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The Day The Beerage Died
by John Cryne
The Beerage, a term coined to define the somewhat insidious relationship
between Britain's beer barons and various aspects of this country's public
life, especially government, looks to have finally to have drawn its last
breath.
The recent decision by perhaps the two most famous members of the Beerage,
Bass and Whitbread, to exit brewing and hand over 30% of Britain's brewing
capacity to an overseas owner, Belgium's Interbrew, shows just how much the
industry has changed in the last 10 years.
Back in 1990, it seemed so much clearer. Brewing was dominated by 6 giants
- Allied Breweries, Bass, Courage, Grand Met (Watneys), Scottish and
Newcastle (S&N) and Whitbread. One by one they have withdrawn from the
mash tun.
Allied sold one of its breweries to Bass while the others moved into the
Carlsberg Tetley company where only one cask beer brewery survives, Tetley
in Leeds. Allied pulled out of the industry totally by selling their pubs
to Punch Taverns and Bass, leading to the sad closure of the Firkin brew
pubs.
Grand Met exited brewing by swapping their breweries for Courage's pubs. In
1995 S&N acquired the combined operation from its ultimate Australian
owners, Foster's. This was an ironic about-turn as half a dozen years earlier,
Courage had tried to acquire S&N. This made S&N Britain's biggest
brewing group and their wider international ambitions are clear with the
decision to acquire Kronenbourg.
As S&N have moved into mainland Europe, so Europe's largest brewing
company, Interbrew, have moved into the UK to acquire the brewing interests
of Bass and Whitbread. At the time of their sale over 400 combined years
of brewing heritage had been reduced to a pathetic total of three cask beer
breweries, one of which, Boddington's, had been independent until the 1980s.
At a stroke this will make Interbrew the same size in the UK as S&N
although they do not own any pubs, as both Bass and Whitbread have retained
their estates. As no vertical integration is involved, it seems unlikely
the Competition Authorities will block the acquisitions.
With so few cask breweries involved and reportedly all the breweries working
to full capacity, we may not be faced with a further round of
rationalisation. In effect both the selling companies have done their
hatchet work themselves over the last few years, vastly reducing their
operating breweries. Indeed, it might be of some benefit to drinkers to
have the surviving breweries owned by a brewing company rather than by two
operators who had plainly lost interest.
Interbrew describe themselves as "the world's local brewer" and have
promised to be committed to the UK's beer heritage and to be focussed on
local markets. To this effect they have asked for an early meeting with
CAMRA.
Reproduced from the Full Pint, Issue 5.
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