Last orders?

[Nemesis]

Nooooooooo.....


http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Fears-grow--as-new.3972870.jp

 

[Flyfisher]

On the brewing heritage theme, there was a radio 4 prog earlier this week about the planned closure of the the former Bass (now Coors) brewing museum in Burton-on-Trent in June this year. Apparently there is no national body interested in funding the museum, the closest we have to a 'UK' brewing museum apparently, and since Bass was bought out by the American Coors company they are no longer willing to fund the loss making museum to the tune of £1m per year. Seems that times are tough in the brewing industry and cost reduction is the order of the day, which understandably puts heritage in the front line.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/7307291.stm

http://www.coorsvisitorcentre.com/cn_press_release.asp?section_id=37&news_id=64

 

[Nemesis]

Yes I saw it. One of my close friends had his 40th birthday party there.

Just so he could say he had had a p*ss up in a brewery.

 

[Flyfisher]

That's something I've never been able to organise :wink:
Good idea though!

 

[Nemesis]

I recall some of it.

I recall that they hadn't recorded his booking, and when we all turned up it was locking up time. It took one of our number to threaten them with legal action (being a barrister) and they got in a skeleton staff pronto.

The food hadn't been prepared either, we got egg n bangers n chips n red sauce. Which we all enjoyed far more than canapes. Lots of beer though.

A number of years ago now.

 

[skier-hughes]

On local tv they've stated they aren't interested in any proposals other than a full takeover of the museum.

 

[skier-hughes]

Coors have given it a temporay reprieve, didn't catch the actual news item, ony heard it on the local headlines.

 

[Nemesis]

What they mean is, they will lie low until any fuss dies down...

 

[skier-hughes]

Apart from the news item when they said it was going to close there has been nothing in our local papers, on radio or news!! So no fuss anyway.

 

[Nemesis]

No? Try a google Burton brewery museum closure.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/10/fooddrinks?gusrc=rss&feed=news

A beery past imperilled
The closure of Britain's only national brewery museum will condemn a rich cultural history
Roger Protz The Guardian, Friday April 4 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Friday April 04 2008 on p32 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 00:04 on April 04 2008. Great brewing nations celebrate the contribution beer has made to their development as civilised societies with dedicated museums. The Czech Republic has two; Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Poland have one each. Even tiny Slovenia has a brewing museum in Ljubljana, while the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin attracts a million visitors a year.

But Britain stands to lose its sole major brewery museum in June when Coors closes its visitor centre in Burton-on-Trent. It began life more than 20 years ago as the Bass Museum, but Bass sold its breweries in 2000 to Coors, a giant US brewer whose main interest has been sales of Carling lager. It has no roots in British brewing and little understanding of the contribution the industry has made to our history and economy.

Should we care? Brewing is one of the last major British industries. It makes a sizable contribution to the wealth of the nation. Above all, it still brews a type of beer - ale - that has disappeared from most of the world. While sales of global brands such as Carling and Stella Artois are falling, independent British brewing is enjoying a renaissance. Craft brewers are meeting the consumer clamour for local food and drink.

Burton-on-Trent became an important brewing centre as early as the 11th century, when the monks of Burton Abbey were encouraged to make ale by the Earl of Mercia - aided by a constant supply of pure, hard spring water from the Trent valley. It was this water, allied to the new technologies of the industrial revolution, that enabled brewers in the town to fashion a groundbreaking, globally exported style of beer: pale ale.

The small town of Burton heaved with breweries and their armies of workers. The brewers developed their own private railways to feed into the new national network. When St Pancras station was built in London in the 1860s, its cellars were designed to take great wooden hogsheads of Burton ale.

All this history is brilliantly depicted in the Burton museum and shows how beer and brewing are part of the warp and weft of British society. The museum and the history it encapsulates must not be allowed to fall to the Coors axe.

· Roger Protz edits the Camra Good Beer Guide. For more information on saving the museum see beer-pages.com

CAMRA Isn't too happy, and here's the online petition:

http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/burtonmail-news-saveourheritage/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=299832


http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=273535

Why our museum should not close without a fight
by TIM HAMPSON
THE CAMPAIGN to save Burton's brewing past is now receiving global support, with beer-lovers from around the world joining the call for Coors to keep its visitor centre open.

With the closure date looming ever closer, and following crisis talks held last week in a bid to get the former Bass Museum a stay of execution, The Mail is asking leading figures from the brewing world to comment.

