I have some sympathy with what Joe is saying in that CAMRA should be fighting other issues more vigourously, and that this is a battle that the people have little chance of winning.
However it remains a sad fact that people will inevitably lose their jobs in Cockermouth; a regional identity will be lost; and the bully boys will win again.
Personally I have enjoyed some Jennings beers over the years (Sneklifter and La’al Cocklewarmer spring to mind) and I will be sorry to see them (as Cumbrian beers) disappear.
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Jennings beers are great in my opinion!
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It is always sad to see a brewery close, but we are not even sure that brewery would close. If W&D do keep the brewery open, as they claim they will, then it will just be them owning it instead of somebody else.
Since it’s uncertain if the brewery will close, and nothing CAMRA do will matter then I don’t see what the point in this is.
The average real ale drinker in the pub doesn’t care if Boddingtons is brewed in Manchester, or who owns Jennings, or even if Jennings is brewed in Cumbria. All the average real ale drinker cares about is if the beer tastes good, and so many pubs are serving awful beer, including pubs in the good beer guide, and most pubs that are Cask Marque approved.
I would rather see CAMRA spend their time actually pushing for beer standards, rather than support a scheme like Cask Marque which gives accreditation to pubs serving foul, sour, month old casks.
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There were rumours that Robinsons could have taken Jennings over at some point, if they built up their shareholding to 30% they would have had to put in a formal bid for Jennings. While this would have been preferable to W & D it still would have lead to some rationalisation and reorganisation. Like it or not breweries big and small are in buisiness to make money, Youngs have just announced they want to restructure their shares and list on the AIM market which will potentialy open them up to aquisitive national brewers. They have a prime site in London that would be very attractive from a real estate point of view so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we weren’t having exactly the same conversation about Youngs at some point in the near future.
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