The State Management Scheme brewery, 1916-1971
by Keith Flett
The grip that global big beer has on what is sold and drunk in bars and pubs needs to be challenged and is being challenged. There are some headline issues that can be addressed with modest changes to the existing order of things.
Sir Tim Martin of Wetherspoons is not the most popular of people. However, both he and Wetherspoons do pay significant amounts of tax in the UK. His often-repeated comment that the tax regime for beer in supermarkets needs to be addressed remains a correct one.
Wetherspoons is known for selling keenly priced beer (sometimes to the detriment of brewers where profit margins may be thin) but that doesn’t mean it can’t be bought more cheaply in a supermarket.
Greene King Abbot ale often sells for £1.99 a pint in Wetherspoons. However, four 440ml cans (a little under a pint each) can be bought in a supermarket for £5.75. The cans are drunk at home rather than in the social atmosphere of the pub.
Global Big Beer dominates supermarket beer aisles and operates on the pile them high and sell them cheap model. Smaller and craft brewers don’t get much of a look in and where they do have to stick to that same pricing policy- hitting margins.
A well-known issue is that when a smaller or craft brewer is in a supermarket bottle, shops which sell independent beers will not carry them. They simply can’t compete on the price that is set by the big supermarkets and big beer.
This could be addressed by changes in tax to supermarkets and to a very small extent it has been recently. A lot more could be done. The issue is whether the Government is prepared to take on the supermarkets. So far the view from Westminster has been that they are too important to the economy to prod too much. Hospitality – including pubs – comes second.
A perhaps obvious point is campaigning by groups like the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It has been pursuing Carlsberg for some while but so far the impact does not appear to have been significant. There was considerable local opposition including petitions and media coverage to the closure of Banks Brewery in Wolverhampton, but Carlsberg went ahead anyway.
Campaigning can certainly be effective when a brewer is UK focused. However, when it operates globally the concern about local protests – unless sales are hit – seems to be less.
CAMRA and SIBA (The Society of Independent Brewers) have other campaigning points. One is to reintroduce the requirement for bars to sell at least one locally-brewed ale. This was a provision of the Beer Orders introduced by the Thatcher Government. That restricted the number of pubs breweries could operate as tied houses and opened the way for pub companies. It was repealed in 2003 the view being that the required impact had taken place.
Another possibility is action by Government. This too requires campaigning of course because there are many priorities that Ministers have. Its notable that in France, for example, while Dry January was gaining in support, the Government opposed it on the grounds that it has a negative impact on French business and indeed France’s cultural heritage.
Leaving the merits of Dry January aside, surely a UK Labour Government could be looking to make sure that the activities of global brewers like Carlsberg and Heineken not only create jobs and wealth but also protect the brewing history of the country. What might be called a ‘people and profit’ strategy.
This by no means exhausts the possibilities of what might be done
With both the Beer Orders and Gordon Brown’s action when Chancellor to make it more financially viable for smaller breweries to operate there are now around 1,700 breweries in the UK.
Some are medium-sized, most are small, but the impact of Government policy and taxation are central to their future. There is also however the question of ownership. In some case the people who started breweries are now retiring. The question arises of what then happens.
In some cases breweries have been bought by big beer. Ringwood in Hampshire being one. Brought by Marstons it has now been closed with many of its well-known beers no longer brewed.
A more recent example, and a different way of doing things, is Abbeydale brewery in Sheffield. Here again the original owners have moved into semi-retirement. This hands ownership of the brewery and a pub tap to the brewery workers. The original owners are still involved to make sure the transition works.
Another example of a well-known smaller brewery escaping the clutches of Big Beer is Jennings in Cockermouth. This was swallowed up by Marston’s, the historic brewery shut, and the beer produced elsewhere. Marston’s have now agreed to sell both the brewery and brands to local business people already involved in the drinks trade. This means the brewery will reopen in the summer and Jennings beers will be brewed locally again.
Beyond issues of tax and policy change is also possible from above in the form of planning.
The Carlisle State Management Scheme
The 1945 Labour Government looked to develop a number of new towns. One question was how the demand for pubs and beer would be met in these new locations. A decision was made to introduce a copy of the Carlisle State Management scheme that had been started during the First World War and concluded when the 1970 Tory Government privatised it.
The aim of the Carlisle scheme was both to control the drinking of munitions workers and to provide a good standard of beer and food in well-run pubs. Interestingly in a debate on the issues facing brewers and pubs in the Commons in the autumn of 2024 the Carlisle Scheme was once again addressed.
As a reminder of how long things take to actually happen, by the time Labour left office in 1951 just one pub under the new State Management scheme had actually been built and there was no brewery.
The scheme faced opposition from brewers and publicans. The issue of course was one of State control vs. free enterprise and choice. 75 years on, matters look rather more complex. The lack of choice on the bar top results from the tendency of capital towards monopoly and it’s Government intervention that is required to address this.
The demand is for competition and diversity in respect of beer. However, a discussion on some version of the Carlisle State scheme a century on remains valid. If it was run as a co-operative including existing breweries but with State underwriting, it might be workable.
Whichever strategy or combination of strategies is pursued it comes down to grappling with the forces of market capitalism to replace or at least temper an approach based purely on profit to one which adds in and promotes the interests of people.
EP Thompson noted that after Chartism failed to get rid of a capital-focused economy in the 1840s, the left and labour movement proceeded to warren the system from end to end. That is to build in protections against the market, and the possibilities of limited alternatives to it.
I’ve suggested above a range of ways in which market capitalism in beer can be grappled with. A lot requires change from above, albeit driven by campaigns from below.
It’s also possible from a consumers point of view to escape the pub company chain model and look to support independent pubs. Some are community owned, others run by small businesspeople whose interest lies in a combination of good beer and a decent profit to make sure it keeps flowing.
Much of this if we take the EP Thompson warrening of capitalism model relies on some form of co-operative endeavour but of course there is the question of organised labour and unions. Very few of the big pub chains are unionised while conversely the brewers of big beer mostly are.
One notable development are brewers and brewsters who learnt their trade at Big Beer breweries, and in some cases still work for them, using their skills to run small scale craft breweries. The balance here is making sure that the good beer that is brewed also has an element of the profit that is Big Beer’s bottom line.
In summary a strategy of being in and against the beer and pub industry as it currently exists offers the possibility of progress, albeit perhaps small scale. Modest progress can accumulate into a more significant challenge to the dominance of Big Beer.
