Mitchells & Butlers is to launch a Craft Cider Fest across it 115 Castle pubs next month.
The festival, which runs from 3 July to 30 August, features a total of 20 ciders including two exclusive products from American-based brewers, Docs.
The festival includes a loyalty card where customers can buy six pints and get the seventh free.
A group of 68 Conservative MPs have signed a letter calling for the Chancellor Rishi Sunak to cut beer duty in his upcoming Budget announcement on 3 March.
The Inn Collection Group has appointed a new property director, Louise Stewart, to assist in its multiple development and expansion plans this year.
Effectively managing relationships with a huge and diverse supply chain throughout a merger which saw Stonegate become the UK’s largest pub company would be no small task at the best of times. Factor in that Stonegate’s acquisition of Ei group happened around two weeks before the first lockdown in March last year and you can at least imagine the scale of the challenges that faced Suzanne Baker, commercial and property director at Stonegate.
Urban Pubs & Bars lost out on £2.5m in sales in the first month of the March lockdown, and incurred a significant shortfall in profit due to its inability to mitigate costs immediately at the point of closure.
The Inn Collection Group saw a year of record growth in 2020. Throughout the year, the Alchemy-backed business acquired eight freehold properties, bringing its total estate to 19 sites, and managing director Sean Donkin tells MCA that it was able to grow so aggressively because of one major contributing factor: the pandemic. “It has enabled us to focus on acquiring new sites and made additional opportunities available,” he says. “But it’s not necessarily because of people going under, it’s people running out of puff and fight”.
BrewDog has achieved certified B Corp status, making it the only hospitality business in the UK to achieve the accolade.
