Last orders, stout fellows
THE British beerage found its laureate in Calverley: 0 beer! 0 Hodgson, Guinness, Allsopp, Bass! Names that should be on every infant's tongue....
So they were, until a Conservative govern- ment rounded on its most faithful supporters and made them choose between brewing beer and owning pubs. They chose the pubs. Allsopp is buried somewhere under Allied Domecq, last orders have long since been called for. Hodgson, and now Bass, has sold its breweries to the Belgians and sees its future in Holiday Inns. Guinness has seen them all off. It never owned more than one pub (in the Kentish hopfields, and a place of pilgrim- age) and has therefore had to concentrate on brewing and marketing its incomparable stout. The effect has been good for everyone. The chairman of Diageo (pronounced Guin- ness) is Sir Anthony Greener, and I was pleased to observe him, at his grand farewell dinner in Greenwich, with a glass of the black stuff in his hand. His opposite numbers can now abandon those unconvincing photo- opportunities which show them clutching the product and grinning, though the chairman of Bass may have to be seen at a Holiday Inn.
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