THE brewers, I see, are complaining that the phenomenon of pubs shutting down at the rate of three a day across the country is because they can't compete with the flood of cheap beer coming in from the continent.

No doubt, the outrageous difference in excise duty home and abroad is a lot to blame.

But it's not just our grasping Chancellor of the Exchequer who is responsible. The whingeing brewers would do well to look in the mirror at themselves for pricing the punter out of their pubs.

For just as they were binding about the pressure put on British pubs by the flood of foreign ale, a report this week showed how they themselves had put up the price of beer by 73 per cent in a decade - way beyond the rate of inflation and way above the Chancellor's increases in duty.

The upshot, to my mind, is that the pub market has switched to the youngsters with more money than sense and the old-time regulars have stayed at home supping out of cans at much cheaper supermarket, import-your-own and bootleg prices when, if they had been given a fair deal, the character and number of British pubs would not have changed.

If brewers are beefing about pubs closing down, the reason is a lot to do with their own over-the-top greed over the years.

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