case the extreme bitterness of the beer!
The selection meeting for the 2011 Good Beer Guide took place at the end of January and both the White Hart at Lydgate and the Swan (Top House) in Dobcross were deservedly selected, together with most of the regular entries in the Saddleworth area. However a long-standing entry, the Waggon on Uppermill High St, missed out mainly, I suspect, as it has only two Robbies beers on offer while other pubs selected have a choice of four or five. My personal belief is that this decision does not reflect on the quality of the beers sold at the Waggon, which I have always found to be consistently good as a result of the licensee’s commitment to traditional beer.
At the Diggle Hotel, Hook Norton’s Hooky Bitter which was introduced as guest beer in November has proved so popular that it’s now become a regular on the bar. The hotel’s aim to reintroduce B&B accommodation has met a number of planning and other snags but they still hope to have four en-suite rooms up and running by Easter, in time for the outdoor pursuits season.
Down the road, Dave and Sharon have moved from the Front House in Springhead to the Hanging Gate as tenants for this S&N house. The regular cask beer, Theakston’s Black Bull, has been well received and a second hand- pump is used for national guest beers such as Bombardier, Old Speckled Hen and Black Sheep. Food is currently available on Sundays but this will be extended to weekdays once they get established and they have revived the B&B accommodation above the pub. They have four well furnished en-suite rooms costing £70 per night for double and £55 for single rooms B&B.
The Woolpack in Dobcross, which has had something of a chequered past, has been closed for refurbishment and has reopened at the end of January, ironically renamed The Shambles. The pool table has gone and been replaced by a lounge area with secluded lighting, com- fortable brown leather sofas and a hardwood floor. The rest of the pub has been recarpet- ed, reupholstered and repaint- ed throughout to give it a welcoming feel and new licensee Andy Thornton is keen to develop the full potential of the Woolpack, an Enterprise house. Opening hours are 12-12 every day and food is currently available at lunchtimes during the week and throughout the day at weekends. As More Beer went to press they were setting up the first of four B&B rooms and are also refurbishing the cellar area to provide changing rooms and shower facilities for local football teams who play across the road. All in all, Andy is hoping to provide a range of attractions to different clientele. On the cask beer front they offer both Deuchars IPA and Black Sheep BB, both of which have been going well.
The Grotton’s range of traditional beers has been cut back and during a recent visit only Black Sheep BB was on the bar. In contrast at the Springhead Liberal Club, Greenfield’s Black Five and Dobcross Bitter are now established.
On Saturday 6th Feb Greenfield Brewery held an open day at the brewery in Tanners Mill, an old textile factory, to celebrate their 500th brew. Business partners Peter Percival and Tony Harratt hosted the event, together with Jon Frankell who is helping out in the brewery and modestly described himself as “the oldest apprentice in town”. In total an estimated 600 people called into the brewery that day, many more than expected, making it a great success. These included local drinkers, CAMRA members and various representatives from the licensed trade who were keen to try the beers on offer. A special 5% version of Bill o’Jacks, which was their first ever beer, brewed back in 2002, was available, together with Ale & Hearty and Dobcross Bitter. Bill o’Jacks is a smooth traditional chestnut coloured beer named after the licensee of a local pub (the Moorcock) on the Isle of Skye road to Holmfirth which became notorious when the landlord and his son were found battered to death in 1832. The murders were never solved and the pub became a morbid attraction until it was demolished in 1937.
Since they started up, Greenfield have produced 60 different beers and 20 of these are still available as either regular or seasonal brews. Many of their products are named after Saddleworth villages or related to local events. Various expansions have taken place at the brewery over the past few years and it now has a capacity of 30 barrels per week. New outlets are steadily being developed including the White Hart in Lydgate and the Horse & Jockey in Chorlton, and plans are in hand for a special promotion at Up Steps, the JD Wetherspoon’s pub in Oldham town centre, in March.
