Fantastic Weatherforks Pubs Are Offering 99p pints!!! What Do Other Midway Pubs Say To THAT?

Our Undercover Imbiber has been warned by his Lodge to keep out of trouble for a few weeks, or risk being expelled from the Freemasons after his latest spot of bother. Now he's dried out a bit, we thought it was safe to send him out on his own again. With a warning not to try and blag free drinks...

By Our Pub Reporter: 

January is always a quiet time for boozers. Some people are looking to recover from their festive season excesses. Others will have spent whatever disposable cash they have on the Christmas and New Year celebrations, and need to watch the pennies in the chilly new year.

Many boozers hope to do well enough over Christmas and the New Year so they can get through the remaining winter months.

The MORON's favourite boozer, the Rees-Mogg's Head...

But our favourite, the five-star-rated Sir Rees-Mogg’s Head, is looking to buck the doom and gloom trend for local boozers. As one of the boozers belonging to the mighty Weatherforks mega-chain owned by multi-millionaire and Brexit hero Sir Martin Timms, the newly-refurbished Sir Rees-Mogg’s Head is looking to pack the punters in with a fantastic offer of a 99p pint on selected brands - an almost impossible-to-match challenge for the vast majority of local Midway boozers.

Just down the road from the Rees-Mogg’s Head, we talk to Alf Standpipe, landlord of the oldest boozer in Midway, the Ordinary Fellow.  He remains somewhat philosophical on the challenges he - and all other boozers – face at the moment.

Alf Standpipe: pub landlord...

“Weatherforks have been doing 99p pints in January for a long time,” he explains, “ I’ve even had that Martin Timms in here, boasting and shouting at me about how he’s going to drive all the little pubs out of business now he’s free of EU anti-monopoly legislation, so why don’t I just sell up to him now. "

"I told him to bugger off. Typical rich Tory bastard...”

“But they do have the buying power of the biggest fictional pub chain company in the UK, owned by an imaginary man who's on the top 10 rich list and who’s bought more politicians than I’ve had hot dinners, so best of luck to the bugger is what I say.”

“I’m not even in the top 10 rich-list in my pub.”

Being stoic in the face of such aggressive competition is, it seems, all part of running a boozer.

Alf adds, “Timm’s cheap beer doesn't really bother me so much. We have a good core of regulars and we pick up a lot of people who don’t like the sad old alkies, coked-up psychos, elderly right-wing thugs and shouty old Tory pensioners you get in the Rees-Mogg all the time, fighting, shouting and swearing.”

“Our carpets and tables aren’t sticky and we have the character and the friendly staff which Weatherforks doesn't have. We are still an old traditional pub, which a lot of people still love.”

Alf does admit that Weatherforks has hit his food market though.

“Their food is cheap and quick,” he explains. “Since the Weatherforks came along, it’s hit us over 30% on food. But then Moseley’s has been doing the same sort of thing for a while as well.”

And it is food where so many pubs hope to make the essential extra money to cover hikes in utilities and beer prices.

Sir Martin Timms: "Typical rich Tory..."

“Unlike Weatherforks, our food is mostly fresh, not frozen and we cook it properly. We don’t do ping and ding. But a lot of people do want quick and cheap. We’re not in that market, but around here we’re a bit of a niche, selling properly cooked, fresh food. A lot of folks prefer quick, even if they can afford better.”

What bothers Alf the most is not competition from Weatherforks, but his spiralling overheads.

“Most fellow landlords I know are extremely worried they may have seen their last Christmas, given the combination of hiking the amount employers will have to pay in national insurance, increases to the minimum wage and the business rates discount being slashed from 75% to 40% in 2025.”

“I voted Labo*r, but rather than putting income tax up, it seems St*rmer is still running scared of the bloody Daily Mail. So he’s trying to raise money by hitting businesses instead. They’re not all run by rich Tories, though.”

