The changing structure of UK brewing and pub retailing

This paper charts the major structural changes that have occurred in both UK brewing and pub retailing during the period 1989-2000. This has been a period of rapid and extensive changes in the UK brewing industry culminating in the strategic decision of two of the nation’s biggest breweries to sell off their brewing operations and, in the case of Whitbread, to sell off their public house estate and concentrate on their hotel and leisure interests. A key theme in the restructuring of the brewing industry has been the rapid consolidation of the brewing sector in an attempt to achieve economies of scale in production, distribution and marketing. This paper attempts to analyse the changes in the UK brewing industry from 1989, the year of publication of the MMC’s report, The Supply of Beer – A Report on the Supply of Beer for Retail Sale in the United Kingdom, which could be regarded as the catalyst to the restructuring of the UK brewing industry.