Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Hull & East Yorkshire Branch NEWS RELEASE

Licensee of Family Run Pub is Chosen for Recognition Award

Issued 2nd September 2008

Mark McMullen, licensee of the Dog & Duck in Beverley, has received a ‘Committed To Cask Award 2008’ in recognition of his “Continuing Commitment to Quality Real Ale”.

The ‘Committed To Cask Awards’ recognise those licensees in the Hull and East Yorkshire area that have demonstrated a "Continuing Commitment to Quality Real Ale" at a time when they are under great pressure to remove distinctive, tasty real ale and replace it with ‘easily kept’ heavily advertised, bland tasting nitro-keg beers. The awards are for the licensee’s personal commitment and are not a pub award as such. They also acknowledge the specialised art of cellermanship. This is because real ale requires expertise to prepare and maintain it in good condition whereas nitro-keg beer only requires connecting to a mixed-gas cylinder before selling.

The McMullen family have run the Dog & Duck since 1972 when Marks’ father, David became the licensee. They are now joint licensees with Mark managing the pub, ordering the beer, and looking after the cellar. The pub is a regular entrant in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide and Mark remembers the first cask guest beer that was sold in the pub around 1990 – Theakston’s XB and that was followed by Greene King Abbot.

Black Sheep Best Bitter, Caledonian Deuchars IPA and Copper Dragon Best Bitter are the regular beers available at the pub now. Guest beers are sourced locally, within a radius of some 50 miles around Beverley, through SIBA – the Society of Independent Brewers. Real ales from Cropton, Great Newsome, Wold Top and York breweries have featured recently.

Mark considers the presence of well-kept cask beers served at the right temperature (ie not chilled like lager) to be central to the appeal of the pub. Mark said “Cask beer is a point of conversation at the bar and keeping the beer in good condition gives me job satisfaction”.

The ‘Committed To Cask Award 2008’ was presented to Mark by CAMRA Branch Chairman, Alan Canvess on Saturday 30th September during a Good Beer Guide survey crawl of pubs in the area. A large gathering of regulars and CAMRA members attended, including local member John Ashton, who nominated Mark for the award.