Bass Ales, Margaret Thatcher and the Intercontinental

I am in a Food Science Technology class this term at UCD ("Beer making"). So far, we've had class twice, and while it's not exactly what I was expecting, it is interesting, and I wish I was able to take notes, but alas since I'm working in the class, I am unable to do so. And since I am unable to take notes, the details of this post are a bit fuzzy, but the right idea is there.

The professor is Scottish; he was the Brew Master for Bass Ale company in the UK for some 20-odd years before retiring and relocating to the US. He's an absolute stitch, very lively, and keeps the class rolling, both in terms of time as well as laughter. In tonight's class, the random topic was political science and Margaret Thatcher came up. (The prof always has interesting stories related to brewing and beermaking). Apparently, Thatcher is the enemy of the state as far as the UK brewing industry is concerned.

Apparently, before Thatcher, there were six large brewing companies in the UK (one of which was Bass). The brewing companies owned the breweries and would brew the beer. Then, in turn, they sold their beer to their resprective distributors, who were also owned by the brewing company. They would then sell the product to the pubs, who were (you guessed it!!) owned by the brewing companies. Each brewing company had their proprietary chain when it came to brewer, marketer, and retailer. Margaret Thatcher, who was incredibly conservative and was described by the professor as making Attila the Hun seem liberal, saw this proprietary chain as a monopoly and set out to bust it apart.

A law was passed that a brewing company could own no more than 2,000 pubs. Bass, who had well over 6,000 pubs in the UK at the time, was forced to sell off more than 2/3 of its business. The other five large brewsters were forced to do the same. As a result, corporations and industries that have nothing to do with beer bought up the pubs.

The corportation that bought up the Bass Ale's pubs was the Intercontinental Hotel Group, which owns the eponymously named hotel properties in addition to Holiday Inns and Crowne Plazas.

As a result, the prof's pension comes from Bass Ales, as he retired from that company, but all of his stock had reverted to the IHG; his dividends come from their clientelle.

I thought it was interesting.