IN ANOTHER instance of Brussels' urge to overrule UK law, the European Commission is intent on forcing draught continental lager into our pubs - though the upshot may be the death-knell for many smaller British breweries.

The dispute is over our law which, since 1989, has allowed pub tenants to sell "guest" beers produced by brewers other than the ones to which they are tied.

It created a welcome choice revolution for the consumer and put new life into smaller independent brewers.

But because the law only applies beers which are cask-conditioned - so-called "real" ale - the keg-type continental lagers cannot get a look-in at the bar as guests.

Importers are complaining this breaches European free trade rules and the Commission is threatening to take our government to the EU court if it does not drop the restriction.

Though this is, of course, another EU invasion of UK sovereignty and though there may be technical substance to the Commission's case, allowing it would do nothing to improve choice for the drinker or preserve the unique character of British pubs.

For the financial muscle of the giant continental lager brewers might squeeze out the smaller independent UK brewers from the contest for a place among the guest beer pumps - hitting jobs and killing off much-loved brands.

This is not an unrealistic notion.

For a glimpse at continental bars where just one or two types of beer are on offer, compared with sometimes as many as a dozen or more in our pubs, provides a worrying insight into what might be the future.

The government should resist this threat - as not only jobs and beers may be drowned in the lager tide, but the special role of the pub in the British way of life may be threatened too.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.