The Majors:

The past 20 years have been a rollercoaster ride for anyone involved in large scale beer brewing in Britain. Successive legislative changes have driven firms to either move away from brewing beer or to grow their brewing interests into global proportions. The Whitbread group is a good example of the former. Once a large brewing firm, now the company is a big player in the hospitality industry, owning restaurant chains including: Beefeater, Bella Pasta, Café Rouge, Pizza Hut and TGI Fridays.

The latter group, who stayed in brewing are exemplified by Scottish and Newcastle (S&N). In 1985 S&N were a regional brewer focused on Scotland and the North of England, ranked number five in the UK and selling 6 million hectolitres per annum, but by 2005 had become a major European brewer with annual volumes approaching 60 million hectolitres.

The Regionals:

Medium-sized breweries are more commonly called 'regional' brewers, as they tend to have a strong regional presence. The regionals have had to follow clear strategic plans to survive in the past two decades. This has involved, among other things, buying up pub outlets from the major brewing/pub owning firms, as well as increasing production to levels where they gain the benefits of economies of scale.

Brewing vats. Image copyright: Griszka Niewiadomski, from stock.xchng.

In some cases, the larger regionals have made themselves unpopular by acquiring smaller breweries and then shutting them down. The case of Gales Ales in Horndean, Hants and its takeover by Fuller's of London illustrates this phenomenon. The takeover was announced in late 2005; by the end of February 2006, the old brewery closed down for good. This is not an isolated example: other well-known and much-loved small local breweries have been taken over by regionals keen to drive costs down, produce greater output and extend their marketing reach. Both Greene King and Wolverhampton and Dudley have become embroiled in similar protests to those in Hampshire, as they have taken over small local breweries.

The Microbreweries:

With a modern name for a very old business, the microbreweries make small quantities of real ales, offering them for sale through free houses, their own pub outlets, beer retailers and other channels.

Everyone loves an underdog, apparently, and these microbreweries are certainly small-fry, even when compared to the regionals. But these small local firms are credited with a renaissance in availability and demand for distinctive real ales.

At its most opinionated, this sector could claim that it is environmentally beneficial, as it tends to source its raw materials locally, and favours organic methods. It fits in with the drive towards our food and drink clocking up fewer 'food miles', as supplies and the products themselves travel far shorter distances than even regional beers.