After a relatively quiet year for obvious reasons, Steel City had a late resurgence in activity starting with the latest iteration of the Megacollab. This year’s concept had been kicking around for a while between Dave, Niall off of the Wellington, and McGregor off of various facey beer groups, and was brewed with Lost Industry, Bexar County, Neepsend, Doomed, Top Rope and Ramsbury, plus Lewy off of Lewis Ryan Art, who designed the epic label. Sour was the aim of the game, with a three day double pitch lacto steep and the addition of grapefruit, redcurrant and an unholy quantity of citric acid. A limited edition spinoff, Drop Acid Not Bombs, was brewed with Lemondrop hops in place of the fruit, with just one keg for the Welly and a few cans produced. Brewday was great fun though rain put paid to the usual barbecue and cricket so instead it was a big pot of curry and a nerf gun battle…
Also release in the autumn was the long-awaited Sour Wars first trilogy, with a keg launch at the Crow followed by cans at selected dealers – Hop Hideout may have a few left though maybe not by time you read this! The variants are: Episode 1 The Cranachan Menace – raspberry, mead and a touch of vanilla in a highland whisky barrel; Episode 2 Attack of the Stones – cherries in a red wine barrel; Episode 3 Orange of the Sith – hurricane sour with passionfruit, lemon, lime and orange in a rum barrel. Planning is now underway for the second trilogy to be brewed shortly and released Autumn 2022. A few kegs of the first trilogy remain for future events planned in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester.
The latest in the frankly ridiculous series of one-off brews with Lucienne off of the Shakespeare surpassed even the previous brews (barbecue stout and hoi sin stout) for silliness, being a branston pickle porter! After ‘deconstructing’ the ingredients of the pickle, Dave and Lucienne procured a load of dates, apples, tamarind, mustard seeds, molasses, brown sugar… even they drew the line at pickled onions though! It was certainly, erm, interesting! Opinion was certainly divided, as expected some low Untappd scores but also some decent scores from those who rated it for what it is – nobody could deny it tasted of pickle! Dave and Lucienne certainly proved that they could, but not necessarily that they should…
Plans are afoot for 2022 including a tonka stout ‘I’ve Had My Fun And That’s All That Matters’ (and a BA version ‘I’ve Had My Rum And That’s All That Matters’), a sour NEIPA ‘Exercises in Futility’, plus Steel City’s first band collab, and no doubt more crazy stuff for the Shakey…
Happy New Year everyone and here’s hoping that at the time of reading this you’re sat in one of our wonderful local pubs enjoying a delicious pint!
At the time of writing, it’s fair to say that our plan is a little bit up in the air as we are doing our best to remain flexible and adaptable in light of ever-changing circumstances, but here’s what we’re hoping you will be able to find on bars throughout February!
Dr Morton’s Duck Baffler (4.1%) is a staple of our range at this time of year, so we’re looking forward to having this Citra single hopped pale ale back in our lives! Also on the pale ale front, we’re teaming up with Charles Faram, one of our excellent hop suppliers, to try out an experimental hop for the next of our Hopback series. Tantalisingly titled CF247, it’s one of the stickiest, oilest hops produced in the UK to date and should hold dank, tropical notes alongside yummy berry flavours.
The next of our Salvation series will be an Irish Stout (4.5%), classic and more-ish with a smooth, roasted malt character and soft notes of chocolate and coffee. Bitter and sweet in perfect balance!
Remember Huckster Cryo, our collaboration with Peddler Market? Well it’s back, but with a new face! We’ve brought it in line with our Brewers’ Emporium range and it will soon be released as Wanderer – Cryo NEIPA (6.0%). The recipe has stayed exactly the same so expect all the juicy, tropical good vibes you know and love.
We’re also lining up some exciting releases in time for Sheffield Beer Week, which we’re really looking forward to in March, so keep your eyes peeled for more news on that!
…And if things don’t play out in quite the way we’re currently hoping, we will of course have plenty of beer out in can too, so please do pay a local beer shop (or our online store) a visit!
I last wrote about Ukraine for this esteemed publication in 2013 – I booked a follow-up trip for 2014, and two days later Russia invaded/liberated (delete as applicable) Crimea, and by the time we were due to fly from Donetsk airport it had been reduced to rubble. The Curse of Unpro strikes again! I then planned a trip in 2020, didn’t end up going, can’t remember why… then last month I was idly browsing Skyscanner for inspiration when I saw Manchester to Lviv, out that Friday morning, back Monday night, fiver each way – I couldn’t say no!
