It's the same, the whole world over...........

Real Ale, Real Music, whose excellent blog I only discovered recently, describes the inertia, slovenliness and lethargy that infects the nation during the period between Christmas and New Year, as the “dog days of winter.”

It is the equivalent, as it were of the well-known “dog days of summer;” the period between July and early September when the weather is traditionally at its hottest and its most uncomfortable. These climatic conditions are perhaps, unsurprisingly, characterised by stagnation and a lack of activity.

What I’m leading up to here is there has been very little for me to personally write about, as since before Christmas I haven’t been anywhere to speak of, or done much that it worthy of sharing with a wider audience. So what is a frustrated beer writer to do under such circumstances?

The answer of course, is to look elsewhere for inspiration, so a quick Google search for beer-related news stories, threw us, amongst other worthy items, this particular story from 2018. The story surfaced on the Independent’s website, but looking at the small print it originated from the New York Times. It concerns that most German of institutions, the local beer-hall which, believe it or not, is facing very similar problems to the traditional English pub.

As in the UK, changing demographics, and an increasingly ageing population, has led to a significant drop in the number of traditional pubs, restaurants and beer halls. So whether they be “gasthof” , “wirtshaus” or “kneipe”, their numbers declined by a massive 20 per cent between the years 2010 and 2016, according to the German Hotel and Catering Association.

Increasing urbanisation, that has drawn young people away from rural areas and depleted villages, combined with different aspirations of a younger generation have all left their mark. Now, with more people relying on social media as their source of news stories, or the place to exchange gossip, traditional outlets like the village local are dying on their feet.

The Independent’s story focused on the settlement of Handorf-Langenberg, in northwest Germany. A village of 1,500 inhabitants where Zum Schanko, the village beer hall that had acted as community centre and celebratory space for countless birthdays, baptisms and other gatherings with family and friends closed, following the sudden death of its owner, Hubert Frilling.

Mourners, who had packed the nearby Church of St Barbara for Frilling’s funeral, were told by the local the pastor, that “The heart of Handorf-Langenberg has stopped beating,” but what made matters worse was no-one seemed willing to take the place on, and run it as a traditional beer hall.

There had been interest in the premises for places such as pizza joints or Asian fast food outlets, but this wasn’t what the locals wanted for their village. Fortunately, as has happened over here, a number of local people got together to raise sufficient funds to buy the pub for themselves, and continue running it along traditional lines.

This was achieved by setting up a cooperative and selling shares to local residents and others who felt a connection to the beer hall. The oldest shareholder was in his eighties; the youngest, received a stake on the day she was born. It was still a race against time, to raise the €200,000 needed to buy the place but, as with all good stories that end happily, they managed it. 

They even found someone to run the place in the form of  Andreas Mählmann, from a town 30 miles up the road, but who knows the local dialect still spoken by many patrons. Together with his partner, Gabi Von Husen, they offer a menu based on  schnitzel and sauerbraten, with special menus for Christmas, plus the all-important asparagus harvest in the spring and kale in the winter.

Stories like this one, have been repeated all over Germany but, as in England, not all have a happy ending. In a bid to try and save traditional pubs, the government in Bavaria approved a €27m package of financial support, aimed at helping owners of beer halls and restaurants in rural areas survive, but not all states have followed Bavaria’s example.

As part of their fund-raising campaign, the people looking to secure Zum Schanko, wrote to Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, hoping to capitalise on how he had highlighted the country’s urban-rural split in his annual Christmas address the previous year.

A letter signed by the president himself came back, praising the effort to save Schanko as “a striking example of what can be achieved in rural regions through taking the initiative and self-help projects”.

Unfortunately we do not have such enlightened individuals heading up the UK government, so even more than in Germany, it is up to us as individuals who love and care about our traditional pubs, to continue giving them our support.