As if rising fuel costs and the credit crunch were not enough to contend with, rural dwellers could soon struggle to find a place to drown their sorrows, as country pubs come under increasing threat from soaring bills and falling trade.
Figures this week showed beer sales had slumped to levels not seen since the great depression in the 1930s. And country pubs north of the border are finding it harder then most to make ends meet, as hard-up customers buy their drink at the supermarket instead.
A report by the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) this week revealed beer sales in pubs had fallen by 10.6% in the past year. Pubs served 107million fewer pints from April to June than they did in the same period in 2007. That’s a fall of 1.6million pints a day.
BBPA chief executive Rob Hayward said the situation was grave.
He said: “With around 1million jobs reliant on the trade, the loss of 1.6million pints a day is having a serious impact, not just on the sector itself, but on the UK economy as a whole. Beer sales in pubs are now at their lowest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s – down 7million pints a day from the height of the market in 1979.”
Meanwhile Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale, claims 57 pubs are closing every month – a large proportion in the countryside, where the contrast between rising costs and falling trade is even greater.
Scottish pubs are being hit particularly hard as they struggle to pay the increased costs associated with the Licensing (Scotland) Act 2005.
Some estimates suggest 350 pubs have closed across Scotland in the last two years alone. Competition from the supermarkets and the trend towards drinking at home have been major factors.
Lindsay Grant, Camra’s regional director for Scotland, said the soaring price of fuel was also being felt particularly acutely in more remote locations.
The organisation launched its LocAle campaign to encourage pubs to stock beer from local breweries with the aim of reducing their carbon footprint. As fuel prices have risen in recent months, Mr Clark said more pubs were finding the idea attractive as a way of reducing their delivery costs.
“There are some very good local breweries in the north and north-east – places like Brew Dog, the Black Isle Brewery, Cairngorm,” he said.
“It can also be a really good selling point if people know you stock interesting local beers.
“It’s important that we don’t lose our rural pubs. A country town or village without its pub would be a poorer place.”
Another Camra initiative is the Community Pubs Trust, which offers support to communities whose watering holes are in danger of closing.
Camra can help in a variety of ways, from giving advice and information on how to start an action group to providing financial assistance to hire a village hall for a public meeting.
“The local pub is something people feel strongly about,” added Mr Clark. “We’ve stepped in at a number of places where communities have turned things around and saved their pub.”
A recent Camra-backed campaign centred around the pub at Midmar, in Aberdeenshire.
There, locals successfully campaigned to win the right to buy their local, the Midmar Inn, under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, should it ever come on the market.
Residents were galvanised after the owners closed the inn, blaming declining trade, and lodged plans to convert it into a private home.
Margot Kennedy, secretary of the Friends of Midmar Inn Community Company, said the loss of the pub had been a blow.
“There’s an old saying – the pub is the hub – and it’s very meaningful in a place like Midmar. It’s a low-density community, very rural, and people are spread out over a very large distance.
“If you were to look at the community 30 years ago, you would have found two shops, a police station, a petrol station, a hairdresser and the pub. Today the only places left are the church and the village hall, which are fine if you belong to the church or one of the organised groups, but there’s nowhere people can go if they just feel like dropping in, meeting people and having a chat.
“I missed a funeral last week because I didn’t even know the person had died. If the pub had still been open that wouldn’t have happened.”
For other country pubs, it has been a case of evolve or die.
When Norah Nesland took on the empty pub at Dunecht, in Aberdeenshire, last year, it had already been closed for several months. She realised the business wasn’t going to survive on alcohol sales alone and has shifted the focus to food.
Now Jaff’s Bar and Restaurant is gaining a reputation for top-quality meals and business is booming. More than 80 people were booked for dinner last night. Tonight and tomorrow she expects more than 100.
Yes, most will enjoy a drink with their meal, but alcohol has become very much a side order.
“We depend on the restaurant to keep the bar going,” Ms Nesland told the Press and Journal.
“The bar is important to locals and we’ve got a good loyal clientele, but only at weekends. Some Friday and Saturday nights it will be four-deep at the bar but then it comes to a Monday, when the kitchen is closed, and to be honest it’s not worth my while opening.
“I think any country pub that relies on the bar alone would be as well to close. It’s sad but, when you consider things like the new licences, and competition from the supermarkets I don’t see how they can survive.”
Stuart Singer, owner of The Redgarth at Oldmeldrum and vice-president of the Aberdeenshire, Banff and Kincardineshire branch of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, said traditional rural pubs were having to adapt to stay afloat.
“There’s just not as much money going round in the economy and publicans are feeling it just the same as everyone else,” he said.
“I think as time goes on if places want to survive, they will have to start focusing more on food and accommodation.
“People coming to stay will naturally have a drink on the premises, and people coming for food will want a drink with their meal, but the drinking aspect of going to the pub will become less important, especially in country areas, where people don’t want to drink and drive and the cost of taxis is so expensive.”