Too many brewers killing Welsh brewing - Assembly told

The boss of West Wales brewer Evan-Evans will tell a meeting of the Cross Party Beer group at the Welsh Assembly that there are too many brewers in Wales.

And he will declare that the industry is facing declining standards and sales.

In a week that sees the Great Welsh Beer and Cider festival come to Cardiff, AMs are being told what the true state of the Welsh Brewing Industry is.

Evan-Evans chief executive Simon Buckley said:

"All is not well in the Welsh brewing industry and someone needs to speak up and make sure that those in government know what the situation really is.

"At a time when, nationally, we are seeing significant numbers of pubs closing (and here in Wales the rural pub sector in rapid decline), we still continue to see more and more breweries opening.

"Far from driving competition, and reducing the retail cost of beer, the current price driven market is not seeing beer prices drop at the bar. So the argument that more brewers equals greater competition is not right.

"What is happening is that brewers are seeing margin erosion, which in turn stifles investment and employment prospects.

"The continued arrival of new brewers means they quickly find they have no market to sell their beer in. They recklessly discount and create a wholly false market which undermines the professional small brewing sector.

"Add to this the manipulation of the beer market by national brewers who lock small brewers out of the market by punitive and anti-competitive pricing and the reality is that the opportunity within the market segment of cask ale is declining not growing.

"While the demand has increased for cask ale, the truth is that the access to the cask ale market has contracted still further, and the largest part of the guest ale market lies in the hands of the national and regional pub companies. Access to those pub estates is limited to a few based on price.

"To develop an industry that has a long term future, that is standards driven, and has an opportunity to compete on the world stage, we must drive beer quality.

"We must drive the small brewers to achieve standards and we must not allow the Assembly to invest in new brewers without the new company achieving a basic standard and qualification.

"Good new entrants to the market bring vitality and new ideas, but over-production will destroy the market for us all and will not in the long term benefit the industry, rather returning us to the market dominance of a few large companies whose profits are returned to foreign shores."