Busted breweries and orphan tap rooms
By Phil Mellows
It can’t have escaped your notice that a lot of breweries have been closing lately. Here at British Beer Breaks, we see our role as celebrating the variety of beers and drinking places out there, accentuating the positive, as the old song goes. But we can’t completely ignore what’s happening.
Steve Dunkley at Beer Nouveau in Manchester, who has featured before in this blog, has taken on the painful task of logging the casualties, and has already counted 10, just six weeks into 2023. That’s on top of those that collapsed with gathering rapidity towards the end of 2022.
Businesses do fail, of course. That’s capitalism. But they include some high-profile shockers. Earlier this week, Southampton’s Unity Brewing gave up, announcing on Twitter that the accumulation of lockdowns, rising costs and falling sales made it “impossible to continue”.
Our first response has to be to feel for those who have lost their jobs, their livelihoods, and with the risk-takers who have seen their dreams dashed. More selfishly, we might mourn the loss of their beer.
But hang on. It says here “The Unity Bottleshop & Tasting Room… will continue to trade… under a new brand.”
Since it launched in 2016, and along with its national reputation, a big driver for Unity has been its determination to play an active role in the local community. The Tasting Room, which opened only last year, was a focus for that, as tap rooms are for many independent breweries.
And, according to Beer Today, founder Jimmy Hatherley has plans for a “new brewing project” – though I imagine on a much smaller scale. So that will be interesting to watch.
Then I saw that Old Dairy is advertising for staff. The Old Dairy Brewery in Kent was another ambitious start-up, which saw success in exporting to Europe – before Brexit scuppered that.
The brewery closed last year and I thought that was the end of it. But the tap room in Tenterden has been taken over by another business, which is continuing to brew Old Dairy’s beers and sell them on site – alongside putting on live music and hosting visiting food trucks.
A slightly different example of what we might call the orphaned tap room is on the Blackhorse Beer Mile in Walthamstow, east London, where Big Penny Social, pictured, continues to thrive following the sale of the Truman’s Brewery brand to the people who own the Truman’s Brewery venue in Brick Lane. It’s hosting its first beer festival this weekend, with a great line-up of beers.
Many independent brewers are having a tough time. Unfortunately, we can expect more closures in the months ahead. But we also have reason to hope that the energy and creativity of the people behind Britain’s beer scene will continue to bring us exciting places to drink exciting beers.
And I’m sure there are plenty of you who will get up, get out, and, with our help, make the effort to find them.
Photo © Chris Coulson