I’ve never been a fan of morning flights, I’d have far rather flown Thursday night, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that… the 0245 alarm to get up for the 0325 train to the airport did nothing to change my opinion though! Flight was pretty empty and so I took advantage of a row of three seats to get my head down for a couple of hours. Landed on time at Lviv airport, showed my passport and vaccination certificate and I was in, no longer have to fill in any forms unlike previous visits. Got some cash out as wasn’t sure how widespread card use would be (practically non-existent apart from bigger hotels and restaurants in 2013) and bought a SIM card (200 hryvnia/£6 for 20GB valid for a month, bargain) from what looked like a market stall selling knock-off DVDs, then went outside and summoned an Uber to town for the princely sum of £3.
I’d done some preliminary research on Ratebeer and Untappd, and for Friday focussed on Untappd ‘verified venues’ (i.e. ones with real time taplists so knew what beers were available). First up was the Drunken Duck, nestled in the old town, a smallish place but with about 16 taps and a fridge of interesting cans and bottles, the food looked good but I didn’t have time to partake. As well as the 0.3l and 0.5l measures seemingly standard in Ukraine, they also offer 150ml (just under a third of a pint) so I set about trying as many as possible in the time, as well as grabbing a couple of ‘train beers’ for my journey to Ivano-Frankivsk. I tried a couple of sours, but they missed the mark a bit with some odd aftertastes, several stouts and porters, and a somewhat bizarre Borsch (yes, as in the beetroot soup!) gose from Red Cat.
From here it was a short walk to Choven, a few steps down from the street in an old building, and with 18 taps of local craft. I didn’t have long here so I focussed on having a beer from each brewery I hadn’t encountered at the Duck. This led to a variety of IPAs, an imperial stout from Gentlemalt, and the best beer so far Ten MenNot For Breakfast, a raspberry sour absolutely packed with fruit.
Third and final bar for the day was Lviv Craft Beer University of St Christopher, another downstairs bar, where among others I had Double Travmato from Didko, Hot Salsa V3 from Hoppy Hog and Blackberry Rolls stout from Kyivska Manufaktura. The former was one of several beers I found made with tomatoes, seems to be a big thing over there, but what can I say when I just brewed a Branston Pickle beer…
I then took the train to Ivano-Frankivsk, again far easier than previous trips – in 2013 you could book online but had to take the booking to a ticket office to get the actual ticket issued, and in 2008 there was no online booking at all, you had to go to the ticket office to try to communicate what you wanted, and if you resorted to writing it down it had to be in Cyrillic… now you simply book online and show your ticket on your ‘phone to the provodnik/provodnitsa (each carriage has its own attendant) along with your vaccination certificate and you’re good to go. Another advantage of the online booking is you can choose your place, so I’d made sure to pick a compartment with nobody else in. Drank my train beers, an excellent Black Bean tonka imperial stout from Varvar, and Apricot Sorbet Sour from Underwood.
Arrival at Ivano-Frankivsk was around half an hour late, unusual for Ukraine, and by the time I’d walked to Hotel Nadiya and checked in it was past 11pm and as I’d been up since 3am I called it a night rather than seeking any of the bars, even though they were close to the hotel.
Saturday I partook in the excellent buffet breakfast at the hotel (it cost 50p more to book with breakfast than without so I had to get my money’s worth…) before heading out to explore the surrounding area – train to Vorokhta, another to Kolomiya, then a third back to IF to complete a triangular trip. Not much beer-wise at Vorokhta but was a scenic journey. At Kolomiya there’s nothing on Ratebeer or Untappd, but I stumbled upon Beer Zhe (Beer Men) opposite the station, a ‘draught bottling’ bar similar to the one I discovered in Luhansk in 2013, where beers are dispensed from kegs into PET bottles between 500ml and 5 litres, so I got a couple of small bottles for the next leg of the journey, nowt special, just a couple of pale beers from a local brewery.
