Barons Bar defies owners' repeated death wish

I wrote in December how the Barons Bar in the Scarisbrick Hotel on Southport's Lord Street seemed to be bent on alienating drinkers with their introduction of plastic glasses. My proposal to the local CAMRA branch that we threaten the hotel with removal from the Good Beer Guide if they didn't reinstate real glasses was passed unanimously, but was subsequently overturned after a sustained e-mail campaign by a few who hadn't been at the meeting. Obviously the word "Campaign" in CAMRA's name has passed these e-mail lobbyists by, a couple of whom asserted that they had no problem with plastic glasses; that's up to them of course. Despite this defence of plastic, sales in the Barons Bar plummeted to the extent that in March real glasses returned, so I feel somewhat vindicated, although disappointed that the branch lost its nerve. Plastic glasses have their place, for example at open air events, but not for everyday use in pubs. I had e-mailed the company to state why I thought they were making a mistake, but received a bland 'thank you' for contacting them, an assurance that my views were valued, and a statement that this was now their policy and they were sticking to it.

A view of the Barons Bar

It's not the first time that corporate decisions by Britannia Hotels, who took over this formerly independent hotel around three years ago, have nearly destroyed the Barons Bar. When they acquired the hotel, they told the bar manager to order real ale through their regular supplier, rather than shopping around for an interesting range of beers, as had happened previously. The result was a boring range of the usual suspects such as you can find anywhere and sales predictably went through the floor - well, I predicted it even if no one else did. Britannia demanded to know what had gone wrong with the sales, and when told why, they reluctantly to give the bar manager more freedom.

To me this is just further proof that corporate businesses are often not very good at business with their 'one size fits all' approach. The Barons Bar has managed to survive, and the beer recently was fine, but it is no thanks to the owners. I hope it recovers from this latest unwitting attempt to kill off its real ale sales, but I wouldn't be surprised if the accountants in head office are dreaming up more silly schemes that will have disastrous unintended consequences again.

I know this is late news, but this is the first chance I've had (due to computer problems) to write a follow up to my December post which was rather doom and gloom. I think it's worth mentioning the good news that Britannia saw sense unexpectedly - well, I certainly wasn't expecting it.