The 2005 edition of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide castigates the majority of modern pub companies as acting like beer supermarkets by demanding heavy discounts from suppliers, restricting access to market for small brewers and ignoring the needs of millions of beer drinkers.
But a handful of "pubcos" win a star rating for their dedication to real ale and their support for small independent breweries.
Editor Roger Protz said today as he launched the new edition of the guide: "Big brewers have disengaged from brewing and handed retailing to the new breed of pubcos. This has led to dramatic changes in the way in which beer is retailed - and the changes have not been to the advantage of publicans or their customers.
"Pubcos tend to favour big suppliers over small ones and wrest enormous discounts from those suppliers - discounts that are pocketed by the pubcos and not passed on to publicans or drinkers."
"The pubcos force their tenants to pay top dollar for the beers supplied to them and the prices are carried over to the cost of a pint at the bar. Most of the pubcos take their beers from global brewers, who produce such vast volumes they can afford discounts so deep that they are selling beer at only a fraction more than the cost of production."
Editor Roger Protz is sharply critical of the government, which, he says, has turned its back on pubgoers. "Two years ago, the government axed the Guest Beer Policy, which allowed pub tenants to buy real ales of their choice free of the tie. The government did so because it said it was satisfied that 'full and fair competition existed in the brewing industry and pub trade'. If it believes that then the moon must truly be made of green cheese."
"The Guest Beer Policy must be brought back to tackle the power of the giant pubcos and to
give choice back to publicans and beer drinkers."
Mergers and takeovers at the top have created four giant national pub companies that now dominate beer retailing and dictate choice to their tenants and customers. Enterprise Inns has bought the Unique Pub Company, while Punch has merged with Pubmaster and only last week finalised its acquisition of over 1,000 pubs from Innspired. Between them, the two groups own over 17,000 pubs.
The four biggest pubcos - Enterprise, Punch, Spirit, and Mitchells & Butlers - own close to 22,000 pubs, a third of the country's stock. Roger Protz said: "This gives the Big Four pubcos enormous marketing power and leverage with even the biggest global brewers. This power is used to drive up the price of beer in order to boost profits and concentrate on big volume, heavily advertised brands, mainly lagers and keg beers."
"The enormous choice available to beer drinkers today from regional brewers and more than 400 micros is not reflected in the beers available to consumers in outlets controlled by the big pubcos. Regional brewers have a route to market through their own tied estates but many micros cannot gain access to pubcos and have to find alternative routes, such as borrowing to buy a few pubs or concentrating on farmers' markets and specialist beer shops."
The Good Beer Guide says that the "awesome power" of the pub retailers has been brought in to sharp focus by evidence given by publicans and CAMRA to the House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee's inquiry into pubcos. Complaints include:
* Tenants beer prices as much as 39% higher than their true market value.
* Extortionate rents increased by as much as 40% a year.
* Ruthless imposition of the tie between publican and pubco that forbids a tenant from buying guest beers. If the tie is broken, tenants are threatened with eviction or legal action.
The Good Beer Guide says that in order to redress the balance of power in favour of pubgoers there should be:
* Guest beer rights for all pubco tenants.
* Pubcos should be obliged to offer every prospective tenant the option of a free-of-the-tie tenancy at a competitive rent.
* The annual increase in pubco price list prices must not exceed the annual increase in the Retail Price Index.
* The Office of Fair Trading must monitor pubco mergers and takeovers to see if they are against consumers' interests.
The Good Beer Guide singles out a handful of independent pub companies for their support for real ale, independent breweries and fair prices:
* The best known is the pub group JD Wetherspoon, which runs more than 600 pubs, all with no-smoking areas. Each pubs stocks regional ales from the likes of Cains, Fuller's, Greene King, Shepherd Neame, Banks's and Marston's. The pubs offer at least two guest beers and there are usually beer festivals in most pubs every spring and autumn when up to 30 micro-brewery beers are stocked.
* Brunning & Price near Chester: 12 pubs in the North-west. Publicans are free to choose beers but are encouraged to support independents and micros. Customers may find beers from Hydes, Ossett, Robinsons, Rooster and Phoenix breweries.
* Capital, London SE1, was formed in 2000 by veteran pub owner David Bruce of Firkin brew-pub fame. It runs 10 managed pubs in London dedicated to cask beer.
* Celtic Inns of Totton, Hampshire, was formed in 2002 and runs 52 pubs in Wales with a strong commitment to real ale.
* English Inns, Langford, Bedfordshire, owns seven pubs in the Home Counties and Warwickshire. Its main supplier is Everards Brewery in Leicester and it also takes beers from B&T, City of Cambridge, Nethergate and Tring.
* Sir John Fitzgerald of Newcastle-on-Tyne, a long-established, family-owned pub company with 28 pubs in the North-east, Edinburgh, Harrogate and London. The pubs offer a good choice of guest ales from small craft breweries.
* Gray & Sons of Chelmsford, Essex: 49 pubs in Essex with a choice of cask beers from Adnams, Greene King and Mighty Oak. Tenants are free to choose from a monthly guest list that features at least 10 different ales.
* Head of Steam of Newcastle-on-Tyne is run by CAMRA activist Tony Brookes. His pubs are sited at railway stations, including London Euston, Huddersfield, Newcastle and Liverpool. All the outlets serve a wide range of cask beers and stage regular beer festivals.
* Honeycombe Leisure of Preston, Lancs, has 95 pubs with beers supplied by Burton Bridge, Eccleshall, Moorhouses, Phoenix and Timothy Taylor, plus most micro-breweries in the North-west. It is one of the biggest sellers of Black Sheep beers from Masham, North Yorkshire.
* Maclay of Alloa, Scotland, owns 17 pubs and supplies them with beers under the Maclay name brewed by the independent Belhaven Brewery of Dunbar.
* Market Town Taverns of Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, has eight pubs run by CAMRA member Ian Fozard, who concentrates on beers from independents and micro-breweries, including Black Sheep and Timothy Taylor.
* Tynemill of Beeston, Nottingham, run by former CAMRA national chairman Chris Holmes, has 17 pubs in the East Midlands. It has a "pubs for everyone" philosophy, avoiding gimmicks, and concentrates on cask ale and food. In 2000 it sold more than 1,500 different cask beers, more than any other pub company in Britain. Managers have complete freedom to choose guest beers. Tynemill also runs the Mildly Mad Pub Co with York Brewery and with Breakthroughpoint in Nottingham, again with the aim of supplying a good range of cask beers from smaller breweries.
The Good Beer Guide's Wooden Spoon Award goes to national pub company Mitchells & Butlers of Birmingham. M&B was named this month as the worst payer in the FTSE 100 group of leading quoted companies. M&B's 4,000 employees earn an average annual salary of just £9,401.
Good Beer Guide Media Site
Please visit the Good Beer Guide Media Site - www.camra.org.uk/gbgmedia for more press releases, regional stories, photographs, book imagery and plenty of other interesting information to support the launch of the guide. Available from Friday 10th September.