News Archive

NEWS & VIEWS - 20th March 2023Further Reduction In VAT Called For Following the publication of the Budget this week, there are calls across the industry for a further reduction in VAT for hospitality. The Morning Advertiser summarises the argument nicely here:...

NEWS & VIEWS - 13th March 2023Most Pubs Not Passing On Increased Costs To Customers Let's start this week with a report in the Morning Advertiser which states that two thirds of pubs claim to not be passing on the full extent of their cost increases to their...

NEWS & VIEWS - 6th March 2023Staff Retention The Key Let's start today with the Morning Advertiser reporting from a panel at the UKHospitality Workforce and Skills Event, which stated that it is not so much recruitment, but retention, which is the primary staffing...

NEWS & VIEWS - 27th February 2023Beer Rises 8p A Pint The Morning Advertiser reported this week on the Office For National Statistics survey which showed that beer went up on average 8p per pint over the last three months. READ ARTICLEPub Kitchens Close To Cut...

NEWS & VIEWS - 20th February 2023SIBA Calls For Targeted Government Support In the week where it was announced that we are losing the much-loved Unity Brewing, SIBA have called for targeted Government support for small brewers, if we are to avoid further...

NEWS & VIEWS - 13th February 2023Hospitality Sector In Recession This week the Government announced that the country narrowly missed being in recession last quarter. However, the Hospitality Sector was not so lucky, according to the Night Time Industries...

NEWS & VIEWS - 6th February 2023Barrel & Flow Festival We feel like opening with a feel-good story this week. As this is Black History Month, Pellicle have a great article about the Barrel & Flow Festival in Pittsburgh, where each exhibiting Brewery collaborates...

NEWS & VIEWS - 30th January 2023Keeping The Lights On While the Economists might argue about whether or not the country as a whole is in recession, there is no doubt that the Hospitality Sector is mired in an incredibly tough period. The Morning Advertiser has...

NEWS & VIEWS - 23rd January 2023£27.50 For A Pint Of Punk IPA? James Watt is rarely out of the news, and this week he claimed that a pint of Punk should now cost £27.50 if prices had risen in line with Brewdog's energy costs! Watt went on to reel off a shopping...

NEWS & VIEWS - 16th January 2023Scaling Back Of Energy Support No doubt what the big story of the week is. The Govt. announced a scaling back of the Energy Support programme for businesses, stating that the current support was costing £18Bn per year. To put £18Bn...

NEWS & VIEWS - 9th January 2023Beer Predictions For 2023 At Appellation Beer, Stan has a nice round-up of beer writing to start the year, including an interesting look at Chat GPT, which seems likely to eliminate the need for a big chunk of the lower-end of the...

NEWS & VIEWS - 2nd January 2023A Tough Year For Pubs It was certainly a tough year for pubs in 2022! The Morning Advertiser reports on Government data showing an average of 32 pubs per month were forced to close in England and Wales. READ ARTICLEUS Craft Breweries...

NEWS & VIEWS - 19th December 2022CAMRA Makes Plea to the Chancellor Following up from last week, the CAMRA Campaign to force the Government to make an early announcement on energy support has now reached Parliament, and progress is anticipated this week. READ...

NEWS & VIEWS - 12th December 20223 More Craft Breweries Set To Close Only one story on our minds this week, as, sadly, three much loved UK Craft Breweries, producing diverse range of styles announced that they are closing. To Wild Beer, Twisted Wheel and Solvay...

NEWS & VIEWS - 5th December 2022Drinking For England World Cup fever is fully upon us, and the Morning Advertiser reports an astonishing 15M pints are expected to be sold during Sunday evening's England v Senegal clash! READ ARTICLETrying To Survive On the flip...

NEWS & VIEWS - 28th November 2022Not Much Help For Pubs No doubt the biggest story of the week was the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, which contained big tax increases and a decent hike in the minimum wage. It regretfully but did very little in the way of much...

NEWS & VIEWS - 21st November 2022Not Much Help For Pubs No doubt the biggest story of the week was the Chancellor's Autumn Statement, which contained big tax increases and a decent hike in the minimum wage. It regretfully but did very little in the way of much...

