Locale good or bad?

[Wittenden]

On the whole I prefer to drink beers local to where ever I happen to be, but I don't get dogmatic about it. The concept of LocAle helps connect the brewer, especially in rural areas with the consumer : people tend to be fairly parochial and are interested in "their" local brewery, butcher or cheesemonger.

[aleandhearty]

At the end of the day I like the beer I like, it doesn't matter where it comes from, I like beers from all over the country and don't want to be restricted to beers brewed in a 30 mile radius wether good or bad.

This pretty much sums up my view. Fortunately, living in Yorkshire the LocAle scheme doesn't impact on choice. In some parts of the country, I would no doubt find it very frustrating.

[sheffield hatter]

On the whole I prefer to drink beers local to where ever I happen to be, but I don't get dogmatic about it. The concept of LocAle helps connect the brewer, especially in rural areas with the consumer : people tend to be fairly parochial and are interested in "their" local brewery, butcher or cheesemonger.

I tend to agree, but it's also nice to have some diversity. There's a tendency for all the pubs in country areas to have the same beers: all Theakstons in one village, all Thwaites in another a few miles away. Nothing wrong with that as long as it's a well-kept pint, but when the only guest available in the Theakstons house is from Thwaites, and the Thwaites house stocks Theakstons because it's "LocAle", I'm not sure that the consumer is necessarily the winner.

When I'm in Luton, there'll often be a Sheffield beer in one of the pubs before the game. My Luton mates lap it up, but I make some grumpy remark about not travelling 140 miles to drink a beer I can have just down the road seven days a week. Then I'm back in Sheffield and drinking a Bedfordshire beer at my local and it's my beer of the week. Perhaps I should start to feel guilty about my carbon footprint.