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In the 1970s, the Big Six totally dominated UK brewing. Yet by 2000, only Scottish Courage really remained, the rest having been gobbled up by foreign conglomerates.

Bass led the pack in market share as well as pub ownership. And were considerably larger than most of their rivals, having more than double the share of Courage.

The first cracks started to show in 1990, when Courage took over Grand Metropolitan’s breweries, the company which owned Watney and Truman. Which catapulted Courage to be only just behind Bass.

Carlsberg bought what was left of Allied breweries in 1992 and renamed themselves Carlsberg-Tetley.

In 1995, Scottish & Newcastle bought Courage to form Scottish Courage. Bringing their market share to over 25%. Not that the new company was around for long, being purchased by Heineken and Carlsberg in 2008.

Bass was purchased by Interbrew in 2000 then sold on to Molson Coors in 2002. A year later, in 2001, Whitbread sold all its brewing assets to Interbrew as well.

In a period of just 10 years, the Big Six faded away into nothing. And left the majority of UK brewing foreign-owned.
Big Six market share (%) 1976 - 2000
Brewery 1976 1985 1989 1990 1991 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000
Grand Met 13 12 11
Courage 9 9 9 19 19
S & N 11 10 10 10 11
Scottish Courage 27.8 26.7 25.6 26 25.6
Bass 20 22 22 22 22 21.9 23 22 23.4
Whitbread 13 11 12 12 12 13.5 13.8 14.2 14.5
Interbrew 32.3
Allied 17 13 12 12 13
Carlsberg 1 1 1
Carlsberg-Tetley 15.4 14.6 13.2 11.8 11.7
Guinness 6 5.7 5.7 5.6 5.5
Total Big Six 83 77 77 76 78 84.6 83.8 80.70 81.3 75.1
Source:
BLRA and breweries




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