NEWS & VIEWS - 14th November 2022Support Needed For UK BreweriesLet's start with both CAMRA and SIBA calling for sector-specific support for UK Breweries to help them through the looming recession. READ ARTICLENo Tolerance For A Bad PintBoak and Bailey give us...

NEWS & VIEWS - 7th November 2022Brits Could Soon Spend £6.9m an Hour on Pints There is no getting away from the cost of living crisis, so we have two perspectives to report today. Firstly, Real Business Rescue has calculated that Brits will be spending £6.9M an...

NEWS & VIEWS - 31st October 2022Social Media's Impact On Craft Beer In the week when Elon Musk has finally taken over Twitter, Jeff Alworth thinks about the impact on Craft Beer, as Social Media becomes ever more fragmented. READ ARTICLEGateway Sours The...

NEWS & VIEWS - 24th October 2022Energy Crisis Worse Than the Pandemic? This week, leaders from the Hospitality Industry gathered in London to discuss the fact that the energy crisis looks likely to be more impactful than the pandemic across the UK sector. READ...

NEWS & VIEWS - 17th October 202250 Pubs a Month Closing in England & Wales Pretty grim news all round this week. Let's start with the news that UK pubs are currently closing at the rate of 50-per-month. However this is a slight improvement on the 20-per-week rate...

NEWS & VIEWS - 10th October 2022Food & Drink Inflation Hits 15% Lots of fairly grim financial forecasts about this week, but we decided to lead with the CGA survey showing annual food and drink inflation in hospitality has hit 15% for the first time. READ...

NEWS & VIEWS - 3rd October 2022Christmas Party or World Cup Football? Let's start with an interesting piece in the Morning Advertiser this week, noting that this year pubs may have to choose between Christmas Party bookings and TV's World Cup coverage READ...

NEWS & VIEWS - 26th September 2022Energy Support Package Lots of Government news that impacts the hospitality sector this week, starting with the Energy support package for pubs that was announced on Wednesday. This should be a big help to viable businesses, but...

NEWS & VIEWS - 19th September 2022Drink Sales Up 10% Let's start with some promising news from the Morning Advertiser, which reported that hospitality drink sales were up 10% in the week to 3rd Sept, compared to last year. Let's hope people continue to drink out...

NEWS & VIEWS - 12th September 2022Energy Price Cap Not Enough? Before the sad news from Balmoral, the big story of the week was the new PM's statement on the energy price cap. Predictably, the hospitality industry doesn't think it is enough. READ ARTICLEPub...

NEWS & VIEWS - 5th September 2022A Bad Year For European Hops This week we had confirmation of what we already suspected - it is officially a bad year for the European hop harvest. Worst hit seems to be the Czech Republic, where the Saaz harvest is down 43% from...

NEWS & VIEWS - 29th August 202275% of Pubs Could Close More accelerated hysteria this week from the Morning Advertiser Survey, which now predicts that as many as 75% of UK pubs could be lost due to the energy crisis. The new PM will have their work cut-out, that...

NEWS & VIEWS - 22nd August 2022On-Trade Drinks Sales Up Mostly good news this week! Let's start with a NielsenIQ survey which showed that on-trade drinks sales were up 4% in the week to August 6th, compared to pre-pandemic 2019, mainly thanks to the Womens Euros...

NEWS & VIEWS - 15th August 2022280 Year Old Pub On The BrinkLet's start with a story from The Guardian which reports about a pub that is closing in Bath, where the energy bills have outstripped staff costs! READ ARTICLECash or Card Also on the subject of UK pubs,...

NEWS & VIEWS - 8th August 2022Inconsistent Terminology Let's start with a nice article from Jeff, pointing out the challenges of inconsistent terminology within the Craft Beer world. READ ARTICLEConfidence Plummets The Morning Advertiser reports that confidence...

NEWS & VIEWS - 1st August 2022Thousands of Pubs Could Close This week the consensus of opinion is that many pubs maybe doomed! The Morning Advertiser places the blame at the door of sky-high utility costs, with a typical boozer now forking out around £7,000 per...

