"What in the name of holy God is this awful noise?," I asked my friend.

Taking off my mirrored 2009 Beer Goggles to rub them on my frosty Bath Ales bar towel seems as good a point as any to look back on this journey so far.

And looking back through my reports of visits to a number of pubs, as well as the news files, suggests I have picked up on a battle raging, often underground, in the pub sector - between the corporate big boys, the McPubs, and a cherished English tradition which goes back centuries. Even in a sober moment, it does not seem overly dramatic to say this is a struggle which will transform an important part of the fabric of daily life...

A corporate pub in full fizzle, popular and profitable, often puts me in mind of that lie used by soured lovers the world over: it's not you, it's me.

To give one example, and as the North Devon Journal has already reported, The North Country Inn will re-open as a bar and food place. Nothing wrong with that. In March 2009 I blogged about why I thought that pub, the oldest in town and a handsome building with great cosy pub potential, had not thrived, to say the least.

What about our historical pubs, with their cosy corners and dusty shelves? What about the landlord or landlady who can make a living over a number of years without being squeezed to death by the money wizards? What about local character? These are questions addressed by Camra's latest battle with the OFT (see link earlier this month).

The truth is that when I'm somewhere like the Water Gate, which is the new Wetherspoon's pub on the Strand in Barnstaple, North Devon, I think what those soured lovers are really thinking: it's not me, it's you. And the customer is always right. Right?

Well, that rubs all ways, doesn't it? The gin palaces which have come to dominate English towns are popular, much as I, a pub fanatic, dislike them.

It was 8.30pm on a dank midwinter weekday when I arrived at the Water Gate to meet friends. They had got there before me and were half-way through pints of Christmas ales. I stood at the bar for what felt like half my lifetime while the barstaff, presumably new, tried to cope. As before, I had walked past a few almost-empty local boozers on my way to investigate an unvisited pub. The Water Gate was thrumming.

The beer was good. It always is in a Wetherspoon pub. They do beer like Ronald McDonald does burgers. Consistency is the thing.

But the consistency of the ale quality is mirrored in consistency in everything else; that is what happens with big business, a hangover from the industrial revolution, and manufacturing. The problem is that consistency in a business so closely tied to emotion, community, alcohol, and history can lead to blandness.

A pub should never be bland. A good pub can be cheap, and I believe Wetherspoon's decor and signage are always the epitome of corporate cheapness, in appearance if not in actual cost - but cheap with character.

We took our Christmas ales, which now all have unfunny-funny names like Santa's Testes or Christ Froth, to a table near the dancefloor. A dancefloor. My friends seemed intent on being near the horrific clatter.

"What in the name of holy God is this awful noise?," I asked my friend.

"This is Beyonce," he replied.

It was a name I had read in the broadsheet newspapers and heard on the tongues of excitable radio Five Live presenters. Bee-on-say. But I had before then managed to avoid ever hearing her at full tilt and volume. This was a new and cruel punishment for the privileged western man, I realised. Which sinister backroom broiler dreamed into reality this nightmare? I sipped my Sleighbell Shagger, or whatever it was called, and pondered the scene.

Men in smart slacks with hairstyles were dancing to bee-on-say, trying to lure pretty young women, also with hairstyles. A reasonable human endeavour, of course, but the music prevented Pub Conversation. I felt like I was in the airport lounge of a disturbed and restless outpost. This was not a time and place for men to discuss the finer points of life and death and sport and soured love affairs.

A Hamlet-y blanket of gloom: When is a pub not a pub? To pub or not to pub? But is that the question? After all, people were wedding-dancing and to my trained journalist's eyes they seemed to be having a fine old jig of it. Only a Scrooge would complain about that.

After all this, it is fair to say my love of the traditional English pub is conservative and old-fashioned in some ways but perhaps also chimes with a climate-change enforced future of modest living and a focus on local production and small communities.

The Water Gate is also conservative and old-fashioned in some ways: it provides cheap booze (responsibly, of course), loud music and lots of space to pack in the punters, much as the gin palaces of Victorian era (silly buggers like me complained about them too). The town now has two town centre Wetherspoon's.

Corporate alehouse. Traditional pub. Where is the harm in either type? My theory is that places like the Water Gate draw custom from individual and historical local pubs, which are superior in character and atmosphere and which are something to cherish. They also prevent the resurrection of that type of pub purely because there is only so much beer money to go around in a small town.

In many ways, it's too late. Barnstaple's oldest pub, the North Country Inn, was empty for months after the pub company and/or its tenants were unable to make it thrive. As I say, I have blogged about my visit there during its last, desperate, hours; it was like visiting a dear old relative in a hospice.

There is, however, a good way to improve your pub environment: choose wisely where to spend your money. When there is only one type of pub left, you will not have that privilege.

INTERLUDE: snippets from the pub world in North Devon and Torridge...

