LocAle

Drink Real Ale… Drink LocAle!

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As recently as 1991 Nottinghamshire had four regional breweries, Hardys & Hansons, Home, Mansfield and Shipstones, who owned the majority of local pubs and supplied them with good quality ales at reasonable prices. Customers enjoyed these local brews and were fiercely loyal to them, but despite being very profitable the breweries were taken over and closed. We now have the sad situation where the majority of our pubs sell just nationally branded beers, their popularity due to massive advertising budgets rather than beer quality or true customer loyalty. Worse still these beers are trucked in from all over the country at a massive cost to our environment, increasing pollution, road congestion and damage to our roads.

But all is not lost. Since the mid-nineties an increasing number of craft breweries have sprung up in the area producing some outstandingly good beer. Within the Newark area we have Maypole, Milestone and Springhead, with over a dozen more not very far away, including Caythorpe, Poachers, Oldershaws and Brewsters.

To encourage the take up of local beers in our pubs Newark CAMRA is joining Nottingham CAMRA’s initiative, the LocAle scheme. This unique accreditation will be awarded to pubs which pledge to always offer at least one locally brewed real ale on their bar.
The scheme will be open to all pubs within the Newark and Southwell area and it will be operated by the Newark Branch of CAMRA with the assistance of the Nottinghamshire Transport 2000 environmental lobby group. Pubs will be given point of sale material and window stickers to promote their accreditation and this will also be publicised in the Beer Gutter Press, at Newark Beer Festival, on the Newark CAMRA web site and wherever else the opportunity arises.

The LocAle scheme is not intended to reduce the number or range of guest beers seen in our pubs, on the contrary CAMRA welcomes the interest and variety that they bring to the local pub scene. What we are trying to do is encourage the sale of locally brewed ales as a regular beer in local pubs, in place of pretty ordinary beers shipped in from all over the country.CAMRA is aware that many pubs cannot buy in the beers they would like to sell, and their customers would like to drink, because of restrictive ties but ways can often be found to get locally brewed beers onto the bar if the will is there, such as through the direct delivery scheme operated by SIBA (The Society of Independent Brewers). We can also advise pubs as to which breweries are local to them and how to make contact with the brewers.

Look out for the logo

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Initially the scheme was limited to the area of the Nottingham Branch of CAMRA, who devised the scheme. However, interest was soon shown by neighbouring branches and has already been rolled out Nationally.

Look out for the LocAle window stickers and the font crowns with the LocAle logo to ensure a pint of locally produced real ale! Remember – Drink real ale…drink LocAle!