Back in Ivano-Frankivsk, I had intended to go to the Tsypa Taphouse, the highest rated bar on Ratebeer, sadly at some point in the last two years it seems to have closed down. However I found a few other bars to keep me occupied for the evening and Sunday. First up was Pivni Klub Desyitka, an underground bar with a glass street level entrance not much bigger than a ‘phone box, indeed I walked straight past it before I knew what I was looking for, once inside it’s got a kind of German brauhaus feel. Only three craft beers so didn’t stay long, these were Hoppy Lager and Milk Stout from Varvar and Kohane lager from the bar’s eponymous local brewery but not actually onsite.
I then went in search of brewpub Pinta Pab, I found a pub in the right place but called Fyst Pab, guessing recently taken over as Untappd still showed the former identity. Similarly the house beers appeared as Moi brewery but on the beer menu were shown as Fyst Pab. Of their own I tried IPA One, a fairly 2005-era East Coast IPA being dark amber with sweetness and bitterness, and Stout, then from the guests had Apache red ale from Stanislavska Galba and Medova Rosa amber lager by Good Brewery.
Gost Bar is a fairly modern looking bar and has a couple of craft beers on draught, I had GonirIPA before moving to the fridge or bottles of MOVAStout V and CNRIPA. I got chatting to a local at the bar who spoke very good English, and she told me a couple of other places to try that weren’t on my radar. The first of these was Prom Bar, in a multi-outlet factory conversion – from outside it looks almost derelict with almost every window on the lower floors smashed, but the top floor has been renovated in a similar vein to Cutlery Works. At the far end is the bar, I only had time for a quick sour from 2085 brewery before they closed at 2100.
I ran out of time to visit Copperhead brewpub but had tried a couple of their beers in Lviv at least so my final stop was another brewpub, Bartik. The brewery is visible behind the bar, and a number of beers were available. Luckily they did a ‘desyitka’ (tasting board) of 6 x 150ml, unluckily it included the Ginger Ale! The beers were fairly German in style, apart from the last one I tried, Kriekbier, it lacked the sourness I could tell it was aiming for but was at least not alcoholic cherryade as so many non-lambic ‘krieks’ seem to be.
Sunday night I took a train back to Lviv, alas rather busy so I couldn’t get a compartment to myself, but still managed some sleep. After three days of cold but crisp dry weather, Monday was decidedly damp and later turned to snow. I spent the morning being touristy before heading to Re:Bro for lunch. This is a fairly modern setup, with a kitchen offering a wide range of traditional Ukrainian dishes as well as burgers, pizzas etc, and a bar with a dozen taps. Unusually, 0.5l is the only measure offered, but as prices were around 70-80 hryvnia (less than £3) it was no big deal, just meant I didn’t get to try as many beers as I would otherwise, just had the two sours: Didko Never Again, a citrus sour, and the slightly crazy Odd Brew (aptly named!) Smth Odd: Sea Buckthorn Tonka Lactose El Dorado Sour, which was very fruity, slightly sour with a sweet edge from the lactose and tonka.
Next I walked to Lemberk, only to be defeated as the opening hours on google turned out to be incorrect, and it wasn’t open. Luckily, next door was Krani, another ‘draught bottle’ shop plus also had cans and bottles in fridge. I bought three draught and a couple of cans, drinking the draught ones as I walked to the next bar as I’m classy like that…
One of the few Ukrainian breweries known outside the country is Varvar, not seen them on sale in the UK but used to be able to order from Dutch website Beerdome until they stopped shipping to the UK for some reason… They have a taproom in Lviv (as well as at least Kyiv and Odesa), Mad, which is arranged over 5 floors, the concept being each floor up is higher in alcohol, so the beer bar is on the ground floor, then the wine bar, finishing with a spirit bar on the top floor. On this occasion I stayed on the ground floor, trying a couple of Varvar’s IPAs and taking away a bottle of a barrel aged wild ale which I ended up drinking at the airport.
100 yards from Varvar and opposite the impressive Town Hall in Rynok Square is Pravda Beer Theatre, formerly a brewpub but with the beers now brewed elsewhere. Beers are mostly served from tanks, and many are Belgian styles, not really my cup of tea but I had to try a couple, plus a mint wheat beer!
