A little shorter (hurrah, you say) and lighter from me this week. Hands up if you know what these are? I say that in the full knowledge that a lot of beer drinkers, certainly those over 40, will know that they are carrykegs, used for taking home beer from the pub.
I still use them a fair bit and I was prompted to write this piece after strolling into one of my locals with a carrykeg to grab a takeaway. A woman in a group eating at one of the tables was staring in my direction and stopped me as I passed: “I haven’t seen one of those in a long time.”
That’s the main point. They used to be quite common and I find it a little odd that they aren’t still. More than anything, I’m surprised pubs don’t make them available or, if not them, then the two-pint cartons that are like milk cartons.
The old carrykegs hold four pints and have a breathable push-down cap. The beer will keep overnight, just about, but they’re really for consuming the day or evening you buy the beer.
You would think pubs would still make them available, because they need all the help they can get in these tough times and if I or anyone else takes beer home from the pub, that’s beer I’m not buying in a supermarket. Or from another pub, for that matter. To me, it’s a logical situation: I fancy a few pints but either I’m driving or I’ve got stuff to do at home. Ideally, I’d like to spend the evening in the pub – at least, this way, the pub sells the beer and gets the money they would have got if I’d stayed (and if they’re busy, someone else can have my seat)!
However, since writing the first draft of this piece, I have been reminded that the biggest reason pubs don’t set out to sell beer in this way is that a change in the law made it very complicated for them to do so… yes, it’s yet another way in which legislation and red tape – not this government’s, before any one jumps in – stands in the way of pubs at a time when they need all the help they can get.
My thanks to Emma Cole, of the Burton Bridge Inn and Brewery in Burton. She writes: “It was legal to do so until March 2025 I believe. On duty submissions it counts as smallpack so we can do it if we go and amend our beer duty submission to reflect that it was sold, so we pay the right rate. It’s also not simple to do. As pubs don’t have this option it means it can only be done at venues that handle their own duty, like breweries.
“The info online about it has been really unclear but though selling takeaway is permitted under licensing rules, every pint sold will be paying the wrong duty unless the brewery amends their earlier submission. I hope some clear communication happens soon as someone could easily get in trouble as the rules are so unclear.
“I do worry when I see places still offering it and hope they won’t get in trouble. There is hardly any info online and not many are going to read through excise duty notice 226 as it’s very very long.”
So there you have it. I didn’t set out, in what was meant to be an innocent reflection, to suggest pubs should ignore this obscure and, you would think, wholly pointless legislation. However, in my experience still using my carrykegs, I would guess that if a regular customer is known to a publican, chances are a blind eye is going to be turned and you’ll get to take home a few pints of your favourite beer…
- Finally for now, many thanks for the engagement in this fledgling blog so far. I still need to get my head around making it better to look at. The next subscriber (at the time of writing) will be the 50th and I see there’s been an upturn in people following the Facebook page. Thanks, too, to Paul Gibson of Derby Camra for mentioning it in their latest newsletter and to my fellow beer blogger Ian Clarkson for giving me a plug on his more well-established site. I’ve no great ambitions to hit big numbers but I do have a fairly long list of subjects to go at in the next few weeks.
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