Letter: Stout workers

CARLTON REID recommends us to travel to California to sample real ale ("Lots of beer and no belly", Travel, 4 April); Richard Ehrlich advises us to buy several varieties of beer, stout and lager, all of foreign origin (Review, 4 April). This contrasts with the daily paper's Business section, which has lately been advising shareholders of the Swallow breweries group to reject a proposed management buy-out of the group's two breweries, at Sunderland and Sheffield. Failure of the buy-out is likely to result in the closure of both plants, causing several hundred redundancies. I don't suppose these workers will be buying premium lager, still less holidaying California.

C J REDPATH

Blaydon on Tyne, Tyne & Wear