To cope with growing demand, Millstone Brewery in Mossley has also reorganised the layout of its operation to boost capacity, which is currently 24 barrels per week and some new kit will further enhance its efficiency. As things stand Jon and Nick have ruled out a move to larger premises in the foreseeable future. Departing from their normal pale hoppy beers, they produced Christmas Ruby at 4.7% as a seasonal special, and recently brewed Miller’s Ale (3.8%) for the first time in three years. This is traditional English Ale style based on Fuggle and Golding hops. Millstone’s deliveries were also affected by the severe weather conditions when their delivery van was marooned near Th’Heights (see above) for two weeks.
At the time of writing, sledges and skis have been discarded and normal travel around Saddleworth has been resumed!
Ken Holt
The Blue Belle (formerly the Travellers Rest) on Rochdale Road now serves a Cask Marque approved pint of Black Sheep Bitter. The pub re-opened last year, following the name change and also serves food in a relaxed and comfortable environment.
Whilst the pub only has the one hand pump at present, it is a big improvement on the keg only pub that operated in the post Oldham Brewery era. Hopefully the management might be encouraged to increase the range of cask beers and widen the range of continental draught and bottled beers.
In Oldham The Up Steps in Oldham is moving towards becoming more of a community style pub through a series of events.
Shift Manager Eric Fulham said ‘We have designed and are currently in the middle of brewing our very own beer, named after local celebrity Clint Boon, from 90's Indie band Inspiral Carpets and currently DJ on 'XFM'. Best of all Clint has been involved in all aspects from designing the pump clip to coming to Oldham's very own Greenfield brewery to help make it. He has also agreed to come to the launch on Thursday March 18th to taste the first pint and sign autographs for customers.
Another thing that we are proud of is our micro-brewery real ale festival which consists of us showcasing one brewery for 3-5 days so they can show off their own various beers and taste’.
I understand that the special brew from Greenfield will be a 4.6% beer called ‘Boon Army’ and Greenfield brewer Peter Percival describes it as pale in colour and quite hoppy.
Currently the Wetherspoons pub serves 7 different cask beers and are in the process of getting the other 5 lines refurbished so at peak times they can have 12 different ales on.
Mike Robinson
CAMRA is again focussing attention on mild beers in May this year and would like to encourage pubs around the country to stock at least one mild during the month for local pub-goers to try. As part of this activity the Rochdale, Oldham and Bury Branch is again organising a coach trip around the area to increase awareness of mild beers. On Saturday 1st
May the coach will call at five outlets where participants can experience the variety of milds available in Rochdale, Oldham and Bury and carry that message to friends, colleagues and other pubs in the area.
Starting at 10.30 at the JW Lees Brewery in Middleton Junction, the plan is to visit the Hare & Hounds in Holcombe Brook, the Baum and the Regal Moon in Rochdale, finishing off at the Ashton Arms in Oldham at around 5.00pm. Last year’s event was very popular and everybody enjoyed a good day out, so if you want to join us this year please contact Ken Holt on 01457 874268 or kenjan.holt@btopenworld.com for more details and to put your name down. The cost of the coach is just £5 per person – great value for a fun day out.
Technical Note -What is mild?
Milds are black to dark brown to pale amber in colour and come in a variety of styles from warming roasty ales to light refreshing lunchtime thirst quenchers. Malty and possibly sweet tones dominate the flavour profile but there may be a light hop flavour or aroma. Slight diacetyl (toffee/butterscotch) flavours are not inappropriate. Alcohol levels are typically low.
Ken Holt
When you live in Royton it is not very often that you get the chance to go drinking in Summerseat, so when the opportunity presented itself one Sunday afternoon recently, I decided to give it a try.
First port of call was the Hamers Arms,a recent advertiser in the magazine. This was a family orientated pub busy serving food and three cask beers. On offer when I visited was the permanent Theakstons Best, with Adnams Bitter and Ruddles Best the two guest beers, I tried the Adnams and very nice it was too.
Immediately across the street, sharing the same car park, is the Footballers Inn, a recent Good Beer Guide entry, where the clientele seemed younger and more sports orientated. On offer at the bar were six hand pulled beers with the selection on the day comprising Taylors Landlord, Theakston Bitter, Hydes Original, Acorn Barnsley Bitter and Black Sheep Bitter. The pub was busy with regulars enjoying the conversation and the football on TV.
Summerseat is handy for the East Lancashire Railway, with the station within walking distance so as the weather hopefully improves in the months ahead, give it a visit sometime and try its excellent two pubs.
