How it started...
Dave Roberts pulled his first pint when he was just six years old. In that far off time keg beers and lagers were hardly known but bottled beers were still popular allowing the young lad a crate to stand on to reach the hand-pull. His very first memories of beer were in his grandfather's cellar where he remembers him preaching about the importance of temperatures and clean pipes!
Leaving school in the late 60's he rapidly found that the ales of his grandfather's time had all but vanished and recalls with some embarrassment a time in Chepstow when the only pint of ale he could find was so appalling he spent the evening drinking local scrumpy, waking up at sunrise in a corn field. Vowing never to touch scrumpy again he began his sober career as a civil servant in the Welsh Office, a path which ended with him working in Whitehall and inadvertently rediscovering the joys of ale at a time when free houses still existed in the capital.
Pondering his future, one which would inevitably return him to Wales with the choice of beers, even then, restricted to Brain's or Welsh Brewers he heard tell of a guy in Devon who had started his own brewery: in the early 80's it was the kind of thing that "nobody did"! So ever one for a challenge and with no training at all Dave decided that this was what he had been looking for...not so much a religion more a calling. Pilgrim was born.
Starting brewery in the early 80's was really rather difficult because no infrastructure existed to support what he rapidly discovered was a idea which had come of age. It seemed that there were people all over who had had the same idea. These revolutionaries came together to form the Small Independent Brewers Association (SIBA).
Initially just a glorified drinking club Dave, with his Whitehall background, realised that to improve their trading prospect SIBA must become a national organisation and something political needed to be done. The time came when after much pressure the Government launched the 1989 "Investigation into the Supply of Beer". Under Lord Young this seminal work damned the industry as time and again it found areas which worked against the public interest.
Unfortunately many of the recommendations were not implemented, due to political pressure, and an opportunity was lost. However what had been recommended was a sliding scale of beer duty to help support the smaller brewers. Dave took up the fight for this in 1990 and when the Chair of SIBA became vacant he used it to carry the fight to the Government. Finally after years of toiling in the wilderness the new Labour Government accepted the arguments put forward and the PBD scheme, designed by Dave, was implemented in 2002.
In the early 90' Dave and a colleague spent many a long hour thrashing out the ground rules for small brewers when the UK entered the single European market. The most important two decisions taken were to persuade Excise officials the point at which Beer Duty should be levied and how the tax should be levied. The big brewers wanted systems which, naturally, benefited them; the small brewers arguments won the day. Before the introduction of the guest beer laws, a SIBA initiative, Dave provided, the then Secretary of State Peter Lilley the definition for "guest beer" which was applied with great success.
The guest beer laws and sales of public house allowed small brewers to grow in the early 90's but then the situation reversed as larger breweries found many ways of closing the market place. The arrival of PBD saved many from extinction.
David was also European representative for small brewers after his Chairmanship ended helping to create the European Beer Star Competition.
For Dave there was only one way forward and that was to control his own outlet, get a pub. In early 1999 PUNCH offered Dave the opportunity to take a lease of the Rising Sun. Having failed on several previous occasions to get a pub this was a golden opportunity. He grabbed it with both hands suggesting to PUNCH that instead of a simply paint job the only way to get this pub to work was to invest in a far more creative scheme. Together executives of PUNCH and Dave worked together to create the pub as we now know it. Virtually all the ideas for development were Dave's and "feel" of the pub was a balance between traditional English and modern continental with access to the beer garden an important factor for Summer success.
Instead of offering just a limited range he listed beers from around the World importing his own draught ciders and lagers from Europe. A unique institution was created drawing a discerning and appreciative clientele from far and wide. People even moved to be close to the pub.
And now, if Young's take over where will they draw their trade from as sure as night follows day the eclectic custom will fade away as there will be nothing exceptional to draw them to the Riser.
An asset to the community will be lost and Young's will surely lose as well.
How very sad.
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