A round-up of stories and snippets from brewing and hospitality, and the latest business news in brief
Like-for-like sales growth of 2.1% in the year to date represents a robust performance in a challenging external environment,” says Mitchells & Butlers, presenting a trading update covering the 51 weeks to 19th September.
As external factors, predominantly weather, normalised, fourth quarter like-for-like sales returned to growth, delivering an increase of 1.4%. This improvement was supported by a strong August Bank Holiday weekend, during which like-for-like sales grew by 5.3% highlighting the resilience of guest demand. Pub and drink-led formats continued to perform well, which is reflected in particularly strong drink sales growth.
• Siren Craft Brew has smashed through the £100,000 target ahead of the opening of its new bar in Cheltenham. Siren set up the crowdfunder to help open the bar in a former BrewDog premises, and at the end of last week it had reach £139,000. The bar opens at 4pm on Monday, 28th September.
• The multi-award-winning Tamworth Tap has been named pub of the year at the Great British Pub Awards. It also won the award for best pub for beer. Best community pub went to The Swan, at Clewer. You can read the full list of winners here.
• Trust Inns has acquired two Brewhouse & Kitchen sites which no longer fit in with the latter’s growth strategy, according to Propel. The venues are in Bournemouth and Poole.
• A former Whitbread Beefeater restaurant in Ferndown, Dorset, willer-open tomorrow (29th September) as a Wetherspoon pub. The venue will be known as The Cranborne Hundred.
• Roley’s, the British beer brand behind Super Natural Lager and its SmartBrew technology, has announced that British UFC fighter Paddy ‘The Baddy’ Pimblett is joining as a shareholder and global strategic partner. Super Natural Lager is a 4.4% ABV beer, brewed using the brand’s proprietary SmartBrew fermentation process, which adds up to 400 times more naturally occurring B-Vitamins and reduces calories by up to 35.8% compared to other global lagers.