The North Devon Journal and http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/ has all the best news about the pubs in your community. Here are two key recent snippets:

• At the Union Inn at Stibb Cross, near Torrington, Nigel Harris, his wife Sue and his daughters, Tracy and Beverley, who took over the pub in the summer are trying to provide an extra community service. After the recent closure of the shop in nearby Langtree, villagers were having to travel as far as Milton Damerel or Holsworthy. So Nigel and Sue want to convert the pub’s storage room into a shop selling basic provisions such as bread, milk and newspapers. Nigel, a former haulage driver turned publican, is hopeful it will open in January. He has applied for planning permission to Torridge District Council to change the use of the room. He said: “We’re hoping the pub and community shop will work well together because there is nothing else around here to get these sorts of things. “There has been a lot of community support for the idea and so we thought we would try it and see how it goes.” Good luck to the Harris family. Great idea.


• The owner of a local Chinese restaurant has taken over the North Country Inn on Mermaid Walk in Barnstaple. Businessman James Li, who owns the Fullam restaurant in Tuly Street, plans to turn the Grade II-listed town centre pub into a cocktail bar and Asian restaurant. Restoration work will probably take six months, Mr Li said. The North Country Inn was one of the oldest pubs in Barnstaple when it closed its doors in spring this year. The pub company who owned it, Enterprise Inns, then put the building on the market. The pub, which was already established by 1764, had been with a number of leaseholders and struggled to attract customers immediately before it closed. Good luck to James but I'm sad the oldest pub in Barnstaple is nothing more than a memory.

Pub fanatics name their favourite boozers in North Devon and Torridge...

The best pubs in North Devon — according to the votes of local real ale fans — have been revealed in a new guidebook.

The pubs are contained in the Campaign for Real Ale’s Good Beer Guide 2010, which is published today.

There are 19 inns, alehouses and pubs in North Devon and Torridge in the guide, as well as five local breweries.

In Barnstaple, two pubs are singled out for praise: The Panniers, in Boutport Street, and The Rolle Quay Inn, on Rolle Quay.

The Panniers is a popular town centre Wetherspoon’s pub, whose landlord is Alan Young. Camra and Wetherspoon’s have a friendly relationship nationally.

The pub giant gives all new and renewing Camra members £20 worth of real ale vouchers to spend in its pubs.

The St Austell Brewery-owned Rolle Quay, next to the River Yeo, is described as a “spacious, well-run, two bar pub” which is handy for the local rugby and football grounds. The landlord there, Chris Bates, is a previous local Camra Pub of The Year winner.

Camra describes its guide as a “masterpiece of local democracy”, because the entries are chosen by local Camra groups.

The guide states: “We begin with the beer. Not roses round the pub lintel, Turkish carpets, sun-dried tomatoes, drizzled olive oil and the temperature of the oak-aged Chardonnay. The guide is committed to pub architecture, history, food, and creature comforts. But, for us, the beer always comes first.

“It has always been our belief that if a publican looks after the cask beer in the cellar then everything else in the pub — from welcome, through food, to the state of the toilets — are likely to receive the same care.”

In April the North Devon Camra branch announced that the Hunters Inn in Heddon Valley was its pub of the year, closely followed by the Castle Inn, in Combe Martin.

Some pubs have been struggling to survive in recent times, with many landlords complaining that the pub companies which own many pubs are squeezing them with higher rents and “tied” drinks prices far more expensive than normal wholesale costs.

There have also been dramatic changes in the pub industry in the past ten years, with the emergence of “gastro pubs” and the popularity of cheap supermarket alcohol.

Politicians, including North Devon MP Nick Harvey, have called for changes in the law to help save our pubs from decimation.

An unpretentious country pub offers hope

We headed east first, through one of Barnstaple's housing estates, with a fast-setting sun behind us, before wheeling on in to the crepuscular North Devon countryside.

Blocks of flats and prim lawns gave way to sheep-cropped hills, which were greenish then greyish, as a late-summer day turned into an early-autumn night. The thousands of people living in the pub-less housing estate were nowhere to be seen and the country lanes only carried people in motor cars, until we, two pub fanatic outriders, appeared on push bikes, catching flies.

I was keeping a quiet lookout for head-skimming bats, my favourite type, but the only wild beasts on the loose seemed to be unusually-gigantic black birds, which were flying low, indistinct and secretive behind the lowering hedgerows. I thought of a creature I had seen on the Taw estuary earlier that day which looked like a small dinosaur.

For what felt like the first time in months, no rain was falling from the sky. It's uphill as you go north east towards Goodleigh from Barnstaple on the road but the cycling was relatively easy, thanks to the never-ceasing westerly gale which has made the summer months such a joy in the Westcountry this year. My Adam's Ales friend had forgotten to put his lights on his bicycle, so I rode in the rear, illuminating him and the entire road with an unnatural white glow.

His bike was about 30 years younger and £300 more expensive than my old iron horse and he easily sped off on the downhill run. He must have topped 40mph at one point and I feared for his life as he took a sharp right bend without touching his brakes. I cooled it on the corner, having spotted a constabulary vehicle at the junction.

We went to Goodleigh specifically to visit the New Inn, which is listed in this year's Camra Good Beer Guide as a "traditional old village inn" where a "warm welcome" awaits. The New Inn is also know for its good food. So far in this beer odyssey I have been to more town pubs than country pubs, and have, in Barnstaple at least, not been overly pleased with what I have found. Stale corporatism and board room uniformity has infected our public house cultural treasures like woodworm burrows through an old village church.

