Breweries will deliver more than 250 million pints to pubs across the UK by mid June.
Brewers appear to be preparing for a summer reopening of the nation’s pubs, with top beer manufacturers producing hundreds of millions of pints for delivery to venues in the coming weeks. Brewers including Heineken, Asahi (Peroni, Grolsch) and Anheuser-Busch (Stella, Budweiser) have resumed manufacture, largely aiming to deliver by June 15.
It’s an amazing turnaround after some beer giants had been forced to cease production at the start of lockdown through fear of new stock going out of date before it could be sold. That said, in recent weeks, dozens of pubs across the country have already partially reopened, serving pints of draught beer to take away.
At the moment, it remains unclear which pubs and pub groups will be able to reopen, even with beer in the barrels. Last week, Fuller’s chief executive Simon Emeny said that with a two-metre distancing rule in place, half of the group’s 393 pubs would have to remain shut. A source close to the Young’s group has said the pub chain are not planning to open until early August.