Officially. Lounges must be open minimum from 6AM to 8PM daily. Hotels must offer a Happy Hour for a minimum of 2 hours sometime between 17:00 and 20:00 daily.

Minimum:

1 White 1 Red
Beer (hotel choice)
Four "quality" sprits like gin, rum, whiskey and vodka
1 cold finger food
1 hot finger food

To my knowledge, any deviation from the above (ie cutting) would require approval of corporate in terms of an opt-out. It's not something the GM could arbitrarily decide.

We just don't know what opt-out's corporate managed Newcastle has.

Its pretty hard to get any kind of feedback sent to brand standards team through Guest Assistance. By all means try, but you may find a frustrating time for someone to understand you. In the end, it would be raised as a complaint about the hotel which actually ends up with the GM and the senior management team at Newcastle (and we all know how they deal with them..). I think if you want to bring brand standard issues to the attention of Hilton you would be best contacting the lovely Lauren.