Fuller's Brewery sold to Asahi

Coming to a local near you?

It was announced last week that the well-known British regional brewer, Fuller's of London, has sold its brewing concerns to the Japanese brewing multinational, Asahi. Fuller's Griffin Brewery in Chiswick is home to the famous London Pride which is popular across the UK and often seen locally in Merseyside and beyond. Fuller's will now concentrate solely on running its pubs with Asahi as its primary supplier, so I expect that in the short term drinkers may not notice much difference.

Over the years, Asahi has taken over many other breweries, such as Meantime, also in London and mainly known for craft beer, Grolsch in the Netherlands, Italy's Peroni, and Pilsner Urquell from the Czech Republic. As a truly international concern, it also owns many other brands not so well known in the UK.

It's always worrying when a piece of Britain's traditional brewing heritage falls into multinational ownership, not for Little Englander reasons, but mainly because the breweries acquired in this manner are in the control of boardrooms thousands of miles away. Fuller's has gone from being an independent traditional British brewer to just another brand in Asahi's large international brewing portfolio; as a result, decisions will be made by executives who are unfamiliar with the individual breweries concerned and who would be inclined to see them as little more than entries on a profit and loss account.

I expect that some drinkers will say that it's no great loss - someone usually does - but such a 'dog in the manger' attitude is quite contemptuous of the tastes of the many drinkers, the majority in fact, who have no wish to experiment on their nights out and consequently find a beer, or a few beers, that they like and stick to them. For many such drinkers, Fuller's beers, especially London Pride, fits the bill.

There have been all the usual reassurances about maintaining the production of the popular brands on their traditional site, and I do hope that those promises are kept. However, beer drinkers with long memories will remember similar commitments were regularly made after takeovers in the past - and almost as regularly betrayed. The fact that Meantime Brewery remains open might give us some reason to hope.

Asahi and Fuller's have both expressed satisfaction with this deal and complete confidence in the future of their two companies. As Mandy Rice-Davies might have commented: they would say that, wouldn't they?

AB InBev's anti-union aggression in India

HBLM members demanding union rights in Sonepat, India

AB InBev is known for many international brands, including Beck's, Budweiser, Castle Lager, Cerveza Corona, Hoegaarden, Leffe and Stella Artois.

Although for some time now the company has been attacking trade union rights at the brewery in Sonepat, about 27 miles north of Delhi in India, it has recently been escalating its anti-union pressure. In response, the union has since February been defending its members with a permanent protest at the factory gate.

For the past two years, local managers have refused to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the Haryana Breweries Limited Mazdoor Union (HBLM) and opted for repression, suspending active union members and dismissing four elected union leaders, including the president and the general secretary.

When selective victimisation failed to break the union's struggle for rights and recognition, management orchestrated a physical attack on a peaceful union protest on 28 April outside a Sonepat government office in which a union committee member was seriously injured. They then made a false complaint to the police against union members alleging assault; this resulted in the arrest of the union leaders who have since been released on bail.

AB InBev Sonepat workers and their families are continuing their 24-hour protest at the factory gate in support of their right to union recognition and collective bargaining free from harassment and victimisation. Send a message to AB InBev, insisting they reinstate all HBLM union leaders and members, withdraw the false assault allegations, recognise the union and negotiate in good faith.

And once you've signed, why not boycott AB InBev products?

These people own Meantime Brewery

One of the ongoing protests

I wrote in July about SABMiller's vicious union-busting in Australia. Regrettably the situation has not been resolved, and on 8 September, thousands of union members and supporters marched through the centre of Melbourne to support workers at Carlton United Breweries whose employment conditions came under brutal attack when they were told their pay would be cut by 65% due to a new sub-contracting arrangement. The unions rejected the company's diktat and have maintained round-the-clock protests at the plant.  