Mike Robinson
Now available for members of the Branch to purchase are 100% cotton polo shirts in four colours and five sizes. Available from Membership Secretary, Mike Robinson at a price of £10 each in light grey, black, dark blue and forest green in sizes small, medium, large, extra large and extra extra large. Please see a copy of the logo right. Please contact Mike at jmikerobby@aol.com or by post at PO Box 108, Oldham, OL2 5RE stating size and colour required.
After February’s reports that beer sales are not quite as poor as they have been, there's similar cautious optimism for pubs -while not exactly something to shout from the rooftops, there are two bits of news suggesting that things have at least stopped getting even worse.
First, trade paper The Publican reported on the 3rd of February on claims from Merrill Lynch that pub performance is improving. The city broker claimed that pubs face a brighter outlook in 2010, “with trade recovering, debt at manageable levels, regulatory concerns back to historical levels and property values having bottomed out”.
They were looking mainly at the big Pub Companies (PubCos) of course, and claimed in that the tenanted sector in particular was improving, with the underlying performance trend improving and top-end pubs showing “greater resilience”.
This has been followed by new data compiled for the British Beer and Pub Association by CGA Strategy, showing that the rate of pub closures slowed in the second half of 2009. We've spent six months quoting the horrible figure of 52 pub closures a week -that has now slipped back to 39 a week. Hardly great news -before we got up to 52 this was shocking -but after 52, it doesn't seem quite as bad, and suggests that some of the factors killing pubs have done their worst.
A total of 2365 pubs closed in 2009, with the loss of 24,000 jobs. There are now 52,500 pubs in Britain – well down on the 58,600 pubs operating when the Licensing Act came into force in 2005. In addition to the loss of these vital community hubs, the Government is set to lose over £250 million in tax revenues this year, if the current closure level continues.
Food for thought for PubCo haters -in the second half of 2009 the rate of closure of free houses was far higher than tenanted or leased pubs -from July to December 575 free houses closed compared to 320 tenanted and 117 managed pubs.
The data also shows that pubs serving food continued to do better than those that don't - just 130 of the pubs that closed were food led, with 883 drink-led.
It convinces me that while the trade is absolutely right to point fingers are factors such as supermarket pricing and in particular Alistair Darling and his moronic tax rises, the recession has clearly been a particular bane to pubs, and now that is easing, so is the pub's plight.
The industry is by no means out of the woods and could still do with a helping hand from government rather than yet more punishment, but the pub is not going to die. Many (though I'll admit, not all) of those who behave in an entrepreneurial way and continue to offer people something relevant will survive, and many are prospering.
Pete Brown is British Guild of Beer Writers Beer Writer of the year and this article is reproduced with his permission. You can follow him on www.petebrown.blogspot.com
by Pete Brown
It is generally accepted that Belgian breweries produce the most diverse beer styles in the world and Rodenbach, in the West Flanders town of Roeselare, is one such example.
Dating back to 1821 the brewery was founded and developed by the Rodenbach family who were actively involved in politics and the battle for Belgian independence in the 19th century. They pioneered the sour red/brown style of beer, characteristic of this part of Flanders, in which the sourness is developed from ageing for up to two years in massive oak tuns to induce lactose secondary fermentation.
Doubts about the brewery’s financial viability surfaced in the 1990’s and this led to its take over by Palm in 1998 and concerns that the traditional nature of Rodenbach would be lost. Fortunately these worries proved unfounded as Palm invested substantial sums in cleaning up the tun room, installing new brewing equipment and establishing a visitors and conference centre oozing character, thus revitalising the whole operation. In spite of its modernisation the brewery has retained several distinctive old features and there is no doubt that cathedral-like vaults of old oak vats are the most impressive. There are 294 of these in total, the oldest of which are over 150 years old, and they each contain between 12,000 and 65,000 litres.
Remarkably for such a large operation Rodenbach only employ 25 people in Roeselare including 12 coopers and 6 in the conference centre, according to Tim Webb. These numbers illustrate the importance of maintaining and refurbishing the maturation tuns -they use only French oak from Alsace.