Less than half a mile from there are two more bars on the same pedestrianised street, where I was to finish my trip. First up, Bratyska is a fairly industrial looking bar, a dozen taps, I went for Copperhead Triple Berry Sour, Kyiv LocalMango & Passionfruit Sour and MOVAC.C.Citra IPA. Finally a few doors down is Zolotij Kolos (‘Golden Ear’), a beer and pizza place with a superb range of both, but one thing missing – seats! I’d been looking forward to sitting down with a few beers and a pizza but they only have standing tables, bizarre. Still the pizza was good, and I had some good beers including Volta Sangrita Red Orange Gose, Bad Beaver Double IPA, 2085 14 Kveik Vanilla Lemon Tart sour and finishing on another excellent smoothie sour from Ten Men, my favourite brewery of the trip, Berry Smoothie: MBR Blueberry Raspberry Marshmallow Gose.
All that remained was a Bolt to the airport, drink my remaining bottles and cans, and fly home… on the Saturday I’d seen the news that the PCR test scam was coming back and this time with quarantine requirement until result, fortunately by Sunday it had been clarified this would apply from 0400 Tuesday, so I beat the deadline by just a few hours! Another quiet flight back, making the last train to Sheffield by the skin of my teeth (why TPE can’t run a later train I don’t know, given how many flights land late at night…). An excellent trip overall, I’ve always enjoyed Ukraine and now it’s easier than ever to get to, and easier when you’re there (Bolt and Uber so much easier than communicating directly with drivers who speak no English, cards taken most places, SIM cards easy to acquire so can use google maps etc), and still cheap as chips with craft beer mostly under £3 for half litre (and unlike the neighbour to the west, smaller measures are correctly priced pro-rata), good hotels around £20 a night, a 12 hour overnight train in a sleeper around £20, Uber/Bolt £1-2 a ride, local trams and buses 25p a ride, etc. I can thoroughly recommend a visit and intend to head back early next year, Covid-permitting.
2021 – the year of our 25th anniversary! I think it’s fair to say it hasn’t been quite the year we’d planned (a Zoom night in, whilst very enjoyable – and you can watch it here – wasn’t quite the party we’d had in mind!) but we’ve made the most of it, we’ve celebrated in as many ways as we could, and most importantly we’re still here and ready to roll into 2022.
In amongst all the uncertainty and challenges, we have a lot to be positive about and thankful for. We’ve brewed over 2 million pints this year – mashing in over 330 times across a whopping 82 different beers. This means we’ve managed to increase our production levels back above those seen in 2020 by around 20% – although we’re still approximately 35% down on what we brewed in 2019. Cask now comprises just over 70% of our total output.
The beers we released in celebration of our 25th anniversary were definitely some of our highlights – bringing back popular old favourites Brimstone and Last Rites, plus twists on some of our much loved regular beers including Cryo Heathen & Double Deception, and some big hearty stouts for good measure. And our Funk Dungeon project joined in the celebrations too, including our first big bottle releases with the launch of our Cellar Master’s Reserve series (stay tuned for more of these to come!)
The cornerstone of our Brewers’ Emporium range, Heathen has had quite a year too, with Fresh Hop Heathen making a guest appearance as well as Cryo Heathen – which we’d initially intended to be a special brewed just for our birthday, but which you all loved so much we had to do again in the autumn! We’ve got a few more twists on our APA up our sleeves for 2022, so watch this space. And Moonshine is still by far our most popular beer, making up more than 4 of every 10 pints we make (although pre-Covid it was consistently over 50% of our total volume, which is a good reflection of how much we’ve diversified in this ever-pivoting world!).
Our canning line, which you may remember arrived in the first few weeks of lockdown in April 2020, continues to prove itself a very valuable part of our team. We’ve released 59 different beers in can (over 17,500 cases in total), which accounts for about 16% of our total output – interestingly, a very similar proportion to that seen in 2020. Minikegs were filled with just under 1% of everything we made… which is almost the exact same figure as what we were releasing in keg just 7 years ago – how far we’ve come!
We added some wonderful new members to our team this year, with Chris and Ewan adding to our little fleet of drivers who’ve been busy meeting and delivering to our 1000+ direct pub, bar and beer shop customers, and Ash, Thom and Dan joining our brewteam. They’ve all settled in brilliantly and we’re looking forward to them creating and sharing their first recipes in 2022! This little bit of this post does also give us the opportunity to do a huge shout out and enormous thank you to our wonderful staff: it’s their flexibility, patience, ingenuity and willingness to do whatever they could to keep us moving forwards and working together which has guided the business through these very challenging times. This of course includes the fantastic team at our pub, the Rising Sun, who have coped admirably with changing regulations throughout the past couple of years and continually provided a warm, welcoming atmosphere at the heart of the community.
