The Holborn Beer Flood will not be commemorated

More than 400 British pubs closed down last year in the wake of pandemic lockdowns. Now many more - some gloomy predictions suggest 70% of all pubs - are wondering how they will survive the fuel prices crisis. Some are already closing for the Winter. 

The total number of British pubs dropped below 40,000 during the first half of 2022, a loss of more than 7,000 since 2012. When I moved into my house here in Hazlemere in 2007 there were four pubs within reasonable walking distance. Now there is one and it's a mile away.

There are all sorts of reasons why this has happened ... greedy holding companies that have bought small breweries, more money to be made turning pubs into flats or restaurants or retail outlets, changes in demographics, the availability of cheap supermarket alcohol (it is about four times cheaper to drink at home than go down the pub), the homogenisation of pubs due to corporate ownership, gentrification ... I could go on. Plus there have been huge changes in society. Forty years ago there wasn't a lot to do in the evenings so you went to the pub. Now we have smart multi-channel widescreen HD TVs, smartphones and games consoles. There are lots more restaurants and alternative entertainments too - people like to be entertained and eat something nice when they go out. On top of all that, people are drinking less and, as pubs close down - especially in rural areas - the 'local' aspect has gone. People won't go to the pub every evening if they have to drive there or pay for a taxi.

It also means that the Holborn Whippet pub in Sicilian Avenue - the first independently owned public house in Holborn - won't be offering us a pint of Beer Flood Porter today. The pub closed in 2019 and, to my knowledge, has not yet re-opened.

On 17th October 1814, a disaster at the Meux Brewery on Tottenham Court Road led to a huge wooden vat of fermenting porter exploding. The shock demolished the brick wall of the brew-house which was 25 feet high and 22 inches deep and caused a substantial part of the roof to fall in. The adjoining vat was also burst open and more than 323,000 imperial gallons (1,470,000 litres) of beer gushed into the streets. The wave of beer destroyed two homes and crumbled the wall of the Tavistock Arms Pub, trapping teenage employee Eleanor Cooper under the rubble. Within minutes neighbouring George Street and New Street were swamped with booze, killing a mother and daughter who were taking tea, and surging through a room of people gathered for a wake. In total, the disaster claimed 8 lives. 

The brewery was nearly bankrupted by the event. It cost them £23,000 in damages and repairs but, after a private petition to Parliament, they recovered about £7,250 from HM Excise, saving them from collapse. The disaster also led to the brewing industry gradually replacing wooden vats with concrete. 

The brewery moved in 1921, and the Dominion Theatre is now where the brewery used to stand. Meux & Co went into liquidation in 1961. 

On the anniversary each year, the Holborn Whippet used to commemorated the event by selling Beer Flood Porter all day on cask.

But, like so many old customs, it now appears to have died ... along with far too many of our pubs.