S&N: make your voices heard

It's "what if" time again. What if Carlsberg and Heineken are successful in their bid to take over Scottish & Newcastle (S&N)? What will the...

It's "what if" time again. What if Carlsberg and Heineken are successful in their bid to take over Scottish & Newcastle (S&N)? What will the outcome be for licensees, drinkers and the employees of Britain's biggest brewery?

In a word: dire. The Danish and Dutch brewers say, unambiguously, they will break up S&N. Such hard-faced statements induce boiling rage in me. Forget the people who make beer, sell beer and drink beer. Breaking up S&N will please only the powerful families that own Carlsberg and Heineken.

And why are they champing at the bit to smash the whole structure of S&N? Because the Danes and the Dutch are concerned not so much with Britain, but with the rich pickings to be made in the rapidly-developing beer markets in Russia and the Baltic states.

Carlsberg and S&N control a consortium, Baltic Beverages Holdings, that is the biggest brewer by far in that enormous region. Heineken also has interests there. Both groups, aware that beer sales are falling in western Europe, want to build on their strengths in the east by combining forces.

They consider the destruction of S&N a small price to pay if they can boost their fortunes in a market where beer was an also-ran to vodka during the Soviet period. But sales of beer are now growing at an explosive rate, among young people in particular, who see the drink as western and cool.

Clearly Carlsberg and Heineken would hang on to the most profitable parts of S&N in Britain. But there would be inevitable closures and loss of brands. S&N owns breweries in Berkshire, Gateshead - the new home of Newcastle Brown - John Smith's in Tadcaster and the Royal Brewery in Manchester. It also controls Europe's biggest single brewing plant, Kronenbourg near Strasbourg in France.

Something would have to give in a group that owned three major global lager brands - Carlsberg, Heineken and Kronenbourg. The brands would continue but the British-brewed versions of Carlsberg and Kronenbourg would almost certainly be produced at one central site, leading to the loss of two other plants.

The group would also own Britain's two best-selling ale brands, John Smith's and Tetley's. Heineken has no knowledge of the British ale market, Carlsberg has a declining interest. There have been persistent rumours for months that Tetley will leave its site in central Leeds for a new home outside the city.

A new consortium is likely to sell the present brewery, worth many millions of pounds, but abandon plans for a new site. Instead it would move Tetley to Tadcaster. John Smith's and Tetley brewed at the same site? Stranger things have happened. After all, Marston's now produces its old and deadly rival, Draught Bass.

The fall-out will come among the smaller cask beers brewed currently by Carlsberg and S&N. For some time now, all the John Smith's Bitter brewed at Tadcaster has been the keg version. Cask John Smith's has been outsourced to smaller regional producers.

The same is likely to happen to cask Tetley's Bitter. And who would put money on the survival of such small-volume cask brands?

You can already hear the two companies preparing a statement that says the new group will concentrate on "its core brands". They will be the big-volume lager and keg ales. Drinkers who prefer cask beer can go hang.

I am not opposed to Danes and Dutch owning S&N. I detest jingoism and nationalism.

But where beer is concerned, I happen to believe that a British company is best based to understand the British market. I think S&N has made serious errors of judgement in recent years. But I also think it can be lobbied and cajoled to mend its ways and, in particular, to give greater consideration to consumer needs.

Lager producers are not open to such persuasion. For those reasons, the takeover must be stopped. Gordon Brown won't intervene because he is wedded to globalisation. It is we, the drinkers, who must make our voices heard.