Let's hope Sharp's is not doomed

Molson Coors' takeover of Sharp's could signal the decline of the brewer's ales, says Roger Protz.

The £20m takeover of the Cornish brewer Sharp's by global brewing giant Molson Coors should send shock waves through the independent brewing sector. Strip away all the spin about Molson Coors recognising the strength of the cask beer sector: the reality is that we are back in the bad old days of mergers and takeovers.

The global brewers in Britain have largely turned their backs on cask. For them, the reason for their existence is churning out vast amounts of big-volume brands in lager and keg form. They can't be bothered with fiddly cask beers with short shelf lives, which is why such once great beers as Draught Bass and Boddingtons are up for sale courtesy of AB InBev.

But the globals have a problem. Sales of premium lager and "smooth flow" are in decline. The only small growth in the beer market comes from cask. And the globals struggle to produce cask beer. Most of them — including Molson Coors — have long ago jettisoned the racking lines where ale is run into casks before delivery to pubs. The cask beers they still own are, in the main, brewed for them under licence by regional brewers.

I congratulated Molson Coors chief executive Mark Hunter a couple of weeks ago as a result of the company's £1m investment in the new William Worthington's Brewery within the National Brewery Centre in Burton-on-Trent for brewing short-run cask beers. I don't withdraw the praise — but I express grave reservations about the decision to swallow Sharp's.

If Molson Coors is so keen to build a bigger share of the cask-ale market, why doesn't the company brew its own brands rather than snuffing out a successful independent? But the Burton company seems to have a problem with cask: for some three years, it's been promising to launch a new premium cask beer, Red Shield, but the launch date has been endlessly postponed. Perhaps Sharp's Doom Bar will fill the gap.

And Doom Bar is the only Sharp's brand that seems to interest Mark Hunter. That's the way giant brewers think: go for the big brand and sideline the rest. What will happen to Cornish Coaster, Cornish Jack, Own and Special as well as Eden Ale brewed for the Eden Project?

History​

Let us look at some case histories of the way giant brewers work. In Belgium, a style of beer known as "white" or wheat beer was saved by Pierre Celis in the small town of Hoegaarden.

The beer, named after the town, rapidly became a cult drink and was sold successfully in Britain. But Celis had a devastating fire at the brewery, he was under-insured and needed help. It came in the shape of the large Stella Artois brewery in nearby Leuven. Stella helped Celis rebuild the brewery and took a stake in the firm.

The arrangement worked until Stella merged with another big brewer, Piedboeuf, that brewed another big lager brand, Jupiler. The result was Interbrew and things started to go wrong at Hoegaarden. Celis says the accountants took over and told him how he could make his beers more cheaply by using cheaper ingredients.

He resisted, but when the pressure became too much he sold Hoegaarden to Interbrew. Lovers of the beer say it's now a shadow of its former self.

Celis moved to the United States and opened a brewery in Texas where he brewed a spiced wheat beer identical to Hoegaarden. It proved a great success, so much so that brewing giant Miller took a stake in the company and finally bought it outright.

Ten years ago, when I attended a brewing conference in Dallas, I tasted the Miller version of the Belgian wheat beer and was frankly appalled by what the company had done to a once fine beer.

At the same time in the US, Anheuser Busch, the country's biggest brewer, took substantial stakes in two successful independents, Redhook in Seattle and Shipyard in Portland, Maine, who both brew excellent interpretations of pale ale, a style that is beyond the competence of a lager producer like Budweiser.

InBev​

In the fullness of time, Interbrew became InBev by merging with a large Brazilian brewer and then took over Anheuser Busch to form AB InBev and all the emphasis is on big-volume brands to the detriment of small ones.

Hello and goodbye, Draught Bass.

History may not repeat itself where Molson Coors and Sharp's are concerned. But from long experience I suspect that over the course of the next few years the Sharp's management will be introduced to "economies of scale".

They will be advised how they can make beer more cheaply by using inferior malts and hops. The smaller-volume beers will fall by the wayside and then will come the dreaded decision to close a brewery in a remote part of the West Country and move production closer to the centre of the country with good transport links. Molson Coors can't take on Doom Bar but there's no shortage of regional brewers in the Midlands with space to spare.

I hope I'm wrong — and, if I am, I will cheerfully buy Mark Hunter a pint of Cornish-brewed Doom Bar in five years' time. But the Molson Coors takeover reminds me of the words of American brewing industry analyst Mort Hochstein when Anheuser Busch took a stake in Redhook: "When elephants march, ants get trampled".