Working with the Forum of British Pubs, a group of small brewers have launched the Small Brewers’ Forum to open the way for locally brewed beers to be sold in all local pubs.
The new forum is positioned as an arm of the already well-established Forum of British Pubs, and will concentrate on breaking the stronghold of the big pub owning brewers in excluding local breweries from supplying to their tenant landlords in favour of the exclusivity of their own brands.
The objective of the Small Brewers’ Forum is to give a strong voice for the growing number of small local brewers who produce less than 10,000 hctl of beer a year and need strong representation to ensure a fair market to operate in.
The Forum will be launching a new small brewer campaign, “Small Brewers, Fighting for Fairness” and will be using its voice to campaign initially on the issues of Small Brewers’ Relief and access to the market.
Many small brewers feel that the Treasury’s suggested changes to Small Brewer Relief will make the job of Britain’s smaller brewers even more difficult, restricting their ability to grow and survive, as well as contributing to a restriction in consumer choice, as they already face issues in access to the pub market.
Jamie Delap of Fyne Ales Farm Brewery, representing the Scottish Independent Brewers Association (SIBA) at the Scottish Parliament stated that, “ Scottish Micro-Brewers are unable to access over 90% of the Taps in Pubs/Bars in Scotland. Bearing in mind Scotland has a greater percentage of free trade pubs, (64%*) than in England and Wales (43%*) this statement highlights a big issue facing Britain’s small brewers!”.
