page_title: Beer in England
section_title: 1950 to 1999: Megabreweries and microbreweries
hierarchical_section_title: Beer in England / History / 1950 to 1999: Megabreweries and microbreweries
caption_attribution_description: English: The 'Moon Under Water', High Street, Watford This is a Wetherspoon's pub. The chain have a policy of no juke-boxes or other music, and there is always real ale available. Almost all the pub names contain the word 'moon'.
context_page_description: Beer in England has been brewed for hundreds of years. As a beer brewing country, England is known for its top fermented cask beer which finishes maturing in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery and is served with only natural carbonation.
  English beer styles include bitter, mild, brown ale and old ale. Stout, porter and India Pale Ale were also originally brewed in London. Lager style beer has increased considerably in popularity since the mid 20th century. Other modern developments include consolidation of large brewers into multinational corporations; growth of beer consumerism; expansion of microbreweries and increased interest in bottle conditioned beers.
context_section_description: In 1960 almost 40 per cent of beer drunk nationally was sold in bottled form, although the figure was 60 per cent in the South of England, falling to 20 per cent in the North of England. Pale ale had replaced mild as the beer of choice for the majority of drinkers.
  Home brewing without a licence was legalised in 1963, and was to become a fairly popular hobby, with homebrewing equipment shops on many high streets. Lager rapidly rose in popularity from the 1970s, increasing from only 2% of the market in 1965 to 20% in 1975., with English brewers producing their own brands or brewing under licence. Canned beer was also introduced about this time.
  A consumer organisation, the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) was founded, in 1971, to protect unpressurised beer. The group devised the term real ale to differentiate between beer served from the cask and beer served under pressure and to differentiate both from lager. "Ale" now meant a top-fermented beer, not an unhopped beer. Camra was to become an influential force, with a membership of over 170,000.
  At the time, brewing was dominated by the "big six" breweries: Whitbread, Scottish and Newcastle, Bass Charrington, Allied Breweries, Courage Imperial and Watneys.
  There were also dozens of regional breweries, although the number was dwindling as a result of takeovers, and the microbrewery sector consisted of just four longstanding brewpubs. Most pubs were owned by breweries, and only allowed to offer the owning brewery's beers ("the tie"). Camra also campaigned against the tendency of smaller brewers to be bought up by larger ones, against short measures, for the preservation of historically significant pubs, and for increased choice and longer opening hours for pubs. Camra also produced a Good Beer Guide and campaigned for the preservation of mild ale, which was now seen as an endangered style.
  English drinkers became more interested in imported beers during the 1970s and 1980s, partly as a result of increased foreign travel, and partly because of promotion of the subject by beer writers such as Michael Jackson, with his 1977 The World Guide to Beer. Newly popular foreign brands included Beck's from Germany, Heineken and Grolsch from the Netherlands, Leffe and Hoegaarden from Belgium, Peroni from Italy, San Miguel from the Philippines, Budweiser and Sierra Nevada from the US, and Corona Extra from Mexico. A number of bars specialise in imported beer, with food and decor to match, Belgian and Bavarian themes being the most common.
  In 1972 Martin Sykes established Selby Brewery as the first new independent brewing company for 50 years. "I foresaw the revival in real ale, and got in early", he said. By the end of the decade he was joined by over 25 new microbreweries, a trend which would only increase in the 1980s. In 1979, Tim Martin opened the first Wetherspoons pub, in Muswell Hill, north London. This was the basis of a national chain of pubs, (over 900 as of 2016) which were to prove influential on the English beer scene, because of their low prices, large premises, and championing of cask ale. Also in 1979 David Bruce established the first "Firkin" brewpub. The Firkin chain consisted of pubs offering cask ale brewed on the premises, or at another brewpub in the chain. The chain expanded to over 100 pubs over its twenty-year history, considerably adding to the number of brewpubs
  in England. After a number of changes of ownership, brewing operations were wound up in 2001.
  Two pieces of legislation, known as The Beer Orders, were introduced in December 1989, partly in response to Camra campaigning. The Orders restricted the number of tied pubs that could be owned by large brewery groups in the United Kingdom to 2,000, and required large brewer landlords to allow a guest ale to be sourced by tenants from someone other than their landlord. The industry responded by spinning off purely pub-owning companies ("pubcos"), such as Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns, from the older brewing-and-owning companies, notably Allied Lyons, Bass, and Scottish & Newcastle. The Beer Orders were revoked 
caption: The Moon Under Water, 44 High Street, Watford. A J. D. Wetherspoon's pub named for Orwell's description.
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