Like many people, I often turn to the country pub for sanctuary. But the money wizards and pubco vandals, not to mention Taxman, have been playing merry hell with our rural pubs for decades; what good is left? Will places like the Goodleigh local offer any cause for hope?

We put out bikes in the beer garden, wiped the sweat off our faces, and went inside, thirsty as fat men on a merry-go-round. The pub was empty save for a handful of local people, including two well-behaved children, at the bar. The pub did not appear to have been modernised, or "ruined" as I prefer to say, so, like most good old pubs, it was unpretentious and comfortable.

You know you are in a good local when conversations start easily among strangers and the New Inn is that sort of place. There was no fruit machine, jukebox, piped music, or television. The windowframes were made of wood. I felt as if the pub had got to its current state by a long and friendly process of careful and intelligent use by human beings. When I walk in to a McPub I generally get the impression the pub has got to its current state by a brief and ruthless process of careless and shortsighted planning by beancounters emboldened by computer models.

The only small downside was a lack of Devon ale. We drank Cornish Jack, a light, thirst-quenching beer, which is made by Sharp's. This clearly did not fit the "local beer" category, but it was fine, robust, and supremely tasty ale, ideally suited for cyclists and all manner of professional outdoor sportsman. When I went to get the second round, two men were talking about keeping chickens and growing vegetables. If the New Inn was my local, I would be delighted and, more importantly, would make the effort to spend my beer money there.

It is wise to avoid drawing hyperbolic conclusions about the fact that such a very good pub was almost empty on a clear-skied Saturday night in early September; maybe it was just a quiet night. As I later hurtled home through the dark lanes, I hoped the villagers hadn't gone to the Wetherspoon's in Barnstaple, which I knew would be crammed, and which also features, as the vanguard of corporate mediocrity and local dominance, in Camra's Good Beer Guide 2010.

A couple of ales apiece refreshed, and after a discussion about the psychological implications of seeing UFOs, it had been time to leave, with no small sense of reluctance. When we took our pint pots back to the bar, everyone said goodbye.

New Inn, Goodleigh, North Devon

Adam's Ales Rating: 4 out of 5

Drink this: Sharp's Cornish Jack, 3.8%

A courgette, a banana, plastic window frames, and a lesson from the Holy Land

You know you're tired when it takes two hours for the thought "why is there a black banana in the fridge" to become "it's not a black banana in the fridge; it's a courgette, a green courgette. I have never seen a black banana in our fridge ever before".

I hadn't had more than four hours of consecutive sleep in about two years, so maybe my guard was down. For what other reason was I about to almost stop loathing plastic windowframes in pubs? And what do you call a run of non-sequiturs?

I had about £7 sterling left in my bank account and, before you judge me, after all the bills were paid and the boy had a new pair of secondhand shoes, and after the usual endless toll of housework-after-work, I decided to go loco and spend all my "spare" loot on ale in local pubs. You should do the same if you're ever in the same twist. What else are you going to do? Buy two "meal deals" from a chemist? I don't think so, chico.

We set off, pockets full of valued metal, my friend and I, amid the amber dying of a midsummer North Devon Saturday. The severe British recession, caused, I thought as I strolled cheerfully along, by a ludicrous and disgusting property bubble and its greedy spivs, had not abated since our last Adam's Ales investigation in Barnstaple, despite our government attempting to reinflate the ludicrous and disgusting property bubble by giving all our money to the greedy spivs who naffed it all up in the first place, and, as before, many pubs were half-empty; I don't think they will, alas, all survive the year.

We walked past a former dive by the riverfront which Wetherspoon's are refitting and turning into their second pub in the town. As I have mentioned before, Wetherspoon's will survive anything; they are unfailingly popular, like Tesco. What else is there to say?

INTERLUDE...I was once sleeping in a hot hovel, a bit like a cave, in Jerusalem, when a red beetle buzzed heavily on to my bed. I whacked it and slammed it with my boot but the biting creature was totally indestructible. That's not a non sequitur; that's a lesson from nature. The lesson is: even the insects are awkward in the holy land...INTERLUDE ENDS

Anyway, enough of those memories of the holy land. Pubs are where English men and women should be able to talk freely (as long as they aren't talking about house prices). At the risk of starting another interlude, imagine keeping a tally of the topics of conversation in North Devon pubs in one hour of one evening. It would provide unique anthropological data and a snapshot of our lives. Entry One: Wilshaw is condemning the idea of using homes as investment vehicles. Anyway, enough of those anthropological studies and interludes; they are nearly as relevant as the immortal beetles of Jerusalem. Back to the courgette.

Of course I always knew of the Windsor Arms in Bradiford, a village on the outskirts of town. I live nearby and have been past the place many times. I have always been struck by the plastic windowframes. Now I was forced to confront my irrational dislike of PVC windowframes in public houses, particularly old country alehouses.