And on the topic of new additions, in March, our designer James and his wife welcomed their baby boy Phoenix Johns Murphy to the world… so it was felt the naming of our last Geoglyph beer would be a suitable way of celebrating his arrival! The beers within this range of pale ales were all named after constellations that correlate with the Nazca lines of Peru (more on the series here). No Phoenix Geoglyph exists, but James wasn’t about to let that get in the way of his artistic vision and so created one! The actual Phoenix constellation can be found in the Southern Hemisphere during the winter months.
Collaborations have been a little trickier to co-ordinate this year, so have played a smaller part in our production than we’d have hoped, but we have loved hosting Queer Brewing along with Out & About Sheffield to create two beers with us (which have also been raising money for local organisation SAYiT, who we will be making a donation to early next year), and we’ve also made an as-yet unreleased cider-beer hybrid with the excellent Ascension Cider, so look out for that one in 2022. In addition, we have welcomed local tea purveyors Batch Tea Co and members of the Institute of Brewing & Distilling to brew with us over the course of the year. Our team have visited other breweries as far afield as… erm… still Sheffield, making a mountain IPA with our pal Scott, previously of Team Abbeydale and now head brewer at Heist, and also venturing down to London to create a Margarita inspired Gose with ORA Brewing.
For obvious reasons, events have also been just a small feature of our year, but we were privileged to be selected as one of three breweries to create a nationwide collaboration for Indie Beer Shop Day, producing a special beer to celebrate the wonderful independent beer shop sector in the UK. And we did manage to celebrate Funk Fest in style – this year we went mixed venue for our mixed fermentation celebration, with Sheffield becoming a city of sour for Halloween week! Looking ahead to next year – if, fingers crossed, things return to whatever anyone can remember as normality, we WILL be having that big party for our 25th-and-a-bit birthday! And hopefully will be able to get out and about a little more to say hello to you all in person too.
An ENORMOUS thank you to everyone who’s supported us this year – whether that’s as one of our amazing trade customers, by buying a pint in a pub, some cans from our shop or one of the fantastic retailers we supply, or simply sending us a little hello on social media – it really is hugely appreciated by us all. We’re a team that love what we do, and we hope that shows in the beers we produce. Once again, our staff, industry peers, customers and community have shown what an adaptable, resilient, imaginative and overall really rather wonderful bunch they are, and it’s that which has made our 25th birthday year one to remember.
A mid-December London trip by committee member Paul Manning and his wife Bev
Our long arranged trip, which coincided with the start of Omicron, got underway after boosters and negative lateral flow tests, with a train journey from Sheffield to St Pancras on a sparsely populated East Midlands train. We were in need of some refreshment on arrival so went in the Barrel Vault Wetherspoon’s on the station where we had a couple of pints of Winter Star (a dark winter ale) and Naked Ladies (a light hoppy ale) by the excellent Twickenham Fine Ales. Priced at £3.98 it was by far the cheapest beer all trip! A short, even more sparsely populated tube journey took us to Hampton by Hilton London Waterloo, our base for the trip.
South Bank Bev
We ventured out late afternoon and enjoyed a very lonely and quiet walk on the South Bank to meet an ex-colleague and his wife for an evening meal. We called in at the Mad Hatter Fuller’s pub at Southwark for some London Pride and then Blitzen dark ale by Black Sheep Brewery at Doggett’s Coat & Badge. There were excellent views across the river and a number of pop-up Christmas stalls and bars. We sampled one at Hay’s Galleria but it wasn’t cask – an unpronounceable IPA at over £7 a pint. An excellent meal at Côte Brasserie followed with some French bottled beer, which was very nice.
The next day we jumped on a tube for the Bank of England counter where I changed some old bank notes. The streets and shops were eerily quiet with many office staff clearly following working-from-home advice.
McMullen’s Bootwarmer in the Old Bank of England
We called in at the Old Bank of England on Fleet Street, now a McMullen pub, for a pint of their Bootwarmer, a great festive ale.
Memorabilia in the fantastic Edgar Wallace
Southwark Brewing’s Bankside Blonde
Across the road down Essex Street, we went in a fantastic little pub called the Edgar Wallace a regular CAMRA award winner and sampled Bankside Blonde by Southwark Brewing Company. The pub featured an amazing array of drinking and smoking memorabilia on all the walls including brands such as Double Diamond, Babycham and Swan Vesta.
