The 2017 Good Beer Guide is a tribute to the hard work of thousands of Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) activists and the guide’s editor Roger Protz (Traditional pubs being replaced by new breed of boozer, 15 September). It remains unique because it is the only truly independent guide to good pubs and beer free of commercial influence.
It is not, unfortunately, free of doctrinal dispute. While some may see what is described as a “real ale revolution”, others will note a broader upsurge in good beer. Around the corner from my Tottenham residence, for example, is the Beavertown Brewery. On his personal blog Protz agrees it makes great beers. Yet in the guide it warrants a mere half-a-dozen lines. The beer is unfiltered and unpasteurised – in effect real ale – but often served under light gas pressure. That is anathema to some Camra members.
What concerns me, a real ale drinker for well over 40 years, is not how a beer is dispensed but whether it tastes good – and “good beer” is what the guide is meant to be about.
Keith Flett
London
• I am glad I did not drink in 1970 in the pub whose prices are referred to in your article about the new £5 note (We promise to pay the bearer on demand – with a shiny new fiver, 10 September). It says that in 1970 a 10 shilling note would have got you two pints in a pub, with a shilling or two to spare.
I remember drinking Morrell’s light ale on draught at 10p a pint, its price remaining unchanged from the two shillings charged before, on decimalisation day, 15 February 1971. This was a fairly weak beer; I think normal beers were around the equivalent of 12p a pint, once we went decimal. Ten shillings (50p) therefore got me at least four pints, not two pints plus a bit of change.
This begs a second question. The 50p coin replaced the 10 shilling note in time for decimalisation. As I could buy about four pints for 50p, one could argue that the highest value coin, when it is introduced, should be worth roughly the price of four pints of beer in a pub. The going rate now for a pint in similar locations to where I drank in 1970/71 is about £3.80. Four of these pints are £15.20. Therefore there should not only now be a £5 coin, but also a £10 coin, with a £20 coin due in about five years, given current beer inflation (which is sadly higher than general inflation, but that begs a third question).
Ian Heath
Egham, Surrey
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