The Head Of Steam group of pubs have been waiting patiently since September for the micro-brewers of Northern Ireland to have enough beer available to send over to north east England, such is the demand for their beers locally. The beers finally arrived on 13 December – a date that was clearly ‘lucky for some’ – on pallets of 18 casks delivered to the Cluny in Newcastle, the … [Read more...]
Punch Taverns: making good progress
Punch Taverns has reported performance for Q1 (16 weeks to 8 December), with profit in line with management expectations and stable profit per pub, despite the continuing challenging market conditions. Roger Whiteside, Chief Executive Officer of Punch Taverns plc, commented: “Our performance in the first sixteen weeks of the financial year has been in line with … [Read more...]
Relentless wine price increases lead to falling sales
H & C News recently published an article (see below) on the call by Accolade Wines, the UK’s number one wine company, for unity across the drinks trade in a bid to encourage the government to re-think the alcohol duty escalator. Accolade’s WineNation 2012 Report had revealed the level to which tax is having a crippling effect across the industry. At the same time, … [Read more...]
Driving growth in licensed hospitality: the ALMR Ops Award Winners
The ALMR Operations Managers Awards are amongst the most coveted in the on-trade, and have just been awarded to Donny McIntyre of Spirit Pub Company and Heike Funke of Punch Taverns - named Area Manager and Business Development Manager of the Year respectively. Rob Summers of Punch Taverns was awarded a Highly Commended prize, and the Rising Star Award was made to Benjamin … [Read more...]
Wetherspoon flushes with success!
It’s official - Wetherspoon has the best pub loos across the UK. It swept the board in the pubs and wine bars category of the Loo of the Year Awards 2012, being named as the national category award winner in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. H & C News congratulates Wetherspoon: if the loos at The Prestwick Pioneer (pictured above) are typical, then … [Read more...]