As recently as 1991 Nottinghamshire had four regional breweries, Hardys & Hansons, Home, Mansfield and Shipstones, who owned the majority of local pubs and supplied them with good quality ales at reasonable prices. Customers enjoyed these local brews and were fiercely loyal to them, but despite being very profitable the breweries were taken over and closed. We now have the sad situation where the majority of our pubs sell just nationally branded beers, their popularity due to massive advertising budgets rather than beer quality or true customer loyalty. Worse still these beers are trucked in from all over the country at a massive cost to our environment, increasing pollution, road congestion and damage to our roads.

But all is not lost. Since the mid-nineties an increasing number of craft breweries have sprung up in the area producing some outstandingly good beer. Within the Newark area we have Maypole, Milestone and Springhead, with over a dozen more not very far away, including Caythorpe, Poachers, Oldershaws and Brewsters.

To encourage the take up of local beers in our pubs Newark CAMRA is joining Nottingham CAMRA's initiative, the LocAle scheme. This unique accreditation will be awarded to pubs which pledge to always offer at least one locally brewed real ale on their bar.
The scheme will be open to all pubs within the Newark and Southwell area and it will be operated by the Newark Branch of CAMRA with the assistance of the Nottinghamshire Transport 2000 environmental lobby group. Pubs will be given point of sale material and window stickers to promote their accreditation and this will also be publicised in the Beer Gutter Press, at Newark Beer Festival, on the Newark CAMRA web site and wherever else the opportunity arises.