Such behaviour is normal practice for SABMiller. I wrote in July last year about similar union-busting tactics applied by them in Panama. Should the mooted takeover of SABMiller by InBev go ahead, the dominance of the combined group over the world beer market will be something to be very worried about. If anyone feels secure because we have a record number of micro-breweries in the UK nowadays, don't be: they'd happily cherry-pick the commercially most successful brands and use their increased market domination to squeeze out others; it's already been announced that up to 576 UK jobs would go should the takeover go ahead.

The IUF* Executive Committee, which met in Geneva on 7 and 8 September, sent a message of solidarity and support to the Australian marchers and their unions. If you'd like to send a message to the company too, please click here.

SABMiller operates in 80 countries on every continent, and its many brands include Meantime Brewery, Fosters, Grolsch, Miller, Peroni and Pilsner Urquell.

* The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations.

SABMiller do it again

Carlton United Breweries, an Australian company, have sacked 54 union machine maintenance workers at their Melbourne brewery in preparation for the impending merger between their parent company, SABMiller, and AB InBev. The workers, members of the AMWU and the ETU unions, were told their jobs would be contracted out, but that they could return to work for the subcontractor, as long as they accepted a 65% pay cut.

The unions are challenging the dismissals by demanding reinstatement of the sacked workers and compliance with existing agreements. They are supported in this by the production workers at the plant who are represented by another union, United Voice. They describe the dismissals as union-busting: the company had deliberately stockpiled supplies for pubs and big retailers to undermine the effects of the strike they knew their actions would provoke. Before the dismissals, the maintenance crews were being worked for more than 60 hours per week but management refused to hire new workers to reduce the pressure.

Although AB InBev has not yet taken over SABMiller, workers in the latter conglomerate are already suffering from the notorious cost-cutting which drives 3G Capital, owners of AB InBev. Now even the suggestion of an acquisition by 3G leads to job cuts.

Please sign this IUF* petition to show support and send a message to the company.

These companies have form: I wrote a post almost exactly a year ago called 'SABMiller's True Colours', and just over three years ago about AB InBev in 'Brewery with a behavioural disorder?'

* The IUF is the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations.

A demonstration of price differences

Last Saturday I went on the anti-Trident demo in London. Amazing turn out: Trafalgar Square was packed with people of all ages, various ethnicities and a variety of political and religious persuasions. Despite the numbers, I managed to meet my friend Geoff, who lives in Hounslow.

After the demo, we had an hour before I had to catch my bus back to Merseyside, so we decided to go for a drink in the Clarence on Whitehall. As well as a few predictable beers such as Sharps Doom Bar and Atlantic, and Adnams Bitter and Ghost Ship, they had a beer from Twickenham Brewery. I decided to have that, as I hadn't had it before, while Geoff had Doom Bar. It was a pleasant pint, though to my taste nothing special, and I was quite happy to have a second one when it was my round.

Until it came to paying, of course: £8.80 for two pints. I know London prices are steep, but that surprised me. In my local in Southport, I can buy three pints for that amount with 70p to spare.

I don't understand why Southern, particularly London, prices are quite so steep. My friend Alan was on holiday in the West Country several years ago, and he arrived home in time for a quick pint in our local. I happened to be there, and when he returned from the bar with a pint of Wadworths 6X, he told me he had had the same beer a couple of days earlier in sight of Wadworths brewery in Devizes, Wiltshire. Despite a difference in delivery distance of 200 miles, 6X was actually cheaper in Southport.

Me in the Clarence after the demo
(expensive pint not shown)

Make of that when you will, but I find it difficult to accept that all the price differences across the country can be attributed solely to higher costs. A significant factor must be the capitalist tendency to put prices up as high as the market will stand. That might be an acceptable business practice, but it tends not to go hand in hand with value for money.

Not the best anything in the world

I don't like Carlsberg - deluded slogan "probably the best beer in the world" - but I like the way they treat their employees even less. Their treatment of their own staff has prompted the IUF (the International Union of Food workers) to issue this call:

Eleven members of the IUF-affiliated Cambodian Food and Service Workers' Federation (CFSWF) employed by transnational brewery giant Carlsberg's joint venture, local brewer Cambrew, have been dismissed in retaliation for taking strike action on 16 January. Workers are fighting the company's attempt to impose short-term employment contracts and late working hours.