I know, I know, I know. Plastic is cheaper, lasts longer, gives better weather protection, and pubs have hardly got any spare cash to lavish on wooden sash window frames. I know. I know I'm a bit of a fanatic when it comes to plastic windowframes in pubs. In short, I hate them as much as I would a PVC frame in the local Victorian church.

But, I will say this: the Windsor Arms is one of the best pubs around. It is a Proper Local, with character and decent beer, as well as a cosy and unpretentious decor and atmosphere, not to mention the superb shove ha'penny. You should go there without question, my friends. They had Barum on draft from the nearby Pilton brewery of the same name, as well as a refreshing and well-cellared scoop of London Pride. Depressingly, the pub was almost deserted when we arrived at peak drinking time. Was everyone in Wetherspoon's or drinking beer from Tesco at home? We also called in for one at the Corner House in the town centre, which, I am glad to say, was packed out in full 1970s-style boozer mode. I've written about that place before, so I won't go on. If you want to pretend you are in an episode of Life on Mars, it's the place for you. It's great.

And it's strange how things are not always as they might at first seem. The next day I looked in the fridge and just could not believe my peepers. There, as bold as busts of Blair and Bush on a brass bedpost, was a black banana on one shelf and a courgette on another. This could only be a lesson from nature and the lesson was...er, hang on...

The Windsor Arms, Bradiford, Barnstaple

Adam's Ale Rating: 4 out of 5

Drink This: Barum Original or London Pride

Have I been here before?

I was sober enough to realise we had not wandered in to a Chinese restaurant by mistake, even if there was a large fish tank by the front door. And sober enough not to wander in to the tank, either.

The name sounded traditional: the White Horse. But this pub, newly refurbed and reopened, was more inkeeping (forgive me) with the high streets of modern Britain. There was a DJ in the corner, and a feeling of space in the main body of the pub, perfect for standing-up gathering, rather than, say, dominos.

There were smart black faux-leather chairs, flatscreen televisions showing sport. Quite a few punters about for a weekday night at 7.30pm. The place was ticking boxes.

The Tribute served was superb, top drawer in fact, but I felt I could have been drinking it in any similar high street bar in any high street in England.

The White Horse, Boutport Street, Barnstaple, North Devon

Adam's Ale rating: 2 out of 5

Drink this: Tribute

The vexed question of ear-splitting pop music in 1970s-style back street boozers once again demands debate

We had a drink first, my good friend J and I, in The Fountain, a refurbished foodie bar in Trinity Street in the centre of Barnstaple.

We've both got a baby son a piece so we're always at the brittle-sighed point of terrible nervous exhaustion whenever we meet for a pint.

You could store bar snacks, cashew nuts perhaps, in the deep folds under our child-ruined eyeballs. You could hang us upside down by our ankles from a tower block, firing bales of flaming straw at us from medieval catapults, and we would take the opportunity to sleep in our stirrups, not soil in our cords, like cowards.

In fact, we're a bit like swimmers, as, I think, a lot of good-hearted pub fanatics are; like North Devon sea-plungers, we need to ease in to the passtime, to let the sheer saltwater move over our heads and wash away the work, the crying, the dancing chariots of gloom, the ever-howling mangy dogs of death, who stalk our every breath...

But so much for the chuckles; we need to let the soothing wooden cradle of the English pub bring us back to the earth frame of our characters - with love, with beauty, with beer. Shame then that the Fountain felt a bit like a three-star hotel lobby.

Yes, the Guinness (which is £3 a pint in most places now, gods help us all), was good enough. Yes, everything was in order. But it was a bar, not a pub, so I shall reserve further comment for our next engagement, which was at the Corner House, a well-known back street boozer in the centre of Barnstaple. The Corner House has pub DNA running through its wood and bricks and glass in genial torrents; it surely grows its customers like a tree makes its limbs.

It was mid-evening on a Saturday and the place was busily turning, but not overcrowded, with people who knew each other, a sure sign of a proper locals alehouse. As we rested our pints of Tribute (good pint, Tribute, and first brewed to celebrate the 1999 solar eclipse) on a lacquered table from the 1970s, I was transported to a semi-mythical era which ended just before I was born. Could I see men with long hair and flared trousers, smoke-billowing faces, chatting up "dolly birds" by the bar? Was that Rod Stewart on the "jukebox"? Were they strike placards by the door?

No. But I could not escape a, possibly delusional on my part, pleasantly anti-fashion Ted Heath-era vibe at the Corner House. Even one of the bar pumps was surely a little plastic block of nostalgia, not a bit of equipment. Full marks to them too for keeping the grand old ceramic urinals in the gents (a sign the pub's history goes beyond the 1970s). You know they don't make wee-holes like that any more, more's the pity. Ahhh, I thought as I relieved myself in the ample porcelain theatre. Ahhh, the nostalgic thought of trips to the outside bogs at the Bridge Inn in Topsham, with the cool night air birds made strange by a bellyful of Devon ale.

The only downer was the absurdly ear-shattering volume of the pop music (Britney Spears anyone?). Pubs are for conversations or solitary contemplation. Extremely loud recorded music is for discotheques, and discotheques are for dancing.

