Jonathan Adnams and Simon Loftus may be chalk and cheese. Bu

When Jonathan Adnams takes over from Simon Loftus as chairman of the family business next year, it will crown a remarkable period of transformation in the history of this rather remarkable firm.

For, hard though it is to imagine today, not much over 10 years ago in the dramatic words of the current chairman, "Adnams faced extinction". Its wholesale operation had hit the rocks. And although pubs and brewing were in decent shape, the company was haemorrhaging cash disastrously.

What followed was little less than a full-scale corporate makeover.

Wholesaling went, and Adnams embarked upon a voyage of re-invention that would see it embrace progressive corporate concepts such as environmental sustainability and social responsibility, as well as adopting best business practice methods in relations with staff, suppliers and the local community.

At the same time, Adnams rethought its entire marketing strategy and came up with one of the most successful rebranding exercises of modern times in its Beer From The Coast campaign. And, crucially, at the heart of this renewal was a consistent programme of brewery redevelopment, which modernised the 130-odd year infrastructure ­ and allowed its distinguished head brewer to produce some of the finest ales in the world today.

In 1998-99, just before "Coast", Adnams was selling 56,000 barrels a year. Now that figure is 92,000 and rising. With turnover up to around £50m, operating profits healthy again at about £3.5m last year and return on capital a respectable 19%, the bad old days of the early-to-mid '90s are long since banished.

New vision for the future

Credit for creating a new vision for the future goes, all agree, to Simon Loftus. Without his ability to articulate the values that Adnams should stand for, it's doubtful the company would have enjoyed the success its efforts have reaped in the past few years.

But if Loftus had the vision, the man poised to succeed him made it happen. Jonathan Adnams, at 48, 11 years his junior, has been driving the business, restoring the balance sheet and looking after the nuts and bolts of the operation with increasing authority over the past 10 years.

First as technical director, then tied trade estate director and from 1997 as managing director, Jonathan Adnams has been focussing hard on getting the essentials right. He's been particularly influential in re-engineering the brewery, and developing its capabilities and capacity.

The news this week that the company is to spend up to £6m on a new distribution centre just out of town and a further £3.3m on a new brew stream operation is testament to his clear-sighted approach to the technical problems of modern brewing, of which more later.

How well the incoming chairman will make the transition in August next year from hands-on managing director to a more reflective, slightly distanced role is, at this stage, a matter for pure conjecture. But what makes conjecture so fascinating is that the contrast between the personal styles of Loftus and his successor could hardly be more marked.

Loftus ­ patrician, Cambridge-educated, acclaimed author, Aldburgh aesthete and earring-sporting founder member of the Groucho Club; Adnams ­ public school drop-out at 16, North Sea dredgerman and commercial fisherman, HNC in mechanical engineering from Norwich Poly, veteran of nearly 300 lifeboat rescues and aspiring banjo player. It's clear that though their grandfathers were business partners who established the brewery, there's no shared gene pool.

A strong inner confidence

But if anyone thinks the new chairman might be light on the vision thing, think again. Jonathan Adnams talks every bit as confidently about the future and where the company is going as the current chairman. And he talks fluent modern business parlance, too. Perhaps that's not surprising, for he has the late-starter's enthusiasm for self-development and has been attending week-long strategic courses twice a year at Ashridge for some time now, as well as availing himself of the services of a life coach from the same college.

It's this familiarity with management theory that helps bolster his confidence for the new challenges that lie ahead (and which, incidentally, say insiders, has made him far more outgoing and less introspective than 10 years ago). And it's certainly a strong inner confidence that convinces him the new responsibilities will not change him. "No, I'll definitely not change," he responds. "With me, it's a case of what you see is what you get." Which will be just fine for the people around him, who like his no-nonsense, hands-on, ride-the-drays-at-Christmas style. He is definitely not the type to insist staff address him, old-family-brewer style, as Mr Jonathan.

Ask him to define next year's role, and the answer rolls out smoothly. "I see my role as chairman to be leading the strategic debate, leading the executive team, leading the board, and networking and communicating internally and in the wider world. And it's also about standing back from the day-to-day and thinking strategically."

Does he feel Simon Loftus will take well to his future role as a non-executive director? "No doubt there'll be a period of adjustment," he responds wryly. "And no doubt that applies to me as well. But one makes that adjustment." His team as well as friends across the industry will be fascinated to see how he makes this adjustment, particularly towards being a high-profile figure in the way Loftus operated.

Whatever happens externally, there's unlikely to be a new vision for the company ­ and why should there be when the current one is fine. But that's not to say that Jonathan Adnams will be content just to tick over.

Exciting developments ahead

The new distribution depot and brewing plans herald some exciting developments in the near future. Although the plans are still under evaluation, he will probably put to the board proposals for a £3.3m state-of-the-art new wort stream, of the kind he's seen on his regular trips to Continental breweries such as long-term partner Bitburger. It will allow head brewer Mike Powell-Evans ­ described by beer afiçionados as "a genius" ­ to brew weisse, or wheat, beers, organic beers, rice beers and other exciting specialty products.

Listening to him discourse on the rich potential offered by new equipment provides an insight into his deep interest in the mechanics of brewing. "Our wort production kit is old and needs replacement. But we've decided not just to replace it with a new form of what we've already got. Brewing engineering's come on a long way in the past 200 years! And we have to consider what we want to be able to do in the future, and what we might have to do.

"Say the EC changes the laws on what malts or cereals we can use, that could have a major impact on mash tuns. At the moment, we can only use very highly-modified English malt, but if the EC shifts towards use of different malts, or we want to produce different types of beer, we'll need different plant. There are just not that many tunes you can play on a mashtun. The European brewers probably think we live in the dark ages. So we're looking at equipment that will be the equivalent of a modern cooker compared to our mashes, which are like a pot full of water on a bonfire."

The new depot, which will be one of the most environmentally-friendly buildings in the country, will save about 49 lorry movements into Southwold a day. And it will create space for new racking and possibly kegging space, as well as allow 24-hour working if necessary.

Though driven primarily by the need for a growing company to keep on good terms with its neighbours, the depot's logistical benefits will greatly assist Adnams' efforts to strengthen relations with pubcos everywhere. And for a company deriving more than half its total turnover from beer sales to the freetrade and national accounts, that is clearly a sensible step.

Fantastic beer ambassadors

Many of the pubcos are "fantastic beer ambassadors" say