Anyone with a passing interest in beer has probably heard how English pubs are closing at an astonishing rate. The latest numbers say that they are going down at a rate of seven a day.

There are some general culprits that everyone seems able to agreed upon. Increasing taxes on beer, rising unemployment, the smoking ban and increasing prices have driven many a British beer drinker out of the pub and into his home where he can drink beer bought at the store.

Two new culprits were added to the list this week. The British ale advocacy group CAMRA issued a press release this week putting some of the blame on the beer tie system. Under this system pubs are under contract with a bigger company, often a brewery, to share the costs of running the pub. The system allows the company to set prices for the pub owners and, according to CAMRA, they often set prices at higher rates than what exists in the market. This makes the pubs prices higher for consumers and hurts the pubs ability to compete.

The other culprit identified this week in an article from the BBC is the publicans themselves. According to the article pubs are simply failing to give the consumers what they want and are generally unfriendly.

I have to wonder if the writer of that BBC article recently got pissed off because some bartender didn’t serve him quite as quickly as he wanted.

No one knows exactly how to stop this trend. One thing is for certain, a British institution is slowly dying.