Tuesday 29 July 2008

Sobering Statistics




From the Scotsman:

1.6 million
fewer pints of beer a day sold in pubs, bars and restaurants in April to June this year, compared with the same period last year

7 million
fewer pints a day now sold in pubs from the height of the market in 1979

10.6 per cent
fall in beer sales in British pubs between April and June this year, compared with the same period last year

£88 million
less in beer duty and VAT collected by the Treasury in April to June this year, compared with the same period last year

27
pubs closed each week in the UK over the past year

57,000
pubs estimated in Britain in 2008

69,000
pubs in Britain in 1980

350
pubs closed in Scotland in the past two years

78 per cent
fall in profits of major brewers in the UK between 2004-6

The on trade is in trouble and while it can be persuasively argued that by and large the pubs being closed are at the lower end of the market and would have been shaken out by any downturn in social habit and economic fortune, there is a worrying underlying trend for those of us who like to drink beer in pubs.

The 7 million pints less being drunk daily is an astonishing figure. It equates to nearly 25,000 UK barrels a day or the loss of the production of a brewery the size of Highgate, McMullens, or Bathams every day!


4 comments:

Dubbel said...

More than a little alarming. And surely it will get even worse before things begin to recover?

I wonder if any pubs or brewers are bucking the gloomy trend?

Dubbel said...

Yo Tandleman,

We miss your occasional "Around the Beer Blogs" updates. What's happened to them? Since Stonch had a jibe at you for having the last word on the "ale drinker=racist" topic they have mysteriously disappeared.

It's not always possible to keep abreast of everything and your roundups actually introduced us to a couple of very good sites that we may never have acknowledged otherwise. (Plus we've been looking forward to maybe getting a mention!)

Tandleman said...

YCC

Don't worry. My Around the Blogs will be along very soon. As for a mention - well it would be rude not to!

John Clarke said...

And yet - if my ring round local micros last week is anything to go by - craft ale sales are doing very nicely thank you. This is borne out by the latest trade stats showing cask ale only doen by 1.3% compared with the 8-9% drop in other categories.

As far as I can see the decline in both sales and pub numbers is largely being driven by the kag and lager market - both the products themselves and the pubs that sell those products to the exclsuion of cask.