Good Beer Guide list 84 new breweries

	WHERE ARE THE INDIES?
	Yorkshire keeps its crown as the region with the biggest number of independent breweries with 66. Other well-served counties and regions are: Norfolk (26 independent breweries), Devon (22), Greater Manchester (21), Cumbria 20, Somerset (20) and Derbyshire (20).

September 13, 2006: Consumer demand for real ale has led to the birth of 84 new breweries in the UK that are listed in the Good Beer Guide 2007, published by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

The boom in new British breweries shows no sign of abating as the GBG lists the total number of small craft or micro breweries in Britain as more than 600.

Editor Roger Protz said: “There has never been greater choice and diversity for real ale. CAMRA is celebrating 35 years of active campaigning to save British beer, pubs and breweries, and the surge in new craft breweries underscores everything CAMRA has done to provide better choice for drinkers.

“But the real driving force is consumer demand. The global brewers have turned their backs on cask beer to focus on lager and ‘smoothflow' bitters, but beer lovers want real ale.

"That was shown at this August's Great British Beer Festival, in London, with a 40% increase in the number of people attending, bringing the total to more than 66,000. Some 1,300 drinkers joined CAMRA, boosting membership to an all-time high of 85,000.”

Mr Protz added that the boom in new breweries had been aided by the Government's introduction of progressive beer duty, a scheme that enables small breweries producing up to 60,000 hectolitres a year to pay less duty than bigger producers.

“PBD has been a boon to craft brewers,” he said. “They have been able to invest in new equipment and even buy a pub or two to act as shop windows for their beers."

He described the modern British brewing industry as “excitingly dynamic. Areas that used to be beer deserts now have many thriving craft breweries. Many of these breweries work together to expand their sales - witness for example the East Anglian Brewers' Co-operative that delivers members' beers from one vehicle.

“This chimes with the times - cutting down on road miles and providing beers for consumers made from locally grown, natural ingredients.”

But Mr Protz lambasts the global brewers for turning their backs on real ale and ignoring consumer preference.

“The globals - Scottish & Newcastle, Coors, InBev and Carlsberg - have lost interest in the cask beer sector in order to make bigger profits from processed beers,” he said. “S&N has closed both its ale breweries in Edinburgh and Newcastle to concentrate on Kronenbourg. Its owns John Smith's in Tadcaster but produces most bitter in nitro-keg or smooth form - that is pasteurised and artificially carbonated and then served extremely cold and tasteless.

“Coors, the American owner of the former Bass breweries in Burton-on-Trent, has dumped all its cask brands and has them brewed under licence by smaller regional brewers. InBev, the world's biggest brewer, owned by Brazilians and Belgians, has similarly off-loaded draught Bass and Boddington's Bitter to smaller brewers.”

InBev's interest in the cask sector, Protz said, can be measured by the sad decline in sales of Draught Bass, once worth two million barrels a year but now below 100,000, overtaken by the likes of Fuller's London Pride and Marston's Pedigree.

“In spite of the best efforts of the globals, the future is bright for real ale. The craft brewers are not restricting themselves to just making bitter. Drinkers can now enjoy genuine mild, porter, stout, old ale, barley wine, harvest beer and winter ale. And the emergence of a new style - golden ale - means this really is a golden time for beer lovers.”