Brewery closures continue apace, and there may be more to come

Not surprisingly 2022 has been a bad year for the UK’s brewing industry, with the combination of sky-high energy prices, high inflation, rising interest rates and supply chain difficulties all contributing to the closure of over 60 breweries. The number is still rising, and includes some pretty big and well-respected names, and at the moment we don’t know where or how, it’s all going to end.  As I've written before this wasn't how we were supposed to have come out of COVID, in fact many pundits forecast a booming economy against a background, of “bright sunlit uplands.”

Now we've heard these promises of a sunny future before, most noticeably from the opportunists, political careerists, and spiv hedge-fund managers, who brought us the failed experiment that is Brexit. Now, after dismissing very real concerns from those who could see the very real dangers from us cutting ties with our closest neighbours, in the world’s largest trading block, the UK economy has tanked, trade and investment are down, whilst company failures and bankruptcies are up. “Project Fear” has definitely become, “Project Reality!”

Aside from Brexit, one of the main driving forces behind these negative events has been the illegal, and totally unwarranted, invasion of a peaceful country (Ukraine), by its larger neighbour – Russia. Led by gangster, war criminal and former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin, a man who thinks he’s Peter the Great - Ivan the Terrible, would be a much more appropriate moniker, the war in Ukraine has been responsible for rocketing energy bills, supply chain disruption, destruction of property and infrastructure on a massive scale, plus the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. (I am including the deaths of combatants, on both sides here, as a large proportion of the Russian forces will have been unwilling participants in this debacle).

Ten months on, and the conflict shows no signs of ending, despite Ukrainian forces having given Putin and his rag-bag army a well-deserved kicking. It seems that we never learn the lessons from history, because once again, a crazed dictator (think Hitler, Stalin and all the others), has been allowed to wage war, on a peaceful country, bringing misery and destruction on its inhabitants. One man is responsible for this and, as history has shown, it always is a man, because women have far more sense.

The repercussions from both these events, continue to exert their negative influence on the UK economy, but the situation has been made far worse, by one of the most inept governments in living memory. Can you imagine any other responsible western administration crashing its own economy for some warped economic fantasy centred around massive tax cuts for the super-rich, financed by massively increased borrowing? The reputation the Conservative Party once had for careful management of the nation’s finances and responsible government, went out the window with the reckless budget of Liz Truss, and her hapless chancellor, Kwazi Kwarteng.  

Britain today is not a happy place, and it is against this background of rising prices, broken supply chains, falling demand caused by consumers tightening their belts, that we are witnessing this round of bankruptcies and brewery closures. Some of these involve large and long-established companies, but most concern small and often quite recent start-ups. It’s got to the stage that hardly a week goes by without news another closure or two.

I thought it would be interesting to discover exactly how many breweries have closed this year, and fortunately the good people at Beer Nouveau, have done the research, and published the full list, here on their website. There are some real surprise, including Truman’s (the re-launched company), Box Steam, Slater's, and Linfit, to name but a few, but there are also much larger concerns, such as Jennings, Caledonian and Dark Star, where breweries have been closed by larger, parent companies intent on making cost savings.

The closure of Jennings and Caledonian is particularly sad, given their long pedigree and 19^th Century origins. The same also applies to Truman’s who, at one time, were one of the largest, and most famous breweries in Victorian London. Their Brick Lane Brewery, in London’s East End, closed in 1989, but in 2010, a new start-up acquired the rights to the Truman name, and brought back some of the beers. Unfortunately, the revived brewery closed in June 2022, as a result of the pandemic.

The closure of the other, mainly much smaller breweries is also sad, especially as many are start-ups, where people have poured their hearts, souls and very often their life savings as well, into getting these new ventures off the ground. It’s true to say that not all of these companies operated from a sound financial basis, and some may have been living on borrowed time. It’s also true that for the last decade or so, industry observers have been predicting a fallout in what was seen as a very overcrowded small brewery sector.

Some of these closures then, should not come as a total surprise, but what was unforeseen was Putin’s warmongering and reckless gamble in Ukraine, which has compounded the weakness of the UK economy. I don't think anyone is sure how this is going to play out, although the best short-term outcome would be a defeat, and total collapse of Putin’s Russia, followed by the return of peace and stability to Ukraine. However, even if the war ended tomorrow, there is a massive task ahead in trying to rebuild Ukraine’s shattered infrastructure, housing stock and economic base.

In the meantime, it's a case of the rest of us sitting tight and offering as much help and assistance to the Ukrainian people as we can. As for the closed breweries, some of these will be missed more than others, but each closure represents a lost opportunity, a lost dream, and a sense of failure for the people involved. The only crumb of comfort, is this cull, may have thrown a lifeline to those breweries that are still trading.

They are said to number over 2,000, a figure that would have been unimaginable, back in the 1970s, when the Campaign for Real Ale first set out it stall. I’m sure that many of you will have treasured favourites amongst the rich portfolios of the remaining breweries, so until better times arrive, not just for the brewing industry and hospitality trade, but for the world in general, let us raise a glass or two to the brave and hardworking souls behind all brewing companies, both past and present, who have given their all in making the lot of the beer drinker a better one.