“The Budget is really going to hit pubs in April. It’s the worst I've ever known for both retail and hospitality. It's not encouraging anyone to grow their business or employ young people. It's a very difficult Budget. They really need to rethink it.”

Stock image of pub bar...

“I’m fed up with government policy being shaped by fear of what the right-wing papers might say. I thought we’d done with all that. Whatever Labo*r does they’ll scream bloody blue murder about anyway, and they have. St*rmer just needs to grow a pair.”

And the budget affects Alf’s suppliers as well.

“Some breweries are already thinking of putting their beers up 30-40p a pint,” he explains, “and that’s a massive increase.”

“I have my other overheads, so if I get a 40p increase I've also got all the other costs going up too, so I have to put the price up even more to swallow it.

“The whole situation is going to lead to fewer jobs and less investment into pubs like ours. And that's a very sad thing because we need to make sure that as a pub, we’ll be here this time next year and the year after and the year after that.”

Then of course there’s so many of us opting to go alcohol-free during January - and frequent reminders to us all to reduce our intake all year round.

Stock image of pints of beer...

“I ain’t so fussed about that,” says Alf. “Lots of people do ‘Dry January’ and they do other non-boozy things during the rest to the year as well.”

“Pubs aren't just about alcohol, they're more about socialising. They're about getting together and meeting with friends and colleagues. That’s another plus we have over Weatherforks. The cheap booze means most people just go there to binge-drink, fight and throw up.”

“That’s good for me, cos’ it means all the alkies, the young druggies and the old shouty fascists go to the ‘Forks rather than make a nuisance of themselves in my pub. Decent folk know they’ll be OK in here.”

“And, to be honest, the new alcohol-free products mean people are quite happy coming out now and drinking non-alcoholic drinks to have that social experience.”

“The zero-alcohol stuff is getting really good now. I’ve got regular Guinness drinkers drinking Guinness Zero these days, saying that they can’t taste the difference.”

“So maybe things will get better,” says Alf. “We’ll see…”

In the real world, a click-bait “swoon over ‘Spoons’ ” advertorial for their favourite pub chain (a regular occurrence) provides a headline for what otherwise is an unusually thoughtful piece on the problems facing the UK pub trade. Still, it served its purpose and got the trolls out defending their favourite Brexity pub mega-chain…

Comments:
Please note that we do not moderate comments. However, we may edit or delete them, or manipulate the voting on them in order to reflect our editorial policy.

Grey Mondeo Man wrote:
Is it just me or does the MORON over-use the horrible slang term “boozer”? Why not just call them “pubs”?

👎-4

Yu Rong replied:
Ooooh get you and your tantrums.

👍+78

Neil Barse replied:
A typically stupid comment from a typically stupid remoaning socialist La**or-supporting woke snowflake that is GreyMondeoMan. Like all lazy parasitic leftist scum, he is a blight on society and as such is unable to hold any sort of discussion without resorting to vile, frothing insults. Crawl away and die, you tofu-eating, Guardian-reading pillock.

👍👍+231

Phil TheMentallyIll wrote:
Over 100,000 English pubs have shut down since Labo*r’s reign of economic chaos began. The removal of the universal Winter Fuel Payment, the imposition of inheritance tax on farmland, NI rises and Keir St*rmer’s freebie spectacles are all directly responsible for mass pub closures, earthquakes, extreme weather and the return of bubonic plague to the UK. All those who voted Labo*r at the last election should hang their heads in shame.

👍+132

Auntie Nartsie replied:
So true, Phil. Everyone I know hates this Labo*r government. St*rmer out! General election NOW!

👍👍+546

Gonads replied:
Do you ever talk to anyone outside of your fascist knitting circle?

👍+5

Auntie Nartsie replied:
Of course not. I might meet some young people then and that would be awful. If I had my way, anyone under the age of 21 would be given a sound thrashing once a week. That’ll teach them for going around being young!

