“A friend” is organising an event at a pub and it would be rather nice to get a barrel of that beer named after a certain Mountain Bike forum (there is a magazine too). Before I he makes an arse of myself himself with the land lord what are the logistics involved with getting a beer sent 60 miles for a one off event? Would it make it cost prohibitive?

I’d like some facts should I my friend bring it up in conversation.

We’ve had a couple of kegs delivered by a local brewery to a house (with all the gear needed to extract the beer from said keg) we were staying at for a stag do, also had them set up at wedding venues. wasn’t silly money, I’ll dig out the details

So as long as the landlord is game, and the brewery of your preferred tipple are game, jobs jobbed

Edit, 72 pint keg for £100, delivered. Was a brewery in staffs though, local to where we stayed, guess that migh be out of radius?

If its a tied house they will only be allowed to sell beer from the brewery that own the pub. If it’s a free house then you should be OK

Is the pub a free house?
If not, it may be tied to a brewery/supplier who would put you on the naughty step for purchasing booze off other people.

If it is, just buy the beer, job done.
The logistics would involve one barrel of beer, one delivery driver and a van.

Getting a keg of beer is easy for home use, I guess with a pub harder depending on business accounts / being tied to a specific brwerey etc. Having said that my local is a brains pub that always has a guest ale or two (Wadworth Horizon at the moment which has been going down a treat in the hot weater 🙂 )

If it’s a private event, it shouldn’t matter if it’s a tied house iirc.

A couple of times, the staff ion a pub I drank in asked me to pick the guest ales because they didn’t know much about real ales (part timers). the list came from a distributor, not a brewery so there were beers from all over. So long as this pub isn’t a tied one, and their chosen distributor stocks or can get your choice of ale, shouldn’t be a problem. Also, there was an Unnamed Ale which the pub could name for themselves and would be delivered with cheap beer pump badges with that name on them.
Anyway, you should just ask, it may be just a box to tick on the order form not arranging a special delivery from the brewery.

Surely the whole concept of a guest beer is that even tied pubs are usually allowed to get one from elsewhere (presumably they are limited in this).

Free house. Always has half a dozen or more guest beers on.

I was just wondering how it was done.

Best bet is you or the landlord call the brewer, smaller more local brewers are more likely options, my local had ‘it’s own ale’ which was just a rebadged standard line from one of the local breweries.

My local (to work) always has a good selection of guests, and talking to the landlord about it he says that as they have a reputation for having a good selection and for keeping and serving it well, then the breweries are usually courting him to buy and sell their beer for them, and he picks and chooses based on what he fancies.

i’d imagine it’s a bit of a buyer’s market, and hence if you ask the Landlord whether he wouldn’t mind getting a barrel of your chosen on for the event, if he then approaches the brewery they’ll probably be more than happy to sell it to him.

contact the brewery, pay them, await delivery.

if the brewery was too far away to make delivery practical, there is a group called the flying firkin which assists in distrubuting beers…