Can we bank on an indie rescue?

By Phil Mellows

As I write, a petition to save Banks’s Mild has topped 1,700 signatures. This may not sound like a mass movement exactly but, according to my sources, this cask ale is permanently on sale in only three dozen pubs. Why the fuss?

The brand is one of 11 beers (eight of them cask) set to be axed by Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company (CMBC), which has also announced that it is closing its brewery in Wolverhampton. Some, led by the Campaign for Real Ale, have accused the multinational of vandalising British beer heritage, while others suggest the commercial logic behind the decision makes it inevitable. In their blog, Boak & Bailey, Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey have helpfully supplied historical context to argue that brands naturally come and go, anyway.

At the Royal Oak Chapel Ash, however, the matter is more than an academic debate. Run by Emma and Terry Cole, the Royal Oak is a brilliant community pub that cares about local people and understands the role a pub plays in their lives. It’s also proud that it keeps a great pint of Banks’s Mild only a few hundred yards from where it’s made at CMBC’s Wolverhampton brewery, serving up to 200 pints a week.

In fact, since we learned the brand was in its final days, the pub has been especially busy, Terry reports, with people coming in for what might be their last ever cask Banks’s Mild.

“The Royal Oak has made a name selling Banks's beers for a very long time and to lose this is massive shock to us. Emma, who manages the cellar, has won awards for her mild and she challenges anyone to beat it.”

This isn’t only about the quality of the beer in the glass though. There is an emotional connection with brands like this, as Terry makes clear.

“It’s tradition. It’s like waking up and seeing the time on a clock. Walking into the pub and not seeing Banks’s Mild in the bar will be very weird. It has been the milk of Wolverhampton for decades and so many people are upset about it going. I am a very proud Wulfrunian and Banks's Mild has been here all my life. It feels like CMBC has ripped out our hearts.

“But I can understand why it has done it, as it’s not as popular as it used to be. Well, it’s not Madri, is it?”

Trouble is, when you’re a big global brewer the volumes of mild sold compared with a mass market lager are insignificant, and brewing it for three dozen pubs is a nuisance. One hope is that a smaller brewer will take it on and keep it alive.

While all this was going on, SIBA, the organisation that represents a large proportion of the country’s small, local, independent breweries, was launching its Indie Beer campaign to identify and promote genuinely independent brewing – as distinct from craft brands that have been adopted by global brewers.

The Beer Breaks team is right behind this initiative (if a little sceptical about whether a public that’s only just getting the hang of ‘craft beer’, will adopt the new terminology). The thrill of seeking out beers that you can’t find in pubs everywhere, that have their roots in a certain locality, is at the heart of our mission.

And Banks’s Mild is one of those beers. When the corporate axe falls on brands like this it shows the value of local independents, for whom three dozen regular stockists within a tight geography would be very welcome.