👍+78

Victor Laudanum wrote:
Weatherforks bulk-buys short-dated beer from breweries at bargain basement prices. It’s stuff they would otherwise be pouring down the drains in a week or two. You’re welcome to pay 99p a pint for it. I’d rather pay five quid and get a decent pint that won’t give me the squits later on.

👎-45

Chad Grindr replied:
Oh, the old “short-dated beer” chestnut, doubtless put out by some UK-business-hating lefty to try and drag down the Weatherforks chain and its far-sighted entrepreneurial owner whom the green-eyed remoaners hate so much. I know you woke bed-wetters don’t like facts, but here’s the proof that shows up your socialist lies for what they are:
https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/1049385/does-spoons-buy-nearly-out-of-date-beer-1049385.html

👍+142

Victor Laudanum replied:
Thanks for the link, Chad. I was expecting to maybe see some details of invoices and quality certs, but instead your “proof” just consists of the pub chain owner simply asserting that he doesn’t buy short-dated beer.
So that’s all right then.
I mean, we all know Brexiters always tell the truth, don’t we?

👎-31

Neil Barse replied:
Typical lies and whataboutery from a bitter and twisted leftist Labo*r loser. I think you far-left socialists must be mentally ill to constantly come out with the lies and whataboutery the way you do. And what about Labo*r’s plans to tax all Weatherforks pubs out of existence to punish the owner for not being a woke, bed-wetting leftie, eh? Eh? That’s a plan that I’m sure you woke, hate-filled far-left St*rmer worshippers would approve of.

👍👍👍👍+1024

Victor Laudanum replied:
So I ask for a better standard of proof than “because I said so” and I get a tirade of demented abuse? Par for the course on here, I suppose. And as for the “Labo*r plans” you refer to, I presume you are able to provide some evidence of these. I’m sure they’d be headline news, after all. Or do they only exist in your head?

👎-78

Neil Barse replied:
Your constant sealioning is a typical tactic of a hard-left, bitter and twisted leftist Labo*r loser. You are provided with facts and you choose to ignore them because they demonstrate to the world that your opinions are those of a hate-filled, ultra-far-left socialist bed-wetter. In making ever more strident demands for information, you merely show your mental illness by constantly coming out with lies and whataboutery.

👍👍+425

Victor Laudanum replied:
Once again, you confuse unsubstantiated assertions for facts. But I’ll leave it at that. I can see you are getting angry.

👎-45

Chad Grindr replied:
Talking of unsupported assertions, Victor, what is the source of your assertion that “Weatherforks bulk-buys short-dated beer”?

👍+89

Victor Laudanum replied:
Oh, some bloke I heard talking down the pub.
That should be good enough for you, shouldn’t it?
Of course, the real reason ‘Forks can sell cheap beer is their buying power and sales volumes. But I’d thought I’d pull you and your rightie chums’ chains.
And it worked!

👍+23

Neil Barse replied:
Chad – this is why you should not waste your effort trying to engage leftist idiots like VL in rational debate. They deserve only insults, random distraction issues, whataboutery and gaslighting. This involves no rational thought whatsoever, which should not be wasted on demented leftists who disagree with us. This will ensure that wishy-washy, woke snowflakes will be driven away, meaning that WE WIN all of the time.

👍+2

SuperSmallDick wrote:
My local Tory councillor told me that all pubs are going to be shut down so that they can be turned into accommodation for the millions of illegal immigrants that arrive in the UK every week. Meanwhile, millions of English pensioners are freezing to death thanks to the removal of the WFP and thousands of farmers are living on the streets because they have been made homeless by Labo*r’s IHT changes. Four more years of St*rmer’s communist dictatorship, then I can vote REFORM.

👍+25

Pseudocreem 2 wrote:
Comrades, dear Mr. Putin says for you to vote REFORM in next elections because all other political England parties will introduce anti-democratic police state dictatorships unlike truly free Russia as run by champion of democratic freedoms dear Mr. Putin and his Russian oligarch friends whose money is good for UK.

👍+18