Grain to Glass

On Tuesday I and a number of brewing colleagues from around the country met up with farmers, hop growers, maltsters and members of the NFU as well as members of parliament at the launch of the Grain to Glass report.

This is a joint industry initiative to raise awareness of the importance of the brewing industry to the rural economy and to call for government support going forwards.

Some of the facts that I picked up included:

• 270000 rural jobs depend on the brewing industry
• The brewing and pub industry contributes £28 billion to the UK economy
• 1.7 million tonnes of barley are used per year in brewing and distilling (over 30% of the total UK crop)
• There are over 400 breweries based in rural locations.
• In 2010 over 100 new breweries opened taking the UK total to more than 800 producing 5000 different brands (in the year 2000 there were only 500 breweries).

These figures show how important the brewing industry is to the national economy.

At Shepherd Neame we are firmly committed to this initiative, we use 100% British malt and 98% of our ale hops are grown in Kent, we even have Protected Geographical Indicator (PGI) status for our Kentish Ales guaranteeing the use of first class local ingredients.

Stewart Tricker - Senior Brewer