“Why don’t you?”…..just go to the pub.

There is a strange irony about running a website that really wants to get people off the internet and to go to the pub instead.

I sometimes describe useyourlocal.com as a bit like a modern day “Why Don’t You?”. You remember, the 1980’s BBC children’s cult classic TV series. The one that asked you in its opening credits to “Just switch off your television set and go out and do something less boring instead.”

Back in the early noughties I attended numerous meetings, conferences and industry seminars. The chat at many of these was often centred around the rising threat of the internet to the Great British pub. People were spending more time on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or Friends Reunited. Gone were the days of meeting mates at the corner shop, in town, or God forbid, in the local pub. We were at the dawn of a new age of social interaction. We were to survive on a diet of 800 “Friends”, all thousands of miles apart. Location would be no barrier, we could Skpe them, Facetime them or even Hangout online. The need for actual physical contact was just something that our parents used to do. How quaint. The pub was dead. Its only purpose would be to host the countless leaving do’s of the ever decreasing numbers of industry employees.

Unsurprisingly, at useyourlocal.com, we hold a different view. We’ve set out our stall to use the internet to help pubs. We’ve turned the very thing that our industry was scared of back then into something they can use collectively to their advantage today. We use the online world to help people find great pubs, hear about fantastic offers, discover new drinks and to be the first to know what’s going on in and around the pubs and bars they love.

We’re betting that people do want to spend less time in the virtual world and more time in the real one. We just make it easier for everyone by feeding people with a constant supply of opportunities to gorge themselves on a diet of the very thing they crave, real world social and physical interaction. So, once you’ve joined us, we’ll do all the hard work for you and let you know where and when you can get your fix.

No one will be happier than us when you eventually leave our site and, “….just switch off your mobile phone and go to the pub instead.”

Here’s to the Great British pub, the original social network.

The Guardian: Cheers! It’s a real ale renaissance

Despite pub closures and a dwindling lager market, record number of microbreweries are opening.

With the eager step of a man who’s just turned 40 and found his purpose in life, Paul Walker strides in his wellies across the flagstones of the 14th-century Union Inn in Denbury, south Devon, and orders two pints of Denbury Dreamer.

We sip carefully, appreciatively. It’s a fine beer: smooth malt flavours, a lovely light floral hop finish, not a hint of bitterness. A treat. Paul closes his eyes, nods, allows himself a brief smile of intense satisfaction. “I made that,” he says.

He probably deserves his moment of contentment. He’s been up since before six, won’t finish till seven, and will almost certainly have to nip back at least once during the evening. It’s hard work, being a microbrewer, and there was a time two summers ago, a few months after he’d started, when he really thought the whole thing was about to go under.

But this summer Hunter’s Brewery, just up the road from Denbury in Ipplepen, is selling between 60 and 100 nine-gallon barrels of real ale every week to 200-plus pubs across the south-west. Capacity is set to increase sixfold within months. Paul and his wife Eline haven’t yet drawn a salary from it. But the day’s not far off.

To read more click here.

Morning Advertiser: That’s men-tertainment

Enticing blokes into the pub shouldn’t be too hard, should it? Serve decent beer and they will surely come. But it’s not quite that simple in a climate of declining beer consumption and under-pressure consumer spending.

In tough trading conditions, a pub needs to offer more than the promise of a good pint to encourage men to part with their hard-earned cash.

“Guys go to pubs to be entertained and for a great night out, not just a good drink. They could get that at home,” says Martin Green, managing director of pub gaming company Redtooth. “We’ve been developing products that help pull punters in, even on quieter nights.”

To read more click here.


The Great British Beer Festival

Last week I was lucky enough to be sent to CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival, pocket-money in hand, to sample the delights of real ale from the UK and beyond. This was the first time I had been and didn’t know what to expect from it, let alone what I was planning to drink. Known as the biggest pub in the world, the Great British Beer Festival brings a huge selection of ales, perries and ciders together under one roof. Despite the continuous flow of stories in the papers about pub closures and the apparent lack of interest in real ale in the UK, Earls Court was heaving. Walking up to it I passed someone asleep on the traffic light signaller, so I had an inkling that it was going to be busy and that I, arriving at 6pm, was a bit behind the game.

Step number one of the Beer Festival is getting a pint glass, once you have managed that you are faced with the infinitely harder decision of where to start and more crucially, what to drink. I’m being honest when I say I have never seen such a huge variety of beers in one place. Being of limited beer knowledge I took the easiest route, starting by the glass bar and working my way anti-clockwise from there, but for the more discering beer drinker (who knew what they were looking for) the beer signposts made it fairly easy to navigate around. Earls Court is cavenous and walking round it was like Narnia…past the bar which stretched into the horizon, between bespoke huts and carriages and finally landing up in front of the stage, where a folk band was playing. En route I had decided on my first drink of the evening, a pint of Sambrook’s Wandle Ale. This is a crisp and golden ale, not too fizzy and a perfect drink to ease me into the festival and quench my thirst from squeezing through the crowds. From there I wandered past Scottish, Dutch and American bars, constantly weaving my way between people who had clearly been ‘sampling’ for the best part of the day, wearing a variety of crazy headgear (despite the popular ‘Hat Day’ having been the day before).

One of the major spectacles of the festival was the huge Wells and Young Routemaster Bombardier bus. Hosting numerous ales and lagers, they offered the opportunity to sip your pint whilst sitting on the bus looking out onto the sea of punters. One of their ales in particular caught my eye, which I had to try- Waggle Dance. Great name. Apparently it is called this because bees do a ‘waggle dance’ to attract the hive to new nectar. The beer itself is a soft golden colour with a honey aroma without, surprisingly, being sweet.

As well as the countless alcoholic offerings, the festival had various other attractions to lure in pub and beer enthusiasts. The court was dotted with food stalls, all classically associated with pub eating- fish and chips, pie and mash, sausages, gravy and chips were all up for grabs, perfect after a pint too many! Countless groups, donning balloon modelled hats, indian head-dresses and traffic cones, collected on the floor to chat, drink and eat…resembling what I imagine a ‘Village People’ convention to look like. For the more serious pub-goers the shop had a huge collection of authentic pub ash trays, beer mats and other vintage paraphernalia. My brother and I spent ages looking through the collection of goods, I particularly liked rifling through the old beer mats (see previous blog post).

The festival was fantastic and a great way to be introduced to the many real ales available. I hope that there were other people who, like me, were introduced to the world of brewing, because the more people who know about the craft behind the drink the more likely we are to appreciate our local pubs and brewers. After a couple of hours of drinking, taking in the sights and listening to the live music, my brother and I slipped out well before the end of the night to get some much-needed dinner.

See you there next year. I’ll be the one wearing a traffic cone hat, munching fish and chips and dancing badly to the folk music.

For more information about the Great British Beer Festival click here.

Rose McCullough

@rosemcculls