The beer promotion women are employed by Cambrew to market and serve Angkor beer at restaurants, where they compete with promoters from other breweries working in the same restaurants.

Please click here to tell Carlsberg to reinstate the dismissed workers, enter into good faith negotiations with CFSWF and ensure that Carlsberg/Cambrew respects its workers’ rights.

Sky's the limit

I've just read that a Birmingham licensee has been told that if she shows Sky Sport illegally again, she could end up paying £50,000 and may even be sent to prison. This only the latest in a series of prosecutions of pubs and bars, and if you put 'pub illegal sky sports ' into Google, you'll find loads more. Sky says that it is committed to protecting pubs who invest in legitimate Sky Sports subscriptions, and while there must be some truth in that, I'm certain that protecting Sky's profits is the main motivation. There is nothing wrong with that in itself - Sky is a capitalist company, and it is the raison d'être of such companies to make profits - but does Sky represent good value for money?

The Sky website gives no indication of charges, but I read in a newspaper article that Sky costs pubs around £15,000 a year. Recovering that amount requires a massive number of bar sales. I have come across pubs who discontinued Sky because it wasn't paying its way. I have also been in pubs where: the sport is on but no one is looking at it; the pub is largely empty; or where people have turned around and walked out when they've seen that a noisy, large screen showing sport is dominating the room. I am usually in the last group. I have been told that, even when you have a pub full of sport fans, many of them make one or two drinks last the whole match, which doesn't do wonders for the takings.

We in this country are often described as sports mad, but this is all hype generated by the media which stands to gain if it can encourage more of us to tune in to sporting events. The reality is that sport is a minority interest that often gets far fewer viewers than dramas, soaps, and even so-called reality shows. Big name events, such as the Cup Final, the Grand National, Wimbledon and the Olympics will always get lots of viewers, but these are the exceptions. Big crowds of males (they're almost all males) in front of large, noisy screens do deter some drinkers, including people like myself who tend to drink rather more than they do. I know I'm not the only one who prefers not to be encircled by a crowd of testosterone-fuelled fans shouting pointlessly at a referee who is hundreds of miles away.

I have no doubt that some pubs find providing Sky Sports worthwhile, but I'd seriously doubt that the massive investment required would help less successful pubs, and possibly may have a detrimental effect. When Sky salespeople are extolling the worth of their product to a pub or bar, do they explain that their product may deter some custom? Or are they just peddling the myth that we are all enthralled by sport?

I know I'm not.

In the Meantime ... divorce

What's a poor, spurned craft brewery to do? London craft brewery Meantime was taken over by SABMiller in May this year. Like most marriages, SABMiller promised to love and honour its new craft bride, assuring its customers that Meantime wouldn't be forced to change and would still be allowed to get on with doing what it did best: loyal customers need not fear.

But, heartbreakingly, SABMiller has found a new love in AB InBev, and not only is the honeymoon period with Meantime over, but divorce papers have already been served. AB InBev is looking to sell Meantime, as well as brands such as Grolsch and Peroni. They promise to look after these brands until the decree absolute comes through, but the question of maintenance afterwards must be a worry, especially for the staff at Meantime brewery. Unlike when they sold out to SABMiller, they won't have any say over who owns them in future, which must be unsettling to say the least.

Selling out to a big beer corporation must be a temptation for the owners of a highly successful small brewery, but the problem is that you are instantly converted from a company to a brand, and brands are no more than commodities to bought and sold like any other.

You'd think the example of Sharp's, taken over by Molson Coors who subsequently moved all the brewing of bottled Doom Bar hundreds of miles north, would have rung a few warning bells, but obviously not.

SABMiller's true colours

"We are all workers" reads the first line.

This may be of interest, especially if you like Meantime beers, Carling, Peroni, Pilsner Urquell, Fosters, Grolsch, Miller, Coca Cola, Fanta - among many others.

