Mine's a Pint - Autumn 2019

Small Beer
A round up of news and information
Gala Awards Evening
All are welcome to attend and help celebrate
the great beer and cider community that we
have in Reading. Let’s all raise a glass to that!
Stonegate to Buy Ei Pub Group
The array of awards at last year’s event
One of the highlights of the local CAMRA
year is our Gala Awards Evening. The name is
ambitious, the purpose more down to earth – to
celebrate and mark the wonderful selection of
great local pubs, a multitude of local breweries
and cider makers supplying them and a great
array of people making, serving and drinking
their produce.
It’s a public event, open to all. This year it will
be held on Wednesday 18 September at the
Castle Tap on Castle Street in Reading, starting
at 8pm.
You don’t have to wear black tie or a ball gown.
In fact if you do you’ll look out of place as our
focus is on the awards and the people winning
them, rather than the image. Beer festival T
shirts are more the standard outfit.
The regular awards for branch Pub of the Year,
Cider Pub of the Year and Club of the Year
will be there of course, along with the winners
of competitions held at the Reading Beer and
Cider Festival. Alongside those, this year’s
highlights include a special award to Seona
MacKenzie of the Clifton Arms for 35 years of
service as a licensee in the Reading area, along
with presentations to various local CAMRA
members who have made a real difference with
their service to the branch over a number of
years.
Mine’s A Pint
12
Stonegate Pub Company has agreed a £3 billion
deal to buy Ei, Britain’s largest pub owner. Ei,
better known by its old name of Enterprise
Inns, owns more than 4,000 pubs. When added
to Stonegate’s 772, it will take the combined
company to nearly 5,000 pubs, the largest in
the country.
Stonegate runs a number of brands including
Slug and Lettuce, Walkabout and Yates’s, and
offered a 38% premium over the previous
value of Ei shares, valuing the business at £1.3
billion. Including debt, the deal is worth £3
billion. Stonegate has promised to invest in its
new estate; we’ll see whether that’s true.
The Competition and Markets Authority
is sure to take a close look at the deal and
could have the power to force pubs to be sold
to competitors in areas where there would
otherwise be a local monopoly.
So what will it mean for drinkers? Given Ei’s
poor reputation, especially in the way that it
treats its tenants, it could be welcome news.
CAMRA has given a cautious welcome to
the takeover and Ben Wilkinson, CAMRA’s
National Director, said: “For many Ei Group
has become a byword for unfair business