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30 July 2008 |
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Cains fall would be a bitter blow
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 I wonder if the emperor Honorius watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill truly realised the Roman empire was about to fall.
That quote – which is from Shakespeare or Star Trek, I can't remember which – came to mind this week when I learned that Cains Brewery was in danger of closing.
Despite telling the press that everything was OK, Cains face a huge, unpaid tax demand on top of losses for the year so far of £4.5m and a clutch of mega loans and overheads.
The bill is so large that HM Revenue and Customs have launched a winding-up order against the firm and Cains have had to go cap in hand to the Bank of Scotland to bail them out. With the economic situation so grim, it feels unlikely that the bank will release any more cash.
This is terrible news for Cains 1000-plus workforce and cask lovers like myself who rave about their best bitter, Creamy Stout and fine Raisin Ale.
If the brewery closes it will also be huge blow to the city of Liverpool.
During the Victorian era, Robert Cains Brewery was one of the top 50 companies in the UK. It hit the skids during the 1930s and was bought out by Higsons, who continued to produce great beers in Toxteth until being shut down in the 1980s.
In 1990 the brewery was re-opened by The Danish Brewery Group but they were taken over on the point of going under in 2002 by the Dusanj brothers, entrepreneurs who has started off in the fish and chip shop business.
Cains expanded, buying up new pubs, launching new lines, winning awards and becoming a symbol of modern Liverpool's business and cultural renaissance.
Cains played a major part in the city winning Capital of Culture status. It has even been suggested that the judges made their decision after spending an evening in the Cains owned Doctor Duncan's pub in the city.
So what went wrong? The cost of raw materials has risen sharply, plus there has been a general huge decline in the number of people drinking in pubs since the smoking ban.
The tabloids scream about "binge Britain" but, in reality, beer sales across the board are down to their lowest levels since the Great Depression.
The company took over the struggling Honeycombe chain of Lancashire pubs last year for £37million, just as the smoking ban was coming into force. Doh!
Cains saw their future as expanding succesfully in the same way as breweries like Thwaite's have done. That seems a very unwise decision in hindsight. Some may even call it naive.
Let's forget about blame for now and drink Cains in the hope a solution can be found.
It has been suggested that a takeover is probably the most likely outcome. Hopefully one that builds on Cains brewing excellence rather than a venture capitialist who will flog off the brewery and the impressive portfolio of property without a second of sentimental hesitation.
Meanwhile, I've looked up the quote at the beginning of this piece and discovered it wasn't the Bard but Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise who uttered the lines about the emperor.
Picard, faced the deadly, merciless, humourless Borg and prevailed.
Let's hope Cains can do the same against the taxman.
by Rob Doyle |
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