Today, British Guild of Beer Writers chairman TIM HAMPSON says the museum should not close without a fight and urges people to be part of a campaign to Save Our Heritage and help establish a national museum in 'one of the greatest brewing towns the world has ever seen'





BURTON is quite simply one of the greatest brewing towns the world has ever seen.

Within it is the Coors Visitor Centre, the UK's premier museum dedicated to brewing. And Coors has said it is to close the site at the end of June.

Coors acquired the Carling and Bass brands, and all of their holdings, including the museum, as part of a £1 billion deal in 2002.

In addition to the museum in Horninglow Street, the visitors' centre has the Brewery Tap pub, a gift shop, meeting rooms and the wonderful White Shield microbrewery. Everything but the microbrewery will close.

The visitor centre, formerly known as the Bass Museum, was set up in 1977. Its galleries include an exhibition on how beer is made, a collection of vintage vehicles used for transporting beer and an interactive display about Burton's history.

It should not close without a fight.

As a beer writer, I would be losing an invaluable, unique, irreplaceable resource. And the public would be denied the only real large-scale beer tourist attraction in the country.

The collection is priceless and inimitable.

Coors said it cannot sustain the £1 million a year it is losing on the site but it must be persuaded to delay the closing of the site at the end of June or the opportunity to create a viable visitor centre and museum under a new management will be gone.

The collection of artefacts should be kept with the archives. Nothing on its scale exists anywhere else in Britain. And Burton is the natural place to keep it.

Burton and the museum are intertwined and it is essential that we try to preserve the heritage, not only of the brewing industry, but of the town itself.

The people of Burton are united as never before, fighting to save the museum.

But you cannot do it on your own. The closure is a matter of national interest - indeed it should be a matter for international concern.

Many interested parties have come together to campaign for the brewery to be saved, but the group will need months not days to save this precious, national asset.

Local MP Janet Dean has put together a large and impressive group of people intent on saving the site.

A working group has been established, which is being lead by the Museums Libraries and Archives Council to look at various options for the site.

But even to draw up a list of possible ideas will take weeks, not days, and then to attempt to achieve the necessary funding will take months not weeks.

Coors says that it will mothball the site - but its unique collection of brewing vehicles, including the Ale 1 number plate, will need maintenance work - so the temptation to place these vehicles under the auctioneer's hammer sooner rather than later will be massive.

And already there have been offers made for the centre's three beautiful, gentle Shire horses.

The county archives services has indicated it will take responsibility for the annals, which are not just a unique record of Burton, Bass, Interbrew and Coors, but a window into brewing and its contribution to the economy, society and culture of the British Isles.

But they would be moved out of Burton to who knows where?

Time is needed so that campaigners can engage in a constructive dialogue with national bodies which might support a national museum.

It is crime to let the museum go - it would be disgrace if we turned our back on this one-off opportunity to establish a national museum of brewing and it would be a tragedy if this wonderful museum's epitaph simply says 'closed because of indifference in 2008'.

Burton's reputation has travelled far and wide from the time when the monks of Burton Abbey discovered that the region's hard water from gypsum-bearing rocks was ideal for brewing ale.

By the 1620s, the town's good quality brewing water was renowned not just locally but in distant London.

In the 19th century, Burton was one of the wonder towns of the industrial revolution and the country's equivalent of a silicon valley.

And the name Bass, the King of Brewers, was the best known firm in the British Empire.

The quality of Burton water was so renowned that up to the 1950s one Bolton brewer, Magee Marshall, transported water from its own Burton well by rail tankers to its brewery in Lancashire.

From Bombay to the Baltic, Burton beers have slaked the thirsts of millions - and the town's name has become a byword for excellence in brewing.

And still today Burton is the most important brewing town in the country.

We take our beer seriously in this country - lets show how seriously we take it by being part of a movement that establishes a national museum of brewing in Burton.

SIGN OUR ONLINE PETITION

 

[skier-hughes]

Wow, that's a lot of fuss, less than granny wanting to knock down tesco bosses house.

 

[Nemesis]

I think that's quite a bit of fuss, really. Do you want me to post all the other hits? That was a small selection. It was an Radio Four too...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/03/2008_15_thu.shtml

The local MP is joining in too:

http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART55460.html

I think the change of name didn't help.

But that's hardly no fuss IMHO.