Small Welsh brewery issues a big challenge to beer industry

A micro-brewer is challenging others across the industry to use the Chancellor’s recent 1p drop in duty to help reduce the negative effects of  alcohol abuse

Jonathan Hughes, managing director of North Wales-based Great Orme Brewery, has announced that, rather than pocketing the 1p reduction, he will donate it to the National Association of Children of Alcoholics Charity (NACOA).

Jonathan heard about the charity during a BBC Radio Four appeal, around about the same time that the Chancellor made his budget announcement.

He saw the reduction as an opportunity to support a charity that helps those affected directly or indirectly by alcohol.

While Jonathan acknowledges that his will be a small contribution in financial terms, he hopes that the move will encourage other breweries – large and small – to follow his example.

He said: “British beer making is in a renaissance, with more small producers offering a wealth of amazing real ales and true regional diversity.

“We are very proud to be a small part of that diversity.

“However, I do believe that if we, as a sector, are to be socially responsible then we must acknowledge the potential negative aspects of alcohol and take steps to address it.

“My plan is that rather than pocketing that 1p duty reduction, we donate it to NACOA.

“I would call on other alcohol producers – big and small – to look at practical ways they can help reduce the effects of alcohol abuse on society.“

Jonathan is sealing his pledge at the NACOA awards on June 14 and has agreed to donate the full amount of the annual saving from the duty reduction to the charity.

NACOA is a registered charity founded in 1990 to address the needs of children growing up in families where one or both parents suffer from alcoholism or a similar addictive problem.

It offers information, advice and support to children of alcohol dependent parents and aims to: reach the professionals who work with these children; raise the profile of the subject in the public consciousness; and to promote research into the problems faced by those growing up with parental alcoholism and into the prevention of alcoholism developing in this vulnerable group of children.

The charity’s chief executive, Hilary Henriques, MBE, thanked Jonathan for his support and re-iterated his call for others in the industry to take notice.

She said: “This is a wonderful endorsement of our work and we thank Jonathan for coming up with this inspiring idea.”

Jonathan founded Great Orme Brewery on his family dairy farm in 2005, when farming operations were being wound down.

The brewery, which prides itself on using natural ingredients and traditional brewing methods, is housed in a former cow shed, on a hillside overlooking the Conwy Estuary and the Great Orme, from which the brewery takes its name.