A UK brewery tracker has been launched today by SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers, setting out the definitive number of actively trading breweries in ten areas of the UK.
The SIBA UK Brewery Tracker shows the national total number of active brewers as 1,828 as of 1st January. This comes after a tough 2022 for the industry, where brewery closures are estimated to have almost doubled those of openings.
The Tracker will be released on a quarterly basis, giving an accurate and up to date brewery number for the UK, something which has often been difficult to track in a consistent way.
“It has been an incredibly tough few years for the independent brewing industry, and as we look ahead to the future it is important to be able to track our market share against the dominant global brewers,” said SIBA chief executive, Andy Slee.
“The SIBA UK Brewery Tracker plays an important role in this, and will give the industry an accurate and timely figure on active breweries, with a clear regional breakdown of numbers.”
The Tracker defines a brewery simply as ‘an active business that makes beer and that has its own brewing equipment, with further criteria defined for breweries with multiple sites, or which are now owned by a global brewer.
“The figures released today are a snapshot of the UK brewing industry as it stands at the start of 2023, but which I believe will form the basis of an incredibly useful resource for tracking the increase and decrease in breweries across the UK in the coming year — an important barometer for industry health,” Andy added.
“With figures released every quarter, we can track numbers nationally and regionally and will be releasing the data freely to all, giving everybody access to up-to-date and robust data on brewery numbers, something which has been sadly lacking in the past with multiple sources for often wildly conflicting numbers.”
Tom Stainer, chief executive of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), said: “CAMRA welcomes and supports any accurate information which gives a better picture of the state of Britain’s brewing industry.
“It’s essential we’re able to assess the true impact of the last few difficult years, and regularly updated information about the country’s independent brewing sector, and diversity of beer choice for consumers, will be immensely helpful.”
