The Pattern

Read through these closures and certain patterns emerge:

Undercapitalisation. Breweries that started without enough money and could never catch up. The funding gap described in Chapter 16 isn't abstract — it's the reason dozens of specific breweries no longer exist.

External shocks on thin margins. Covid, energy costs, raw material inflation, interest rate rises. Any one of these would strain a well-funded business. All of them together, hitting businesses that were already running on fumes, were fatal.

The crowdfunding trap. Brewery after brewery raised money from enthusiastic investors, spent it, and left those investors with nothing. The total amount of crowdfunding money lost in UK brewery failures runs into tens of millions of pounds.

Age and reputation don't protect you. Kelham Island brewed for thirty-two years. Thwaites brewed for over two centuries. Black Sheep was a Yorkshire institution. Elland won Champion Beer of Britain five times. None of it was enough.

Growth doesn't save you either. Gipsy Hill was growing at 19%. Signature Brew's revenue was up 18%. You can sell more beer every year and still go under because costs are rising faster than revenue.