WE don’t suppose there are many copies of Darlington Camra’s estimable free publication Darlington Drinker lying around the Traveller’s Rest in Cockerton.

The summer issue skewers the pub and brewer Heineken foursquare over the practice of selling Magnet beer through a handpump.

Those readers not au fait with the niceties of beer dispensing may need some help here. Cask beer, the living unpasteurised stuff championed by the Campaign for Real Ale, is traditionally sold through a handpump. Keg beer, the ersatz pasteurised version brewers and some landlords love because it is easier to brew and store, is sold through a push-button electric dispenser.

A cask beer much loved in the Darlington area for many years was John Smith’s Magnet. Heineken UK, the owners of the Tadcaster brewery, stopped making the cask version at the beginning of this year. But the Traveller’s has continued to sell the keg version through a handpump, which pub regulars Karen and Andy Maughan says is at best misleading and at worst downright deceitful.

The pub says because it doesn’t say the beer is cask conditioned it methods are acceptable. The Maughans, and Darlington Camra, say customers are being conned.

Spectator agrees.

The trading standards department at Darlington Borough Council has hardly covered itself in glory either.

Asked to investigate, its officer declared the Traveller’s was selling Magnet beer through hand and electric pumps and there were no breaches of legislation.

The law is an ass then, and Spectator would welcome any other instances of such dubious pub practices readers may come across.

Footie-free Spectator hopes readers have enjoyed this almost completely football-free edition of the D&S.

However, with the England team having successfully, if haltingly, negotiated their way to the last 16 of the competition, we fear we will have to acknowledge the event’s existence next week.

It was nice while it lasted.