Workers at Cervecería Nacional, Panama's beer and soft-drink subsidiary of global brewing corporation SABMiller, have been on indefinite strike since July 10. The workforce is represented by two unions who have worked together to produce joint proposals for a new collective bargaining agreement, but the employer has refused to deal with more than one union. It has also told the workforce to give up their collective bargaining rights, barred active reps from the workplace and withheld wages earned before the strike. It doesn't take a genius to work out that this is a thinly disguised attempt to divide and rule the workforce by an employer who doesn't want to work with unions at all.

The Meantime Brewing Company, a London craft brewery recently acquired by SABMiller, should note this display of true colours. As Woody Allen once said, "The lion will lay down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep."

What can we do? Well, there's more info here and if, like me, you don't agree with the company's actions, please sign the petition: I've noticed that bad international publicity sometimes does get results.

Leopards, spots, etc

Is that Burton on Trent I see before me?

So bottled Doom Bar is not brewed in Cornwall after all? I have to confess I've struggled to set my reaction to shock mode. When Sharp's was taken over by Molson Coors, it did create quite a stir, but as I wrote in February 2013: "Molson Coors has pleasantly surprised many real ale drinkers by taking over and investing in - rather than shutting down - the Cornish brewery, Sharp's." But that was in a post called Molson Coors - not the cuddly capitalists after all, describing how Molson Coors had issued a notice to a local amateur football team evicting them from their ground, while ostentatiously supporting the Scottish national team. In May that year I had further criticisms of Molson Coors.

The point of all this is not to show how prescient I was, but to demonstrate how the warning signs have been there all along. You could take the view that no harm has been done, Sharp's Brewery has been expanded, the draught beer is still brewed in Cornwall, so what's the problem? The problem is a little thing called honesty. Why not announce they were moving the production of bottled Doom Bar to Burton on Trent because of capacity problems, while confirming that the draught version will continue to be brewed in Cornwall? As the BBC tells us: "The labels on bottles of Doom Bar contain seven references to Rock Cornwall, but none to Burton-upon-Trent, but the small print reads 'brewed in the UK'."

This suggests an intention to deceive: Molson Coors has probably now forfeited the trust of those drinkers who had been prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt after they had acquired a small British brewery. In May 2013 I said that, "If we see any more good news stories concerning Molson Coors, it's worth bearing in mind that any good PR from this company is just a mask." That still applies, perhaps even more now that they've been caught out.

If anyone is thinking: "What's all the fuss about, as long as the beer is all right?", I'd reply that, if it's so unimportant, why weren't Molson Coors open about moving their bottled production in the first case?

Boak & Bailey have written about this from a slightly different perspective.

Molson Coors forced to behave

I wrote in February that Alton Town FC, which plays in in the regional Wessex League, was told it was to be evicted at the end of the season from its sports ground so that the owner, Molson Coors, could build houses on the site. With nowhere to move to, the club faced closure. This is an update.

As a signatory to the petition, I received an e-mail recently from the chairman (sic) of Alton Town saying that more than 4000 people had signed, thus persuading Molson Coors to agree to upgrade the local council-owned football ground. He writes: "This would include up-to-date floodlights and the provision of a 3G artificial grass pitch (approved for match play by the FA). Such improvements would enable Alton United Youth (the current leaseholders) and Alton Town to come together as one larger club and thereby all benefit from these improved facilities." Instead of eviction at the end of last season, Molson Coors have agreed the team can stay where they are until the improvements are completed.

I'm glad Molson Coors eventually decided that being the bully boy wasn't good publicity but it's a shame that it had to go this far before they saw reason. It's the same attitude as the copyright lawyers bullying little brewers that I wrote about on 9 September. The good news is that it's another example of social media forcing big companies to improve their behaviour in response to unwelcome bad publicity. I think we'll probably see lots more of this in the future; I certainly hope so.

Brewery with a behavioural disorder?