Since the take over by Palm the beer range has been rationalised and they now make two main products –
Rodenbach (5.2% ABV) A mixture of 75% young and 25% two-year aged beer
Rodenbach Grand Cru (6.0%) A mixture of 33% young and 67% aged beer.
In addition to these, Rodenbach produce small quantities of 6% Foerderbier and 10% Vin de Cereale. While the latter apparently resembles a flat sour superstrong lager, the former makes Sarson’s taste like a sweet Liebfraumilch. Enjoy!!
Ken Holt
If you are reading this magazine you are probably interested in Real Ale. There is a chance you are also a member of CAMRA. You may even be CAMRA member living in the Rochdale, Oldham and Bury (ROB) area. ROB is one of the largest CAMRA branch in the Manchester area in both size and number of members, at over 700 members. As well as business meetings each month, we have a busy social schedule with coach trips, weekends away and have even have had the odd continental sojourn.
Unfortunately the branch isn’t all success. Whilst ROB has over 700 members the average AGM attendance has declined to 20 odd members. This leads to a couple of questions. Where is everyone and how do we get ROB CAMRA members involved? The recent GBG selection meeting was very well attended, but meetings generally, less so. People who move away or change lifestyle aren't being replaced.
There are a number of reasons for the ‘problem’. ROB is a rather large branch. If there is a meeting in Bury, Oldham and Rochdale members may have to drive & so will have to nurse a pint all night. The same is true if held in other areas. If a meeting finishes at 9:40 most people like to leave for a last one within walking distance of home, or else have to rush for public transport.
By now some of you will be asking why the author is adopting such a negative attitude. Why doesn't the ROB branch....? Well that's the idea behind this article. If you're a 'sleeping' ROB member why don't you attend meetings? If you're a member of another branch that has had a massive increase in active members because of a revolutionary idea let me know.
All correspondence, if I receive any, will be treated in confidence. I may even buy a pint or two for the best letter. As I'm not on the committee there's no worry about any CAMRA comeback, but there's also no guarantee of any ideas being taken up. This is just a personal attempt to find answers to the 'what do we do' discussion.
Please reply to the address for More Beer, marking letters/emails (etc) FAO Ian Mitchell.
Note: All Branch meetings are now held in the Baum Toad Lane, Rochdale and attendances have picked up, but we still need ideas.
Ian Mitchell
The Moonrakers of Middleton were local farm workers who enjoyed a few pints of John Willie Lees' beer after a hard day's work. One night, passing a pond in a state of inebriation, they saw the reflection of the moon. Fearing it had fallen from the sky, they attempted to rescue the moon with a hay rake. Moonraker Strong Ale is named after this apocryphal event.
To kick off Lees Passport Trail 2010, our friends at John Willies have offered a prize of a case of legendary Moonraker Strong Ale exclusively to one of our lucky readers.
Just answer this simple question.
How many pubs are participating in Lees 2010 Passport Scheme?
Answers,
with
your
name
and
address
and
a
contact
phone
number
to
competition@jwlees.co.uk
putting
“Passport
Trail
Competition”
in
the
subject
line.
You
can
also
enter
by
post
by
writing
to:
Passport
Trail
Competition,
JW
Lees
(Brewers),
Greengate
Brewery,
Middleton,
Manchester
M24
2AX.
MARCH
Sat
27th
Coach
Social*
Cheshire
incl.
Dunham
Massey
Brewery
APRIL
Tues
6th
Branch
Meeting
The
Baum,
Toad
Lane,
Rochdale
MAY
Sat
1st
Coach
Social*
Mild
in
May
branch
area
Tues
4th
Branch
Meeting
The
Baum,
Toad
Lane,
Rochdale
JUNE
Tues
1st
Branch
AGM
The
Baum,
Toad
Lane,
Rochdale
Fri
4th
/Sun
6th
Weekend
trip
by
air*
Frankfurt
JULY
Tues
6th
Branch
Meeting
The
Baum,
Toad
Lane,
Rochdale
* Further details of social events are available from branch contact or social secretary. All Branch Meetings now start at 19.30 followed by a social meeting. Further details from any committee member or * the social secretary. Changes to the diary and other events may be announced at branch meetings or publicised on the website.