A people’s revolution

Could a 150-year-old socialist ideal help keep small breweries and rural communities afloat? Alastair Gilmour thinks so

You’re sitting in the only pub in the village. The next-door micro-brewery is about to throw in the towel. The pub gets its beer from the micro. The nearest city is 12 miles away and the bus runs only on Wednesdays. Basis for a tragi-comic television series, or bitter reality?

Fiction lost out when the 240 inhabitants of Hesket Newmarket in Cumbria were given the opportunity of forming a co-operative and buying the brewery. Reality succeeded – with a dash of altruism – when 58 investors tabled £1,500 each to invest in lock, stock and cask, run it for the good of the village and return any profits to the community. Six years later, Hesket Newmarket Brewery has doubled its employment rate to four (ish), has expanded its capacity, increased output out of all expectation, hosted a royal visit, and is about to offer its shareholders – now numbering 90 – the choice of a cash dividend or one ladled out in liquid form.

“We’re also making £2,000 available to our Community Fund for local projects,” says Diane Brown, the co-operative secretary. “Last year the fund went towards after-school activities and for cookery equipment for our pre-school children and lighting for the local drama group. We like to see the brewery as part of the Hesket community.”

The wide range of shareholders includes farmers, solicitors, jobbing builders, “Liz from the post office” and Sir Chris Bonington, the acclaimed mountaineer and explorer who lives nearby.

Watch any television soap and you’ll gather h.....

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By Alastair Gilmour

Section : Spotlight

Page number : 56