Now an InBev brand, this was
once a welcome sight in pubs

AB InBev is the world's largest brewing corporation. In this country, as well as brewing various lagers, they are also responsible for the production of two formerly great real ales: Bass and Boddingtons. Their website describes these as two "local favourites"; well, perhaps 35 years ago. So what have they been up to?

There is a tiny brewery in Wandsworth called Belleville which produces American-style cask beers. The brewery was started in January this year by a group of friends who had children at the Belleville Primary School, and they sell their beer to local pubs. AB InBev's lawyers have sent the brewery a letter giving Belleville 28 days to stop using the Belleville name because, they claim, it could be confused with the products of their Belgian subsidiary, Belle-Vue which brews lambic beers. For the world's biggest multi-national brewing corporation to bully a microbrewery with a five barrel capacity because of a name that is similar but not identical to one their own products is both ludicrous and distasteful in the extreme. Obviously Belleville cannot afford to challenge this demand in court and so are considering changing the brewery's name to Northcote after the road where the school is situated. It just goes to show that if you're rich enough, you can shamelessly be a bully without breaking the law.

Meanwhile in Canada, AB InBev are facing a strike at their Labatts brewery because of serious assaults on the workers' terms, conditions and wages, and which would destroy collective bargaining. In one way, it's obvious why they're doing this, as individuals negotiating their own rates of pay have much less clout than negotiators representing an entire workforce. But it's not obvious in another way, because even AB InBev's own website states that it has more than 200 brands worldwide that in 2012 generated revenue of $39,800,000,000 (US dollars). Any savings from cutting staff wages and terms in Canada must be less than peanuts to this company. It is another example of this rich and powerful corporation engaging in bullying.

If AB InBev were a human, I seriously doubt it would be allowed out unsupervised.

Click here for more on the Labatt's dispute; there's also a petition here.

Molson Coors - not the cuddly capitalists after all

Molson Coors has pleasantly surprised many real ale drinkers by taking over and investing in - rather than shutting down - the Cornish brewery, Sharp's; I wrote about it in January. A news story I read recently in Private Eye suggests to me that we'd be unwise to set aside all our suspicions of this multinational corporation.

Alton Town FC is a local football team that plays plays in the regional Wessex League; it has been told it is to be evicted at the end of this season from a sports ground owned by Molson Coors. Football has been played on this land since the 1920s when it was used by the staff teams from the Courage and Bass breweries. In 1935 a covenant between Courage and the council was intended to protect the land for sport and recreation in perpetuity. Molson Coors is using its vast resources to find ways of getting around this obstacle in order to build houses on the site.

Carling, a Molson Coors brand, is sponsor of the current Scottish national side and was until recently sponsor of the English League Cup. So while Molson Coors, the world's seventh biggest brewer by volume, gain plaudits and publicity for supporting football nationally, they are happy to evict a grass roots team just to squeeze the last ounce of profit from a tiny asset, irrespective of the consequences for the local community. They obviously believe, probably correctly, that such disgraceful behaviour won't garner much interest nationally. Finding a new football pitch will be extremely difficult; if it proves impossible, that will be the end the end of Alton Town FC. No one can argue that this plan is essential for the future profitability of the Molson Coors, so there can no other motive than greed, which neatly puts this quote in perspective: "Carling, the UK's best-selling lager, continues to be a leading sponsor of sport in Scotland and the UK."

What's this got to do with Sharp's Brewery? Quite a lot. Molson Coors are nurturing Sharp's as they want to gain credibility among real ale drinkers, and they have succeeded in that to quite an extent. We must however be under no illusions: if Molson Coors decide that the costly business of maintaining a small brewery in Cornwall, not exactly handy for transport routes, no longer fits in with their strategy or "vision", the brewery will go, production will be centralised, Doom Bar et al will simply become brands devoid of any resemblance to the original beers, and the brewery site sold for profitable redevelopment.

I'd like to be wrong, but the treatment of Alton Town FC proves that this huge capitalist corporation hasn't changed its spots. Irrespective of how profitable Sharp's is in future, they'll maintain it just as long as it suits them, and not a day longer.