Pub cellars left with swimming pools of stale beer to get rid of, peers are warned

UNDERGROUND PUB cellars pose a major obstacle to recycling millions of litres of beer spoilt during the coronavirus crisis, a minister has said.

Peers heard there was the equivalent of around 56 Olympic swimming pools of stale ale in the UK that needed to be disposed of as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown, which forced bars and other businesses to close.

But while there were alternative uses for the spoilt beer, including turning it into animal feed and fertiliser, a significant problem was removing the hefty kegs from underground cellars, according to Environment Minister Lord Goldsmith of Richmond, inset.

He highlighted the difficulties faced as he was pressed in the House of Lords over preventing waste in the pub industry as a result of the pandemic.

The hybrid proceeding of the upper chamber was told that options for the unsaleable beer included turning it into animal feed or sending it to anaerobic digestion plants to produce organic fertiliser and a methane-rich gas. Lord Goldsmith said: “There are 47,000 pubs across the UK and between them they have around 140 million litres of spoilt beer which needs to be cleared from pub cellars to make way for fresh stock. That’s the equivalent of around 56 Olympic swimming pools. But there are enormous difficulties in relation to disposing of spoilt beer.

“The main obstacle is they require beer containers to be removed from pub cellars.

“Around three-quarters of pub cellars are subterranean. Most are designed to allow full containers of beer to roll into the cellar using gravity.

“Given each one weighs around 70kg, taking them back out is at least a two-person job and under current conditions, that obviously presents logistical and health and safety challenges.

“For pubs with street-level cellars it may be easier to send full containers of beer for repurposing elsewhere.

“We are actively working on finding alternatives to simply disposing of beer down waste systems.”