12 July 2010
Cheers – getting people back into pubs

Pub closure statistics and gloomy beer sales figures make familiar and depressing headlines. But various initiatives – several from British Guild of Beer Writers’ members – are helping reverse the trend and create public awareness to the situation.
The latest of those is from Alastair Gilmour who has launched a new magazine and website this month dedicated entirely to pubs. Working with Newcastle company Offstone Publishing, Alastair has created Cheers North East, a 32-page magazine devoted to getting people back into pubs and encouraging customers to use them as centres of social – and sociable – activity.
“The idea has been in my head for some time,” says Alastair. “I’ve been working on it seriously now for three or four months – which has been difficult in my first year of freelancing when I really should have been out earning money. Cheers has evolved from a pad full of notes, scribbles and rough layouts to a bright, full-colour publication which is causing a lot of people to sit up and take notice. I’m very proud of it.
“The support we have had from regional brewers, microbreweries, pubs and suppliers has been overwhelming – but we still need a lot more to capitalise on this successful launch and to continue the thrust. It has been a tough time, but we took encouragement early on from the reaction to Cheers from industry professionals.
“For example, when we presented the idea to Jennings in Cockermouth, general manager Gaynor Green said she’d look at it all over the weekend and would get in touch early the following week. When I got home that Friday evening there was an e-mail waiting from her agreeing to one of our sponsor packages and asking if we wanted offers on brewery visits, etc. How good is that?”
A new website has also been created (www.cheersnortheast.co.uk) which has the current month’s edition on view with maps showing pubs and links to their own sites, plus promotions and all the information pub-goers would ever need. Events such as beer festivals, tastings and tours are also high on the Cheers North East agenda which will extend the brand and make it easier to replicate the formula region-by-region. Cheers Yorkshire and Cheers North West are already under consideration.
“We know all about regional identity,” says Alastair. “It’s a powerful element in the whole of this venture. People are enormously proud of where they come from and where they live and we’ve found they’ll support something with a regional bias, but crucially it has to have quality and value as its drivers.
“The North East is so progressive; look at Newcastle United. Despite being in the Football League Championship last season, 1,037,455 supporters clicked through the St James’s Park turnstiles – and they’re still among the top 20 wealthiest football clubs in Europe alongside Real Madrid, Manchester United and Inter Milan. Tourism is worth £3.6bn to the North East’s economy, Newcastle has the highest graduate retention of any university city in the UK outside London, every microbrewery I know is bursting at the seams – one reporting a 40% production increase on last year, another 24%. I could go on.”
Alastair encourages pub lovers to have a look at the Cheers North East website and says if anyone wants a “proper” paper copy, to simply contact him at alastair@cheersnortheast or on 0191 488 4756 or 07930 144 846.
He is also inviting Guild members to contribute guest columns, so rough outlines would be more than welcome, plus corporate members shouldn’t be shy with their support.
He says: “Adrian Tierney-Jones did us a terrific piece on dogs in pubs for the first issue. We developed it further as it helped set the tone for the whole magazine. We’ve now even got a dalmation called Blue ‘writing’ a regular pub-dog column.”
Cheers, published monthly, is available free from more than 150 pubs in the North East of England and 15 tourist information centres throughout the region (Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne & Wear and parts of North Yorkshire).