Businesses are successful if they provide products their customers want, at a price that’s seen as value for money. It’s not rocket science but so many businesses don’t follow that principle.
The beer market in the UK is in the doldrums, still to recover to pre-Covid levels. Among a range of reasons, my firm belief that our beer market is ‘supply push’ rather than a ‘demand pull’.
What do I mean by this? Bars in the UK are populated by the same beers from the same global brewing companies with little to differentiate between them.
Drinkers want to support local brewers
Listing decisions made for reasons that have little to do consumer demand. A minimum purchase obligation here, a dray efficiency there or the promise of a life-changing piece of dispense kit.
The last people, often considered, are the 77% of pubgoers who want to see local beers on the bar. Or the two thirds of drinkers, according to Kingfisher, who would like to experiment with new brands.
This isn’t a ‘big is bad, small is good’ plea on behalf of Britain’s independent brewers. Beers from global brewers play an important role on any bar but so does a broad consumer choice with many drinkers wanting to support genuinely local independent brewers and their range innovative local beers.
To prove my point, the picture below paints 1,000 words. Take yourself, for a moment, to the heart of the Lake District surrounded by the hills and a day in the fresh air… to a county with more than 20 local independent brewers within easy delivery distance of the pub in question.
What drove the decision to stock beers from a global brewer in a Keswick pub from Reading or Oxford other than one of the logistical reasons cited above. “It’s easier for us, you’ll drink what you are given.”
In the doldrums
Customers can’t have been in the thinking, which is why potential drinkers near me as I took this picture saw the range, laughed and went elsewhere.
The same could apply to any locality across the county – and we wonder why the beer category is in the doldrums.
I won’t embarrass the pub involved by naming it here but I will praise Greene King for its more enlightened approach in a pub nearby. A range of global and GK beers together with local brewery favourites combine to make the Dog & Gun in Keswick the busiest pub in the town.
With trade so challenging, can today’s pubs afford not to give customers a beer range there is strong demand for?