£22 of pie
A quick pint of Wandle by Sambrook’s Brewery in the Nell of Old Drury followed before a visit to the Pie Room, a MasterChef-featured dining room in Holborn where we had a fantastic meal even though the pies alone were £22 each.
La Chouffe in Lowlander
On the way to our evening visit to see the musical Mamma Mia! we stopped off in the Lowlandercraft ale cafe on Drury Lane which served excellent Belgium beers in keg and bottles. We had the delightfully named La Chouffe and Kwak beers and then battled our way through a huge Covid booster queue to the Novello Theatre.
Windsor & Eton’s Mandarin
On leaving we visited a local Wetherspoon’s, the Shakespeare’s Head, for pints of Three Kings by East London Brewing Company and Mandarin by Windsor & Eton – both very quaffable. A quick look around the now much busier Covent Garden ended our evening and visit.
Covent Garden getting busier
London is a fantastic place to visit and seek out some real ales and I’m sure we will be back in safer and hopefully busier times.
A pub company is simply a company that owns pubs and there are literally hundreds of them, many with only a handful or even just one pub. We’ll concentrate here, though, on the bigger companies who, between them, own over half the country’s pubs.
Stonegate
Founded in 2010 with the purchase of 333 pubs from Mitchells & Butlers, Stonegate grew quite slowly over the next ten years, making a series of acquisitions including brands like Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout and Be At One, until its pub numbers totalled 765. All the pubs were managed houses. A seismic change came in 2020 when Ei Group was bought for £1.27bn, making Stonegate the largest pub company in the UK with 1,270 managed pubs and, as a result of the Ei purchase, 3,200 leased and tenanted businesses.
Ei itself had been founded, as Enterprise Inns, in 1991, initially with 333 pubs from Bass. The company built up its estate, gaining 2,200 pubs in batches by buying them from other companies or taking them over. In 2002, 1,864 pubs were bought from Whitbread and in 2004, 4,054 from Unique. By this time, it owned nearly 10,000 pubs and was in the FTSE 100 list of top companies. However, it was loaded with debt and the 2008 financial crash required a good deal of retrenchment. Ei also started building up its managed estate, including pubs on retail agreements under the Craft Union brand (we’ll look at this operating model in the next article). By the time of the sale, it was down to fewer than 4,000 pubs.
Punch Taverns
The first article included a brief history of Punch to illustrate the volatility around pubco development. In summary, it grew quickly to around 8,000 pubs, suffered under the crash, sold a lot of pubs including its managed division and was taken over in 2016. 1,900 pubs went to Heineken and 1,300 to Patron Capital, who retain the Punch brand. At takeover time, all pubs were leased or tenanted but it’s also now pushing retail agreements (which it calls Management Partnerships). Some pubs were sold but in June 2021 it announced the purchase of Youngs’ tenanted division, bringing the current total to 1,282.
Admiral Taverns
Admiral was founded in 2003 by two families and grew quickly to 2,300 pubs by 2007. Many of these were ‘bottom end’ houses disposed of by other pub companies. The financial crash had the usual consequences for over-extended businesses and numbers were down to 1,700 by 2011 and continued to fall. By 2017 it was in the hands of Cerberus Capital Management who sold up to a joint venture by Magners cider-makers C&C Group and estate investor Proprium Capital Partners, by which time there were 845 pubs. The acquisition trail was hit in 2019 with 137 pubs coming from Marston’s and 150 from Heineken. The big one arrived in July 2021 when Admiral bought 674 Hawthorn pubs from property firm New River taking the estate to over 1,500.
Admiral’s pubs are all tenanted or leased and tend to be wet-led community operations. It has a relatively good reputation in the trade though there’s certainly no aversion to flogging off pubs as ‘development opportunities’.
Star Pubs & Bars
In 1995, Scottish & Newcastle, one of the original ‘Big Six’ breweries, bought another of them, Courage, making the combined group Britain’s biggest brewer. By 2011, the pub arm, then known as S&N Pub Co, had 1,500 tenanted pubs and 600 in management. Come 2008, Scottish Courage was gobbled up by international brewer Heineken and the pub business rebranded as Star Pubs & Bars. Many pubs were sold but then, in 2017, as previously mentioned, 1,900 were snapped up from Punch. Again there were disposals and the estate currently stands at 2,500.
