Camra chief urges drinkers to back 'Save our Banks's Mild' campaign and protect Wolverhampton brewing heritage

Mrs Hough urged people to sign the Express & Star's 'Save Our Banks's Mild' petition, saying that Carlsberg Marston's has lost touch with consumers and the passion that exists for Banks's Mild.

Beer lovers across the West Midlands have reacted with dismay to this week's announcement that the beer, famously advertised by Noddy Holder, is to be discontinued in cask form in its 150th anniversary year.

Banks's Sunbeam, a blonde beer introduced in 2011 to attract younger drinkers, will also be discontinued, along with nine other beers.

A spokeswoman for the company said Banks's Mild would continue to be sold in cans and as a 'Smoothpour' keg beer. Sunbeam will also be sold in bottled form.

The news comes weeks after Carlsberg Marston's Brewing Company (CMBC) announced the closure of Park Brewery in Wolverhampton next year, also after 150 years.

Mrs Hough said the decision to scrap Banks's also made little commercial sense at a time when drinkers were looking towards lower gravity, lightly hopped beers.

She said: “The decision to axe Banks’s Mild by CMBC, along with seven other classic British cask beers, is a dangerous step towards destroying Britain's brewing heritage.

“With cask-conditioned Banks’s Mild soon to be unavailable for pubs to order in, this leaves an enormous gap on pub and club bars across the West Midlands and beyond. This is a massive blow for consumer choice."

She added: “This beer with a 150-year history, and a tremendous relationship with people of Wolverhampton and the West Midlands, deserves greater respect and attention from CMBC and highlights how they have lost touch with consumers and the passion that exists for Banks's Mild.

“With consumers beginning to seek out lower gravity, less hopped beers the decision to delist rather than invest makes even less sense.

“Camra fully back this petition to reverse CMBC’s decision to axe Banks’s Mild.”

Chairman of the group's Wolverhampton branch, Mark Hewitt, said the decision to drop the 'irreplaceable' beer, which was Britain's biggest-selling mild ale, left drinkers with little else to choose from. He said it was also a blow to Wolverhampton's identity as a city.

"I'm both angry and saddened at Carlsberg's decision to discontinue Banks's Mild," he said.

"It is an irreplaceable favourite of mine, and many across the generations in Wolverhampton and the Black Country.

"An ending of a tradition and another blow to Wolverhampton's identity.

"Unlike swapping one industrial lager for another, there's nowhere for Bank's Mild drinkers to go.

"This and the loss of the other beers is a blow to customer choice at the bar, sadly inevitable since Marston's got into bed with Carlsberg - I can only hope it doesn't hurt too much those local pubs who are still forced to buy all their beers through Carlsberg, but they will lose some customers who can no longer get their favourite pint.

"Sunbeam, a success story of guest beer brew proving so popular it became an established fixture at the pump, now sadly cut short to the benefit of no-one but some corporate penny-pinchers."

To back the campaign to save Banks's Mild, sign our petition change.org/p/save-our-banks-s-mild.