The Publican on....the IFBB
Adam Withrington on speculation of family brewers as takeover targets and what the future holds for the IFBB.
No sooner did we all digest the news of Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries' intention to buy out Cumbrian family brewer Jennings than the business pages of the nationals went into overdrive, predicting the next takeover targets.
And there are a lot of them - Young's, Nottingham's Hardys & Hansons and, if the Financial Times is to be believed, Daniel Thwaites in Blackburn.
That's three family brewers in the firing line. If they do fall the way of Jennings then what does this say for the future of the Independent Family Brewers of Britain (IFBB)?
With its membership likely to dwindle, surely the IFBB is now regretting its decision to reject the application by Cain's to join the organisation 18 months ago? Because what the IFBB surely needs if it is to move forward and shape up as an effective force in the industry is new blood.
Sadly I fear if it did want to backtrack on their decision, it has burnt its bridges. I went to Liverpool to see Cain's two weeks ago and found that as much as Sudarghara and Ajmail Dusanj have done in the last three years since they bought the brewery, they are still hurt and bewildered by the IFBB's decision to refuse their application.
I am sure most of you remember the story. In October 2002 the IFBB informed the brothers they had to fulfil four criteria to join: to be an independent brewer, to be family owned, to own and run pubs and to be a member of the British Beer & Pub Association. Cain's fulfilled all of the above.
Thirteen months, several letters and a site visit later a letter arrived that informed the Dusanj brothers that there were now five criteria to fulfil. The aforementioned four plus a new one, which stated that any member had to have been brewing for at least 10 years.
Of course it is up to the members to set the rules for entry into their own organisation. But where did this fifth rule suddenly appear from?
"We felt cheated," Sudarghara told me. "We would have had absolutely no problem if the fifth rule had appeared on that first letter. We would have totally understood."
His view of the organisation has shifted somewhat from when he applied. "In a funny way the IFBB is like a marketing cartel," he said. "It looks after its own by giving its own members a stamp of quality that no outsider can get. It is suppressing the industry by not letting people like us in."
It begs the questions, what does the IFBB actually do? It has done sterling work in its pursuit of raising the threshold for Progressive Beer Duty, plus Cask Beer Week is a good innovation and did make an impact last year. But what has it done since then?
This criticism is not misdirected. It is criminal that an organisation with such a distinguished group of members is doing so little.
Individually its members are doing great things for cask beer and pubs. Collectively it could be doing so much more.
And it would do well to start looking outside its own borders and realise it can benefit from new members such as Cain's, a family brewer which has proved to be fresh, innovative and successful in the last three years.