NEWS & VIEWS - 25th July 2022Help for Households Campaign The Government Cost of Living Tsar is urging Hospitality Businesses to join the Help for Households Campaign by offering cheaper meals over the summer, but this time around there is no Government money to...

NEWS & VIEWS - 18th July 2022The Difficulties Facing Hospitality A couple of stories about the difficulties facing hospitality, firstly the Office for National Statistics reports that even whilst the GDP as a whole grew 0.5% in May, hospitality declined 0.2%. READ...

NEWS & VIEWS - 11th July 2022Staff 'nowhere to go' as Gov hangs pubs 'out to dry' The Government has hung pubs “out to dry” by allowing soaring increases to energy costs according to one Somerset-based licensee. READ ARTICLEFourth Brew York venue to open There's...

NEWS & VIEWS - 4th July 2022Taming Inflation? Let's start with the absurdity of the Cost-of-Living Tsar suggesting that we can tame inflation by having businesses give discounts, in exchange for some undefined Government "marketing promotion". READ ARTICLEWho...

NEWS & VIEWS - 27th June 2022Rail Strike Impact As if the Industry didn't have enough to contend with already, UK Hospitality Chief Executive Kate Nicholls estimates that each week of rail strikes will cost the Hospitality sector £540M, based on an estimated 20%...

NEWS & VIEWS - 20th June 2022Pub Sales Fall It's a good job the sun is shining, as there is very little good news to report apart from the weather. The latest CGA Tracker noted that sales at Britain's largest pub groups fell 1% in May compared to 2019. When...

NEWS & VIEWS - 13th June 2022Less But Better Let's start with some good news for Craft Beer. The Drinks Business published a deep-dive this week into the IWSR Drinks Market Analysis, which showed "encouraging signs for the continued recovery and premium-isation of...

NEWS & VIEWS - 6th June 2022Jubillee Weekend DrinkingLet's hope we all did our bit over the Jubilee Weekend to support the Craft Beer Industry. It was certainly needed as it was reported this week that more than half of hospitality operators are unsure if their...

NEWS & VIEWS 30th May 2022The Chancellor's Energy StatementThis week the Hospitality Industry reacted with horror at the Chancellor's Energy statement which focused on a generous handout to public, rather than to business. Whilst it is not the governments job to...

NEWS & VIEWS 23rd May 2022This might be the best article we have linked-to this year on Brewer's Corner! Lose yourself for ten minutes with Jeff in the idyllic World of Norwegian Farmhouse Brewing. READ ARTICLEThe BBPA reports that the 4-day Jubilee Weekend is set...

NEWS & VIEWS 16th May 2022Good news stories are few and far between this week, but here's one. The plan to make outdoor and pavement drinking and dining a permanent right for pubs was included in the Queen's Speech this week. Each outdoor seat is estimated to be...

NEWS & VIEWS 9th May 2022Let’s lead with the sad news over the past week of three English breweries (Kelham Island, Beatnikz Republic and Exe Valley) that are closing. It seems certain that there will be more to come this year, as breweries that have been fatally...

NEWS & VIEWS 2nd May 2022Let's start with good news this week. The Drinks Business reports that industrial action at Budweiser's brewery near Preston is likely to lead to a summer shortage in the UK of various Macro crap including Stella, Becks, Bud and...

NEWS & VIEWS 25th April 2022There are lots of economic data and analysis flying around these days, containing both good and bad news. The Morning Advertiser reports data from Barclaycard showing consumer spending was up 74% over Easter Weekend, compared to 2019....

NEWS & VIEWS 18th April 2022Let’s start this week with the latest data from Lumina Intelligence’s Eating & Drinking Out Panel, which revealed average spend has reduced 9% in the 12 weeks to 20th March 2022. Sadly, this is likely to be a continuing trend...

NEWS & VIEWS 4th April 2022Sacha Lord, the Night Time Economy Advisor for Manchester, is predicting a rise of as much as 20p per pint within the next three months, once the VAT rise is added to inflationary pressures, and after supply chain issues and energy price...

NEWS & VIEWS 28th March 2022The Hospitality Sector reacted with howls of process this week, when the Chancellor declined to extend the reduced VAT rate. This is likely to be the final-straw, for many businesses that were .already teetering on the brink. READ...