People: Sobering thoughts from Adnams

Contrary to much public propaganda, people in Britain are drinking less beer and drinking even less of it in pubs than they used to. That is the stark message from Jonathan Adnams, chairman of the celebrated Suffolk brewery.

Unveiling barely maintained operating profits for the PLUS-quoted company, Adnams pointed out that overall UK beer consumption fell 20 per cent between 2005 and 2010, while the amount drunk in pubs fell 30 per cent over the same period. Adnams has brewed beer in the coastal town of Southwold for more than a century and has been voted Brewery of the Year for 2011, but the chairman warns ‘there is little doubt that the beer and pubs market will continue to be very difficult’, with more small brewers entering the market at a time of declining consumption per head.

Undaunted, Adnams has diversified, building a micro-distillery within its Southwold brewery, with gins and vodkas scheduled to be on sale in 2013. ‘We believe we are the first UK brewer to do this’, he reflects, though ‘small-scale distillation of high-quality spirits is not uncommon in mainland Europe’.

The company has also done its ‘green’ bit, building an anaerobic digester to be fed with brewery waste next to Adnams’ distribution site. This has inspired the construction of ‘an array of photovoltaic panels’ at the same centre, which will provide free daytime electricity, ‘when the sun shines’.