They still have discotheques, right?

The Corner House, Boutport Street, Barnstaple

ADAM'S ALE RATING: 3 out of 5

DRINK THIS: Tribute (4.2%)

My incantation did not work, and I think I know why.

In September 2008, seven months ago, I blogged a rather tongue-in-cheek "incantation", urging you all to go to the North Country Inn, in Barnstaple town centre. It is probably the town's oldest pub and has (still) not been ruined, as far as I can tell, by redevelopment or fashionable decoration. I really wanted this pub to succeed, to become a much-needed beer-drinking gem; the building and interior are superb, and it has a reasonable location.

I really wanted - want - that pub to succeed, because I can see the potential, but my plea was, in hindsight, somewhat misguided and too optimistic. The North Country Inn, which is owned by Enterprise Inns, one of the giant pubcos who are getting a lot of abuse from MPs, landlords and drinkers, has closed and is up for sale. I don't know who is to blame for the pub closing, but I know why I didn't go there after my last visit.

The second-to-last time I visited the North Country, and I was not a regular, I enjoyed some simple but enjoyable pub grub and a decent pint.  The place seemed friendly, if a little bare and devoid of Proper Local atmosphere, but it had, as I say, potential, not least because of its fabulous wooden windowframes. Well that was then.

The last time I visited, what I took to be the manic desperation of a pub fighting the wrong battle for survival was in evidence: the tacky corporate-style posters in display cases on the wall outside the front door, advertising wares as if the pub was a branch of McDonald's not one of North Devon's most historic inns, and the skull-splittingly loud pop music both indicated to me that this place had missed a trick and was doomed. At the bar, things were worse.

A handful of drinkers, most of whom had yet to see their 21st birthday, I guessed, stood with the unrelaxed demeanour of teenagers everywhere, occasionally shouting chunks of "conversation" above the tinny house music; I actually felt a bit sorry for them; it was hardly a carefree vibe. The barmaid was very friendly, but told me there was no real beer, only lager and Guinness. I ordered a pint of the latter, and the poor girl had no idea how to pour it.

I took my badly-poured pint to the unsurprisingly-empty front section of the pub, and hunkered down beneath the occasional teenage shouts and techno. I went in to a damage-limitation reverie and thought of a bustling, but unmaniac, town centre local, with a row of glorious well-kept local ales on offer, a careful and knowledgeable landlord or landlady busy behind the bar, groups of friends enjoying animated conversations at tables, maybe an old man reading the cricket scores at the bar, a game of darts in one corner, a round of cards in another corner, and all among us the unspoken sense that character and community are better friends than corporations and spreadsheets, and the enlivening feeling of useful escape from work and duty.

I drank my pint as quickly as I could and escaped in to the dank night, keeping my remaining beer cash for another day.

I am a passionate pub lover and I say this with no satisfaction: the deadwood in our pub trade is being felled.

In a fug of bleach, I am accosted by a man displaying symptoms of lunacy

A shiny beetle-black glass of glorious Guinness is often a failsafe option for the real beer fanatic who has been obliged by circumstance to visit a pub where the landlord or landlady thinks ale is a type of hard rain.

If the gods are smiling, and how could we prove they were or were not?, you will see a bottle of Ireland's finest stout on a dusty wooden shelf behind the bar, possibly next to some neon-coloured drinks in a fridge and some pork scratchings in a cardboard box. But these days the bottle option is less common, so there is draft Guinness.

At its best, draft Guinness is a welcome old pal of a drink but it is not as easy or cheap to keep and serve as keg lager, which might, or might not, account for the average-tasting pint I had in Sherry's Tavern in Barnstaple. But maybe I'm being unfair; maybe my senses were out-of-whack.

People who did not want smoking banned in our pubs sometimes complain about the smell of alehouses, now the scent-cloak of burning, and burned, tobacco is forbidden. 

I am in favour of the smoking ban, on health grounds, but as soon as we walked in and my ears adjusted to the karaoke, my nose and lungs and belly had to cope with a tang which I imagine a perfumier might describe as having a top note of bleach, with an undertone of lager, and a wisp of, er, something sold in a bottle labelled "perfume". Huddled beneath the din, like a man lost in a bunker somewhere in nomansland, my friend provided a less kind assessment of the vibes. For the first time in my life, apart perhaps from the times I visited those  plastic toilets at the Glastonbury music festival where the previous visitors had left too much evidence of their visit (and how little would have been too much, I hear you say), I longed for a huddle of incessant cigar smokers to appear and start blowing Cuban fumes up my nose.

No real ale was on offer that night, so to the Guinness we went by default. I have drank draft Guinness in many pubs around England and Ireland, and even further afield. Indeed, for some time in my early 20s I acquired a taste for stout and I regularly drank nothing else and, over-doing it, became slightly fat. You know good Guinness when you get it: it's bitter, creamy, long-lasting on the tongue and thick with pungent flavour. Maybe my tastebuds had been affected by the jagged smell of disinfectant, but the pint I had, and admittedly it was only one pint, seemed insipid.

As I took my first sips, a rather excited man with slightly unmatched eyeballs appeared at my face and asked me which road I lived in.

