Over the last two months Greene King has taken a PR battering as its decision to stop serving Harveys in the Lewes Arms caught the attention of the national - and international - press. The company’s aggressive corporate policy of buying up and closing down rival breweries, closing down community pubs it’s bought, and removing local ales from the menus of the ones it deems worth keeping open have been revealed to the world. The story ran and ran, and the company’s reputation got worse and worse. But it appears that the Suffolk-based brewery, despite MP Norman Baker’s eleventh hour attempt to negotiate, are not going to stand down. They have announced that after Friday December 8th Harveys will no longer be served at the pub.

The Friends of the Lewes Arms action group have announced that they will be boycotting the pub, and keeping a ‘vigil’ (ie picket) outside the door, letting would-be customers know exactly what has happened. “The objective of the boycott is to show Greene King, through their till receipts, how strong the feeling is about the issue and how much we disapprove of their actions. The boycott is especially important during the upcoming busy period over Xmas and the New Year,” reads a press release from FOLA. “We continue to hope that sense will prevail and that this boycott may still yet prove unnecessary.” Lewes won’t quite be the same again. See you for a last pint on Friday night? AL