The decision by Scottish & Newcastle to call time on the Berkshire Brewery is not a huge surprise. When it was built 30 years ago, there was still plenty of heavy industry around to provide a steady supply of thirsty workers. Britons were also just beginning to get a taste for the cold lagers that they had come across during their overseas summer holidays.

Much has changed since then. Heavy industry has all but disappeared, while stringent drink-driving laws and the smoking ban in pubs have combined to keep a larger number of pub-goers at home, where they can swill cheap supermarket beer while watching their home cinemas.

The role of the pub as a bastion of male bonding has also been eroded by changing social mores. The surge in pub food sales shows that men are more likely to visit their local for a meal en famille than to play darts over a few pints with their mates.

The decline in beer sales - Grolsch, the Dutch brewer, yesterday reported a 10 per cent slump in its UK volumes last year - is also due to changing tastes. Just as ale drinkers started to turn to continental lagers in the 1970s and 1980s, so today's drinkers are seeking new beverages, be they over-ice cider or cocktails. In terms of beer, consumers increasingly are eschewing bland, mass-produced liquids like those manufactured at the Berkshire Brewery and seeking out niche products, such a wheat beers and craft beers. This search for high-quality drinks that actually taste of something has even driven a minor revival in real ale sales.

All of which calls into question Heineken's impending takeover of S&N's UK operations as a vehicle for driving sales of its eponymous brew.

antonia.senior@thetimes.co.uk

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