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10-03-2015, 09:53
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http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/lager_window_672.jpgCHAOS LOOMS AS KEG SITES FORGE AHEAD said a front-page story in the January 1978 edition of the Campaign for Real Ale’s newspaper*What’s Brewing. Two of the Big Six brewers are to go ahead with plans to build two giant keg-only breweries… The two new breweries — Whitbread’s lager factory at Magor in South Wales and Courage’s fizz-only brewery outside Reading — will cost almost £100 million… The brewers are gambling their customers’ money on the evidence of the huge upsurge in lager sales during the two freak summers of 1975 and 1976. But at least one form of City stockbrokers… say lager sales cannot be expected to carry on climbing.
But carry on climbing they did, and how:
http://boakandbailey.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/lager_share_of_uk_market.png
That amazes us every time we look at it: from 7 per cent to 74, with the only pauses*coinciding with periods of recession in the early 1980s, 90s and late 00s. (Something to explore in a future post, perhaps.)
Making predictions is difficult at the best of times, but it’s even harder when your prediction is really intended to influence the outcome; and/or if your prejudices make it difficult to be objective, e.g. about the intrinsic appeal of cool, easy-drinking, pretty-looking, fizzy beer.
(Of course none of this is going to stop us attempting a prediction in tomorrow’s post…)
Underestimating Lager, 1978 (http://boakandbailey.com/2015/03/underestimating-lager-1978/) from Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog - Over-thinking beer, pubs and the meaning of craft since 2007 (http://boakandbailey.com)


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