I politely lied to him, and he said with a look of barely controlled glee: "You're lying". 

Luckily I was called away to the karaoke area at the back of the pub, which is decorated with framed photographs of pop stars such as Oasis. I'd happily say if the customers looked like they were enjoying themselves (which they do in a pub I have already admitted I don't much rate on the atmosphere front: Wetherspoon's) but there was an air of desperation in the corners. Pubs have always had their natural share of melancholy, I suppose.

While my nose and mouth learned to adjust to Sherry's, and what it offered a pub loving man, my ears and brain were assaulted by the sound of the karaoke. Again, just as Guinness is a good beer if properly kept and served in the right environment, so singing in pubs is, at the right time and with the right tune and atmosphere, a good hear. But a metaphorical photocopy of a bad Robbie Williams song, sung with as much soul as a plastic bag, is my idea of pub misery. Then our lot started singing and things really deteriorated; I felt sorry for the regulars.

Sherry's Tavern, Boutport Street, Barnstaple

Adam's Ale Rating: One out of Five

Drink This: Whisky?

"You Can Take A Lady There"...

A proofreader I know, who is of distinguished vintage, once said that Marshall's pub in Boutport Street in Barnstaple was the only place a gentleman could take a lady (for a drink) in the town.

Now, taking nothing away from his town centre local, which has been praised by Camra for the quality of its beer, I think that place has a rival as a venue where you can take a lady, or even a potential lady. Lilico's.

 

I shouldn't be writing about Lilico's here, because it's not a pub. It's a tapas bar. But it is a local independent tapas bar which sells a decent pint of real ale: namely, Cornwall's finest, Tribute. Some bars don't sell real ale, so JOLLY WELL DONE and TOOT TOOT LILICO'S!

Lilico's, The Square, Barnstaple

Adam's Ale Rating: 3 out of 5

Drink this: Tribute

Village pub landlord calls time for good

From the North Devon Journal:

By Adam Wilshaw

A VILLAGE pub landlord says he is declaring himself bankrupt and quitting the trade after a sudden downturn in profits, adding to fears that North Devon’s public houses are facing decimation.

Patrick Oakey has closed the Fox and Hounds pub in Fremington, where he has been the landlord since 2004, and is moving out of the pub, which is also his home, with his wife and two teenage sons.

Mr Oakey said large numbers of people, particularly younger customers, were being lured away from pubs, such as the Fox and Hounds, by cheap supermarket alcohol. He also said the smoking ban had hit his takings and because of the credit crunch he was unable to secure credit to see him through a bad patch.

Campaigners and senior politicians, including North Devon MP Nick Harvey and Torridge and West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox, not to mention Prince Charles, have warned that thousands of traditional English pubs are in jeopardy, partly because of the economic recession, but also because of the way large pub companies, who own the majority of pubs, often oblige their tenants to buy beer through them at prices higher than cost (known as a tie).

Mr Oakey said: “My client base has always been youngsters and when they walk in the supermarkets and see cheap alcohol they are not going to come in and pay £3 a pint.

“It’s part of village life and it is sad it has closed. Enterprise (the firm which owns the Fox and Hounds) will get someone else in.”

He added: “I will miss it. I have spent four years building the place up. I wouldn’t have another pub.” He also thanked all his loyal customers.

The Fox and Hounds lease is on the market for £97,500. According to Cowling, which is the agent dealing with the sale of the lease, the pub has a turnover of £175,000 with a rent of £23,000 a year.

The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) has warned that almost 60 UK pubs are closing every month. In the Barnstaple area alone pubs currently on the market include the Wrey Arms in Sticklepath, the Tavern in the town centre, and Funky Munky on the Strand.

The pattern is the same across North Devon and Torridge. A recent Journal investigation found that many pubs in North Devon were struggling to make profits, although local Camra members said good quality pubs which served well-kept beer and good food in attractive environments were still doing well.

Landlords blamed cheap supermarket alcohol and the recession for the decline in takings in recent months. But some pubs are bucking the trend and reporting healthy custom.

I find myself wrestling with the age old battle of love and hate, and contradictory passions in one pub

An ill wind was wailing through the world economy, through all our bones and the future bones of all our future generations for ever, as we made our way through half-deserted streets to one of the most popular pubs in North Devon and Torridge.

I was feeling a bit depressed about the future for our pubs because I had recently met a North Devon pub landlord who was about to declare himself bankrupt and close his business. He said he was being squeezed from all sides; by the pub company, the smoking ban, and by cheap supermarket booze of all types and horrors. But despite all that he could have made a go of it, maybe, if only he had had more of one vital business ingredient: customers.

Sometimes it is good to acknowledge the blindingly bloody obvious. Pubs are closing because customers are not using them, and other pubs are still busy and profitable, because customers are still using them. So how about a case study? One of the most popular pubs in North Devon is the Wetherspoon's outlet The Panniers, in Barnstaple. It will never close. It will survive the recession. It would survive a nuclear war. And on a dank Thursday evening this month, the place was so ramjam pack-a-doodled that when I arrived with my friend we took the only two remaining chairs.

