More developments in Brains Brewery
Brains has announced (I think) that it plans to sell the freehold of 99 pubs in its estate. The pubs are currently leased to Marstons on a 25 year deal (but still sell a core range of Brains beers). Brains are retaining some other freehold and leasehold pubs (again I think) and have also sold some. The pub estate was originally 250 pubs.
It’s a labyrinthine story the latest twist of which seems to be about Brains selling the pubs in question as a financial investment.
Brains has previously said it planned to close its new Dragon brewery (opened in 2019) but this is currently brewing again after much reduced COVID activity and its unclear what the position there is.
There is no question that Brains has been hit hard by the pandemic but before March 2020 it was already selling pubs and offloaded its apparently successful Coffee No.1 chain.
I haven’t been the greatest fan of Brains beers in recent times but they are one of the great regional cask brewers and Brains Dark (brewed again in recent weeks) remains a superb beer.
One gets the impression that Brains are still looking for a way out of brewing and pubs which would be a significant loss to Wales. Perhaps its time for the Welsh Government to step in it and nationalise it…
BBC Report
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