Locked-Down Pub Landlord Insists Beer Would Have Gone To Waste If He Didn’t Drink It All

The landlord of a pub that was closed due to lockdown restrictions has defended his decision to drink 440 pints of beer and cider in the last two months by insisting it would have otherwise only passed its expiration date and had to have been poured down the drain.

Chris Paterson of the Dog and Fox, Manchester, was questioned by local police after neighbours reported seeing a number of empty beer barrels accumulate outside his pub over the course of lockdown.

“I thought he was holding an illegal pub lock-in, and not inviting me,” said Dawn, a local nosey neighbour, who takes pleasure in counting the number of times people have been leaving the house for each of the last sixty days. “It wouldn’t be the first person I’d found breaking the rules either. Arthur from Number 4 was making three trips per day to Bargain Booze before I stepped in and reported him for the good of the nation.”

Police were greeted at the pub’s entrance by Chris who was described as looking 3 stone wider in the gut than when he first had to close his pub’s doors in March. The officers insisted that Chris let them in to check whether there had been signs of other members of the public drinking in his establishment, but they were unable to find any evidence.

“The officers searched the place pretty thoroughly,” explained Chris the landlord. “They just wouldn’t believe that I was the only one responsible for seeing off my beer cellar’s stock. They also recommended that I chill out on the alcohol consumption, but that was before I told them there was one final keg of Guinness lying around, and their demeanour completely changed.”

Chris was unable to recall the events that took place after that revelation was made to the officers. Unconfirmed reports suggest that two similar-looking men to the police emerged from the Dog & Fox four hours later with a significant stagger in their step. The landlord of the pub denies this rumour and maintains that the officers simply left through the fire escape soon after searching the pub, gifted with a packet of pork scratchings for their troubles.