Why beer fans are devastated by the closure of Banks’s Brewery

This week, Carlsberg Marstons Brewing Company (CMBC) revealed plans to close Banks’s Brewery, citing “restructuring” as its reasoning. In response, beer fans took to social media. Each of them either sighing or collectively losing their temper. Jessica Mason looks into why this news hits so hard.

On a rainy autumn Monday in Britain, a press release casually drops into the inboxes of the beer sector. It was CMBC’s proposal to close another historic site of brewing heritage. This time, Banks’s Brewery in Wolverhampton which it has said will close in 2025 “as part of a restructuring of its brewery network”.

Predictability

The missive echoed possibly every other communication the brewery had shared over the past few years. Lost deals, closure, offloading and consolidation. All of that, along with its assertion that its ‘fresh ale’ rollout was going to assist in supporting the beer sector, it is no wonder that beer lovers have become dubious of whether it truly has the sector’s best interests at heart or big beer has but one objective: To make money, come what may.

At least, that’s what the beer sector heard.

The proposed restructuring comes in response to the decision by Mahou San Miguel not to renew its long-term exclusive licence partnership from 2025 and the decline of cask ale volumes over several years. Essentially, that is what CMBC has alleged. For sure, in July, the business was dealt that hefty blow.

Scruples

But it isn’t that the sector is naive about the struggles being faced. Really, this is about scruples. Looking at the pattern of behaviour to discard fragments of brewing history, simply because it doesn’t know how to retain them. Or could it be that its money is being spent elsewhere with Britvic?

January saw CMBC try to offload its historic Burton Union system, which was saved at the last minute thanks to Thornbridge and Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery putting heads together. Still, the sector asked: ‘Would that have happened if there had not been an emotive response for salvaging beer history?’

Last December, its announced closure of Ringwood Brewery was called “corporate vandalism” and even in September 2023 its closure of Wychwood Brewery was also met with dismay. A year prior it was Eagle Brewery it was offloading to Damm.

The trust relationship

What does all of this mean? It means the industry is unsure it can trust CMBC with its future and the elements of brewing heritage that it truly cares about – brewing at source and retaining livelihoods. But more than that, preserving a slice of beer history. Those bricks and chimneys are representative of communities, workforces and also much-loved brands. Bulldoze the lot or sell them to developers and suddenly all that’s left is a hollow sense of ‘what am I buying? Where was it made and by whom?’ As we move further away from any of the genuine heartlands of beer brands and their recipes.

CMBC has said it will be supporting colleagues across its wider network impacted by these proposals. All we do know is that 97 people employed at Banks’s Brewery will soon be working with a trade union and colleague representatives throughout a consultation process.

Future investments in the wake of closures

As part of the network restructuring, CMBC has said it will increase investment in its breweries in Northampton and Burton, which it has crowed about for its plight towards reaching its sustainability goals. But at what cost. If you look at the brewery, does anyone get a warm fuzzy feeling about the modernist architecture?

CMBC also admitted that it has a long-term ambition to establish Marston’s Brewery in Burton as a national centre for craft beer and traditional ale brewing in the UK. In fact, CMBC noted that it would be investing more than £6 million in significant new projects at its brewery in Burton. But a national centre as the one bastion of cask ale when so much has been thrown away? Of course we understand why the beer elite are cross. It sounds like CMBC is trying to put a sticking plaster on a broken heart and shouting: “See, look, we do care.”

In addition, as part of CMBC’s long-term logistics strategy, the business will be investing significantly in a new logistics depot in the Black Country region, to support its nationwide secondary logistics network. Excellent news. More number crunchers working in new build boxes to analyse ‘where next’ for beer. Because that is what it possibly feels like beer is becoming a “logistical” issue that needs to be better organised.

A ‘hard reality’ to face

Paul Davies, CEO of CMBC has even called the situation a “hard reality” and yet has noted how “the team at Banks’s has been unwavering in its dedication and commitment to the brewery”.

Reacting to the news CAMRA chairman Ash Corbett-Collins lamented that it was “devastating but predictable news from CMBC” and alluded to how “the buyout of CMBC by Carlsberg – essentially turning Marston’s brewing business into a globally owned brand – we expected news like this sooner rather than later”.

Corbett-Collins then explained: “After presiding over the closure of Jennings, the sale of the Eagle brewery and removing cask beers from bars in Scotland in the last few years, Carlsberg Marston’s are now closing another iconic brewery – putting jobs and the cask beers brewed there in jeopardy. This is more often than not the case when a global brewer buys a traditional British cask brewer.”

Pinning all hopes on the Budget

He concluded by reiterating how the news “also demonstrates the huge pressures that even global brewers are facing from the high taxation of beer, energy and raw material costs”. But noted how “these pressures are even more extreme for independent brewers, who have the added barrier of restricted access to the pub market, which is why it’s essential that the government uses the upcoming Budget to support the pub and brewing industries”.

Irreplaceable loss

This is why people are cross. Very cross and upset and feeling the loss of what they hold dear – that piece of British brewing that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Those bricks and mortar sites that make a town a place of public interest. But more than that, the reminder that quality and small breweries that were established in the hearts and minds of the public might always live on in some way.

Maybe they will. Only in a very clinical looking warehouse or a museum in the future. We know this much, in so many ways for the beer sector, the glass is indeed half empty.

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