I was still chewing over all the stinking doom in the news. Pub doom. My own eyes weren't helping. Walking to the Panniers through the glistering Barnstaple town centre streets, all but deserted, we passed empty pub after empty pub.

But not the Panniers. There can only be two reasons why the Panniers is such a success; good beer and cheap prices. Because the place has atmosphere the way big brand keg lagers have taste, the way Gordon Brown has a radiant smile, the way David Cameron has sincerity, the way house prices are clever, the way plastic window frames are acceptable in a public house context (no PVC frames at the Panniers by the way, fellow window freaks).

In fact, if you have ever been in a Wetherspoon's pub anywhere in the queendom you will know what the Panniers is like. They are all the same.

Same hotel lobby decor, same food, same prices. The only thing to tell you you are not in Nottingham or Norwich is the local accents of the many punters.

The beer was superb, as good as a good rub down in an ice house by a crackling wood blaze while the huskies keep guard against the glacier pirates. I had a crisply glorious pint of Smoky Joe. My friend had a soothing draft of something dark and powerful. He was satisfied with it and it made him philosophical. As we sat and talked - mostly about babies - I noticed we were surrounded by adults of all ages, most of whom were eating curry from metal pots. If I had been tiresome enough to ask them how often they came here, they might have said: "every week".

If you are interested in good, low priced ale, the Panniers is a perfect hostelry. Cheap grub too. Probably tastes quite nice. And, you know, I hate the place.

I hate it because it is the bland pub universe cousin of a corporate fast food chain outlet. The place has a sort of psychic anti-character impact on the space it contains, with its school dining hall ambiance. There is no sense of community. Good pubs make you feel like you could own them, in some vicarious customer way, if you were a regular.

In terms of character alone, look at a pub I have wrote about before on this blog: The Reform Inn, in Pilton. It doesn't sell cheap curry and it does not welcome children or have a wide variety of the finest beers known to man and beast. But in all its eccentric, even ugly, brilliance, the local boozer offers a rare sanctuary from the blanding-out influence of the boardroom folk. What choice we have left is debatable. But there are still good local pubs who deserve our custom, even if it's just £3 a week.

We drinkers vote with our pint pots and our wine glasses, and the Panniers was as full as can be on Thursday last week. The beancounters will tell you this success was proof of armour against the ill wind blowing through the economy.

I kept thinking of my ideal pub.

An MP's view of the pub trade...

North Devon MP Nick Harvey (who is my MP), is deputy chairman of the all-party parliamentary beer group. He told the North Devon Journal: “I am acutely aware that these are difficult times for the beer and pub trade. Most recently I and my colleagues have been lobbying the Government, with Early Day Motion 2159, protesting at the detrimental effect of supermarket alcohol prices.

“Pubs are closing at an alarming rate of five a day, compared with three a day last year, four a week the year before and two a week the year before that.

"Barnstaple is no exception to this trend with the recent closure of several longstanding establishments in Boutport Street and elsewhere.

“Tax hikes combined with the ban on smoking in public places and supermarkets selling beer as a significant lost leader, to the extent that it is cheaper than bottled water, have all had a negative impact on a struggling industry.

“While pubs have served a historic role, off-trade has always existed alongside, providing consumer freedom of choice. However, economically off-trade, thanks to the supermarkets, is now clearly a serious challenge with an annual turn over of about £13bn almost matching pub sales.

“I and the APBG will keep pressing the Treasury, Department of Communities and Local Government and Health regarding alcohol duty being a blunt instrument to deal with binge-drinking (the real target being supermarkets selling alcohol below cost price), the positive value of pubs to our communities and the need for regulation and licensing not to be so burdensome as to push yet more pubs out of business.”

There are 57,000 pubs and bars in the UK, contributing £18 billion to the economy and employing 650,000 people. The Business and Enterprise Committee is currently holding a new enquiry into the role of pub companies (the last was conducted in 2004), with submissions closing at the end of September.

According to Mr Harvey, the pub companies have failed to adopt previous recommendations that rents should be sustainable, tied tenants should not be worse off and that the upward-only rent reviews and gaming machine tie must cease.

The British Beer and Pub Association reported this week that beer sales between July and September fell by 7.2% compared to the same period in 2007.

Beer sales in pubs dropped 8.1% and sales in supermarkets fell 6%. BBPA chief executive Rob Hayward said: “Sinking beer sales and the record five pubs a day closing is a barometer of the UK economic climate. But any prudent diagnosis would also identify the specific impact of the budget’s 9% beer tax increase.”

This story appeared at the same time:

By Adam Wilshaw

GOOD local pubs which sell quality ale and decent food in a friendly environment will thrive despite the recession, according to a North Devon campaigner.

North Devon Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) member Terry Burrows said some pubs in the area were closing or bereft of custom, but the pubs he cherished most were popular and relatively profitable.

There are fears the traditional English local pub is facing an uncertain future, because of cultural and economic changes. Mr Burrows was one of a number of pub-goers, landlords, and brewery firms the Journal spoke to this week about the health of the pub trade in North Devon and Torridge.