Star vigorously promote their retail agreement scheme, Just Add Talent. In 2020, it was fined £2m for breaches of the Pubs Code (which we’ll cover in a later article).
Greene King
In 1995, Greene King was a long-established family brewer with 900 pubs, nearly all in East Anglia and the South-East. It then embarked on a ferocious acquisition trail, swallowing up many breweries (the likes of Morlands, Belhaven, Morrells and Hardy & Hanson) and other pub companies. GK itself is now owned by a billionaire Hong Kong property developer. It has some 3,100 pubs, restaurants and hotels, of which 1,200 are tenanted or leased. Its strategy seems to be to move in the managed direction and the ‘Pub Ready’ retail agreements are pushed hard. GK was once renowned for not letting other people’s beers in its pubs but now have a more enlightened attitude.
Marston’s
The company was known as Wolverhampton & Dudley until 2007 when it rebranded as Marston’s, one of the many breweries it had taken over in recent years. At that time, 2,500 pubs were owned but the total is now down to 1,400. The tenanted estate, in particular, has been reduced through sales such as 200 to New River in 2013 and 137 to Admiral in 2019. In late 2020, the company took on the running of 156 Brains pubs in Wales. Also that year, Marston’s merged its brewing operations with Carlsberg but this does not directly affect the pub business.
Mitchells & Butlers
Formed originally out of the old Bass estate, M&B have 1,650 pubs and restaurants. The multitudinous brands include Ember Inns, Toby Carveries, Nicholson’s and All Bar One – as can be seen, the emphasis is on food. Pubs are mostly managed though around 50 are on a lease arrangement.
JD Wetherspoon
Since opening its first pub in 1979, ‘Spoons has expanded to 925 pubs and 50 hotels, all managed. Plans for 18 new pubs are in the pipeline,
Wellington
Owned by the billionaire Reuben Brothers, the company leases all its 850 pubs on a free of tie basis.
Well, it’s that time of year once more – and we can’t quite believe our 25th anniversary year is coming to a close already! It’s been another wild ride and we can’t thank you all enough for your support. Here’s to the next 25!
Onto what we’ll be releasing for the various upcoming festivities… perfectly pintable Doctor Morton’s Rude Elf (4.1%) and a cheeky Mosaic and Summit hopped Reveller (3.9%) are both making a comeback to take us firmly into the party season. Joining them on the pale ale front are Prophecy (4.5%) and Centennial single hopped Resolution (4.2%). All of these will be released in cask only, so look out for them popping up on bars soon!
We’ve also got a couple of brand new beers being released in keg and can as well as cask – look out for Wilderness (5.2%), a gorgeous soft and juicy New England style pale ale loaded with Amarillo, Enigma and Nelson Sauvin, and Wanderer which this time takes the form of a 6.5% Aussie IPA with Galaxy and Vic Secret hops.
The new year will bring the first of a new series which we’re really excited about – our Restoration series will see modern interpretations of classic and historical beer styles, the first of which will be a light, bright and drinkable 2.8% Table Beer, low in ABV but packed with character from Vic Secret and Enigma hops. If there are any styles you’d like to see us try our own contemporary twist on, do let us know – we can’t wait to see where this range will take us!
Plus as is now customary, the new year will see the return of the ever-popular Citra hopped Doctor Morton’s Duck Baffler (4.1%).
Finally if you’re wanting to get some easy Christmas shopping done, I just can’t resist giving a little shout out to the lovely new merch we’ve got recently, including Deception t-shirts and cosy zip up hoodies – all available on our online shop!
Wishing you all a very merry festive season, and a joyful start to 2022!
A key member of Sheffield CAMRA and of the Sheffield beer festival for around 30 years. Having worked on the set up and take down of many festivals, Martin finally cajoled his brother into joining the cause and promoting real ale in Sheffield. They both then bent my ear until I joined up. This then began my journey and transition from tasteless frothy rubbish into real ale.
Martin was always the first to arrive and last to leave during festival set ups. Working tirelessly to give the attendees the perfect experience and therefore the best possible impression of what we are all about.
He was an absolute brute in the cellar set up and perfect gentleman at the bar, while sipping a dark ale or Old Rosie he presented an imposing figure in long sweeping coats, various hats, a glint in the eye and infectious smile. Picture a cross between Oscar Wild and Jeff Capes via a gothic Doctor Who. A treasure of a man with a rapier like wit, hollow legs and always ready with a story to cheer up the group.
