Beer 52/pricing

This month's selection from Beer 52:

Note local Stonehaven-brewed beer (4th from right). Robert Lindsay, aka "Brewbob", proprietor of The Marine Hotel and the 6 Degrees North brewery, was featured in a 2 page article in Ferment, which is distributed with Beer 52 deliveries. He favours Belgian ales, something he wanted to focus on many years ago when a group of us got together with him to discuss jointly building a brewery at the Lairhillock Inn. Robert went his own way then and has since been very successful - and good luck to him. His vision was a little different from ours and it's perhaps as well that we didn't try to make it work then as there probably would have been a falling-out over the direction to go in, sometime in the future.

Moving on to the question of pub pricing, which has recently been the cause of some concern locally, I have been looking back at past records. When I completed the Deeside pub surveys 18 months ago, I did a full price survey on 19 of the local pubs that serve real ale. For comparison purposes, the standard lager prices ranged from £2.90 to £3.80, averaging £3.21 per pint. This compared with real ale ranging from £2.75 to £4.10 per pint, with an average of £3.33.

There's no secret that the Boat Inn, Aboyne had the dearest real ale by far - and it's since moved up to £4.15 per pint. The Douglas Arms then had ale at £3.70 and £3.50, but this has gone up to £3.95 - and the pricing is now identical whether you have it in the relatively plush surrounds of the brand new diner area or the somewhat less grand traditional public bar or the snug. How long now before the Douglas breaches the £4 barrier too?

I wouldn't want to deny publicans a decent profit, particularly if they are offering a choice of quality hand-pulled ales, but they have to be careful not to p**s off the local punters. It's a fine balance - drinkers generally have the option in Banchory of using the clubs - the Legion and the Golf Club - at least in the summer months.

Almost unnoticed, the Learney Arms, Torphins application for change of use was refused last week by Aberdeenshire Council. No appeal has yet been lodged.