Recent warnings about any widespread demise of our local pubs seem premature, given the responses we received. It can also be difficult to establish precisely why a pub closed: Was it because the rent was too high? Too few drinkers? Beer too expensive? No food? Too much food? No “smoking garden”?

Drinkers lured away by cheap supermarket beer? But there is little doubt our boozers are facing a number of problems, and the industry is having to work hard to entice in customers. North Devon MP Nick Harvey (Lib Dem) and Torridge MP Geoffrey Cox (Conservative) have both attacked the Government for increasing beer duty, for example.

Mr Burrows said: “From our experience, the good pubs, that offer what the community wants and are involved in the community, are thriving. It’s not all doom and gloom.” He said ever-increasing beer tax and cheap alcohol in supermarkets were harming our pubs. In addition, pubs which could not offer a smoking area were struggling to keep customers.

On the other hand, sales of cask ale continue to increase year-on-year. Pub landlords and landladies reported a mixed picture.

Jeff Sweet, from the Tavern in Diamond Street, Barnstaple, said his business was still busy at weekends with loyal regulars. And the landlord of a larger Barnstaple pub, who did not want to be named, said pubs had to increasingly offer “added extras”, such as live music, or they would go under. He too said many drinkers seemed to be switching to spirits which are, by alcohol volume, cheaper than ale.

Chris Franks, who sells beer wholesale from 37 independent breweries to pubs around North Devon and beyond, said: “Nothing has changed an awful lot, the ones who put effort in are doing all right, but no one is making a lot of money.” He also pointed out that North Devon and Torridge have a number of excellent breweries, including Country Life in Abbotsham and Barum in Barnstaple.

But Debbie Furnifer, landlady of popular local hostelry Marshalls, in Boutport Street, Barnstaple, said the pub had been quieter than usual in recent months. “I think people are scared to spend their money,” she said. “The regulars are still coming in.”

Few pubs are freehold businesses; the majority are owned by larger firms who lease the premises. Punch Taverns, which has a number of pubs in the area, said it was “passionate about safeguarding the future of the great British pub”. A spokesman told the Journal: “Pubs across the country face a challenging trading environment but we continue to work closely with our licensees in North Devon and across the country to help them find new ways of improving their business, developing their retail proposition and financial stability. This ranges from identifying new or improved food offers to developing other areas of their products, offers or service. Punch also has an industry leading support and training programme for licensees.

“Within our leased estate we have some great examples of pubs that have introduced new facilities, such as Post Office counters, which help them to become focal points of the communities they serve. The North Devonshire area has a small conurbation with limited road access and seasonal trade.

"The pubs have to continually strive to be the best they can be to attract customers and keep them coming back. Offering value for money and having an offer that suits the needs of the local market place is key to success. We have some fantastic outlets in the area which are really bucking the economic trend. The London Inn, Braunton, and the Rock Inn, Georgeham, both have great licensees at the helm who have developed an offer that is just right for their local market place. They consistently deliver excellent levels of customer service and are highly successful as a result.”

But some of the people pulling the pints were less optimistic.

Lee Sycamore, landlord of the Old Market Inn in Holsworthy, said: “With high street spending at its lowest for years, pubs closing down at a rate of five a day, and beer sales for the period of July to September down by 7%, a very grey picture has been drawn over the licensed trade. “The credit crunch has seemed to have hit us all. Speaking for ourselves, as a freehold pub, the trend on most sales seem to be up on last year so far. Beer and food sales have increased significantly, however wines and spirits have fallen dramatically.

"I can only put this down to customers being less extravagant at the end of the evening by cutting out on that last night cap, and saving a small amount by not having a bottle of wine with their meal, just one glass instead.”

But he said next year “could be worse than ever”.

He added: “Calls have gone out to the Government not to put the normal taxation on beers, wines and spirits next year in their budget. A public house is a vital hub for communities through both good and bad times.”

Arthur Scrine, landlord of the Patch and Parrot in Cooper Street, Bideford, said: “We have the same old crowd in here. We’ve got all the golden oldies and the credit crunch has not affected them coming in. The price of beer may have gone up, but we are still the cheapest pub in Bideford.”

Mark Birch has been the landlord of the Black Venus Inn, in Challacombe, on Exmoor, for the past four years and believes the current economic downturn had not had much effect on trade, although he had a stark warning.

He said: “It’s about a level par to last year although there are definitely not as many tourists around. People still have the same money to spend but they are just being a bit more careful with it.

"I don’t think the increase in beer duty will affect us at the moment but, if the Government insists on maintaining the current 4% levy, I think it will kill off the industry.”

Jon Hutchings, from the White Hart hotel in Holsworthy, said: “Generally the pub trade is down however I feel its all about innovation. What with the smoking ban last year and with cut price alcohol sales in supermarkets we are in a difficult time. “Late night weekend trade is down however it is also picking up again but this is due to new ideas and promoting events at weekends such as live music and DJs.

“We are at a time where you cannot expect business to just walk in the door. You have to go that little bit further to entice the customers in. Our food trade is on the up with particular attention focusing on local produce.”