Lewes Arms controversy
brewery dispute in Sussex, England
The Lewes Arms controversy was a dispute between Greene King and the regulars of the Lewes Arms pub in Lewes, East Sussex, England when the brewery withdrew from sale a popular local beer from 2006 to April 2007.
The dispute prompted a change in Greene King's policy that may well have repercussions for other pubs that have lost the right to sell local beers. One of the Greene King directors, Mark Angela, left the company amid a shake up of all Greene King houses in which the managed house operations were split into two divisions.
Background
Greene King decided to stop selling the locally produced Harvey's Sussex Best Bitter at the Lewes Arms in December 2006.
Harvey's brewery, which has been producing beer since 1790, is situated approximately half a mile from the pub and is a major local employer. The 220-year-old pub in the centre of the town had been acquired by Greene King in 1998. The seasonal Harvey's ales were withdrawn in 2004, but the Best Bitter remained on sale because of its popularity - selling four times as much as Greene King's standard cask ales. The company's decision to finally withdraw the Best Bitter turned into a public relations disaster.
The protest
A petition of 1200 signatures was collected. The mayor of Lewes and the then Lewes MP Norman Baker spoke out against the withdrawal.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lewes Arms controversy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.