Since the previous manifestation of the Guzzler back in nineteen something, there have been some important changes in the beer scene in Lanarkshire. Most of these changes have been for the better.

The most dramatic change is that there is no longer a great desert in the centre of the county around Motherwell and Wishaw. These are both fairly big towns but until recently neither of them had a single pub offering beer that was fit to drink. Now they have reached the dizzying heights of a single Real Ale outlet each. This might seem pitiful to people used to drinking elsewhere, even Glasgow, but compared to what the twin towns used to be like this is serious progress.

This change is entirely due to the expansion of J D Wetherspoons into the area. While the appearance of a big pub company like this might be a mixed blessing in some areas, in central Lanarkshire it has been an unqualified benefit. Obviously the standard has varied as the quality in Wetherspoons pubs does tend to go up and down depending on who the manager is this week. However even at their poorest neither has been outside the ten best pubs in Lanarkshire since opening and at their best they have been able to mount a serious challenge to the George and the St Andrews for the No 1 spot.

Wishaw Malt in Kirk Road, Wishaw is the older of the two having opened towards the end of 1999 in a converted furniture store. It is a single large room but is divided up into a number of separate areas on two levels with a different feel to each area. There is also an outdoor drinking area for those wishing to enjoy Wishaw's legendary weather with their drink.

The Brandon Works opened in Merry St Motherwell on 3 Dec 2001 and between then and the end of that year, the present writer drank more in his home town than he had in the previous two decades. Like its slightly older sister, it is a single large room split up into separate areas on two levels. It doesn't have the outdoor drinking but instead offers the most easily accessible toilets I've ever come across in a Wetherspoons pub - veterans of the Esquire House will surely be impressed by this feature.

Both of these pubs have such big sales of Real Ale that it raises the question of why none of the smaller, local, licensees in the area are interested in selling good beer. They surely don't think that your money and mine isn't good enough for them. Possibly they either think that Real Ale is really difficult to look after or else, going to the other extreme, they think it can be treated as cavalierly as keg. Yet five minutes talking to an existing Real Ale licensee, or even an experienced CAMRA member, would soon put them straight on this. Probably there is more than one explanation (and I would like to here yours if you can come up with one). However perhaps we can learn something from the few pubs around Motherwell that have tried selling beer in the past and have failed. Leaving aside their failure to let anyone other than existing (keg) customers know that they were selling it, the main problem seems to have been the fact that they have tended to take in the kind of third rate ales that are supplied by the big breweries. These are not beers that will stop anyone getting a train to the Bon Accord or the Three Judges. Wetherspoons on the other hand can normally be relied on to offer a selection of beers from the smaller breweres (the ones who care about beer) - if there are less than three microbrewery beers on sale it tends to be a cause for complaining to the management. A bit of imagination on the part of a Motherwell or Wishaw licensee could therefore pay big dividends for them - after all Lynn and Colin have been pretty successful with that formula just across the river. There will be more information about what has happened elsewhere in Lanarkshire in a future edition of the Guzzler. And further in the future, we hope to provide up to date details of changes as soon as they occur.