Bring up Martins name to any member of Sheffield CAMRA, his local the Kelham Island Tavern or anyone he knew, I guarantee you will see an instant smile flash across their face, a raise of an eyebrow then a deep breath as they retell a tale of monsters, wizards, warrior maidens and heroes. Or more realistically great nights, brewery trips and days out around Yorkshire hunting out ale hot spots.
The real ale scene, nay the world is a worse place for having lost Martin. Whenever I come across a new cider or rabbit punned beer I will always wonder what you would have made of it and drink to you. The places you loved will stand for years and I will always look for you in the spots where we used to drink.
I loved the time we spent and the fun we had, sadly there will be no more. You leave a massive hole mate. Rest in peace and see you in the KIT, I’ll get the first round.
Noel Nield
I’d like to add to Noel’s words on behalf of myself and the beer festival team.
I first met Martin nearly 20 years ago when I started volunteering for the Sheffield beer festival. He was one of the “gang of three”, big lads, with his brother Mark and mate Noel. In those days we had no lifting equipment and Martin and Noel lifted the full barrels up to head height to fit on the top of the stillage. They’d work away cheerfully all day at was physically beyond the rest of us, with an incredible stream of banter between them. I was in awe of their teamwork. Martin cut an unlikely figure with goth looks and black nail varnish, and he also doubled as our bouncer when the festival was in session, a job he did with ease. Martin was one of the people who made me really welcome when I started doing festivals and we used to spend hours joshing about with his craic and ready humour.
Sundays saw him dressed in his best , looking resplendent in suit and overcoat with his family at the Kelham, looking like a character out of Dickens, again with a lively stream of banter. Once at a Halloween party I was confronted by a bright green man – yes it was Martin in one of his outrageous costumes. His last festival was 2019, and he was recovering from the initial onset of his brain tumour. Physically he could no longer help a lot, but he was determined to turn up for the festival, his ready wit and humour still to the fore. For him the festival was important, a social occasion to get together with the rest of us festival makers once a year and have a good time. We will miss him.
When I see someone out of the corner of my eye buying a pint of Black Mass, and hear a group of mates having a good laugh and joke at a packed festival, I’ll know he’s still with us in spirit.
Rest in peace big man, I feel proud to have known you.
Fuggle Bunny has announced the brewery has been sold as brewer Dave approaches his retirement, although their Chapter One bar in Worksop will continue under the same management. The new owner is Matt, who has been working there for the last six years and he and is wife Laura are now running the brewery with business as usual in both the brewery and tap room, located between Halfway and Killamarsh.
In a post on the brewery’s Facebook page Wendy and Dave said ‘a huge thank you to all our customers many who have become firm friends over the past 7 years. Your support through good and bad has been immense and we would have not come this far without all of you. So from the bottom of our hearts thank you to one and all who has hopped on board our adventure.’
Changing the tax system to better support pubs can help the Great British local thrive – but more pubs, breweries and drinkers should be able to benefit, say CAMRA
Responding in full to yesterday’s Budget announcements, CAMRA National Chairman Nik Antona said:
“The Chancellor has listened to thousands of CAMRA members who have long called for a change in the way alcohol is taxed. A new, lower rate of duty for draught beer and cider served in pubs and clubs establishes an important principle in the taxation system – that pubs are a force for good in our communities and should be supported to help them survive and compete with the likes of supermarkets.
“Our task before this new duty rate is implemented in 2023 is to make sure that the new, lower draught duty rate applies to beer and cider served in smaller containers too, so that as many pubs, breweries and consumers as possible can benefit. We will be using the Government’s consultation on how this new system should operate in practice to make this case.
“In the meantime, measures like duty freezes and a 50% cut in business rates in England for another year will be welcomed. Our pubs and breweries are still recovering from the pandemic, face rising bills and costs and will continue to need as much support as they can get so they can rebuild their businesses and thrive in the years to come.
“Cutting tax for lower ABV drinks will incentivise lower strength alcoholic drinks, whilst new financial support for smaller producers – including cider producers – and continuing discussions around a 50% minimum juice content are encouraging news for both cider makers and consumers. These measures should help to improve quality and choice at the bar. CAMRA will continue to engage with the Government on the planned reforms to Small Brewers Relief and call for a solution that doesn’t require some of the smallest breweries to have to pay more tax.”
