Despite many smaller brewers plunging into the Lager pool, large and international concerns dominated the market. In 1970, 92% of sales were in the hands of five companies.
With 34%, Bass Charrington were very much in the driving seat. They were the largest brewery, but held nowhere near as much as a third of the total beer market. Both of their Lagers were also brands which they owned 100%. Of the Big Six, only Allied, with Skol, was in a similar situation.
It’s indicative of the scale of Lager sales in Scotland that Tennents, a regional brand not available in most of the country, was the second biggest seller.
The Harp Lager consortium was originally owned 50% by Guinness, 22.5% by Courage, 22.5% by Scottish & Newcastle and 5% by Bass Charrington. Given the success of their own Lager brands, it's no surprise that Bass Charrington sold off their share in Harp early in 1970. As a result, the percentage owned by Courage and Scottish & Newcastle rose to 25% each.
Outside of the big boys, everyone else had to be happy with just 8% between them. Demonstrating that the growth of Lager was disproportionately exploited by the larger brewers, giving them yet another advantage.
| Lager market shares in 1970 | |
| Harp | 26% |
| Bass-Charrington | |
| Tennents | 21% |
| Carling | 13% |
| Allied Breweries | |
| Skol | 16% |
| Carlsberg | 12% |
| Heineken | 4% |
| Remainder | 8% |
| Source: | |
| Brewers' Guardian, Volume 99, March 1970, page 39. | |
I always associate Heineken with Whitbread and Carlsberg with Watney Mann. That would complete the Big Six representation, but was this actually the case back in 1970?
ReplyDelete21% for Tennents, given that Scotland had about 1 tenth of the population of England, was just crazy.
Harp stays sharp to the bottom of the glass...
ReplyDeleteThis takes me back to the late Seventies. I might have occasionally drunk a lager, but back then, I mostly drank bitters. Harp, Carling Black Label, Carlsberg . . . these lagers were way over-rated in my opinion, then and now. I preferred, in order, Kronenbourg, Tuborg and maybe if these were´nt available, then a Skol. I was a student and so (other fellow) students in the bar had to show off and drink a couple of bottles of tasteless, uninteresting Stella Artois and then be sick. Tennents hadn´t reached Wales, back then. Oh, and Wrexham Lager - that was guaranteed disappointing piss, every time. Now, there are Americans coming across the Atlantic to drink Wrexham Lager in the pub outside Wrexham´s Racecourse football ground!
ReplyDeleteIn this developing keg thread it would be interesting to know which of the "mega" brands were actually proper lagers or just very pale top fermented ales served cold on keg.
ReplyDeleteBribie G,
ReplyDeletethe big brands: Skol, Harp, Carling, Heineken and Carlsberg were all, more or less, "proper" Lagers, being fermented cold. Pretty much none of the others were.
Tennents ah Orangeman’s piss.
DeleteOscar
It depends how you define a "proper" Lager. Some of the major brands nowadays are notorious for enjoying a cold-conditioning period measured in hours rather than weeks.
ReplyDeleteI believe the 21% for Tennent's is not all down to sales in Scotland. Tennent's was also on the English market in the 1970s, with a product Tennent's Pilsner which was not sold in Scotland. Presumably this was one of Bass’s secondary lager brands. Carling Black Label was not the behemoth in volume terms that it is today, nor did brewers concentrate on their flagship brands to the neglect of all others like they do now.
Rob Sterowski,
ReplyDeletethat may be true of later in the 1970s, but we're talking about the start of the decade. According to the Brewers' Guardian, in 1970 Tennents Lager was only available in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
I can remember ads promoting Skol as being brewed in "Britain's Norse Country", at Wrexham and Alloa. Of course neither of those places had any particular Norse connection, either now or then.
ReplyDeleteBut I do wonder if Wrexham Lager was just Skol rebranded for the local market. In about 1981 I tried it in Chester and quite liked it - but was I having the wool pulled over my eyes by an individuality that wasn't actually there?
On the same day I tried Border Bitter. Now that was a nice beer. Only time I ever had it.
No Wrexham lager was the first successful lager to be brewed in Britain.
DeleteOscar