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Campaign lost to save local ale

Wednesday, 13 December 2006, 13:39 GMT

A campaign to prevent a locally-brewed ale being withdrawn from an East Sussex pub has ended in failure.

Greene King, the Suffolk-based pub group which owns The Lewes Arms, said in October that it planned to replace Harveys Best Bitter with its own beer.

Lewes MP Norman Baker won two reprieves for the beer in the past month, but it has now been confirmed the bitter will be taken out of the pub.

Drinkers set up a campaign blog on the internet to save their favourite beer.

Compromise

Greene King had said it wanted to "serve our own award-winning quality ales in our own pubs", but the Friends of The Lewes Arms pressure group wrote to the firm and Harveys Brewery pleading for a compromise.

Mr Baker said: "There were options which, in my view, would have allowed the local bitter to stay in The Lewes Arms while providing compensatory benefits for Greene King, but sadly it seems that such an agreement was not possible."

Writers on the protesters' blog threatened a boycott of The Lewes Arms if the bitter was withdrawn.

Harveys previously said it had been "touched by the loyalty" of drinkers at the 220-year-old pub