Beer is the best lubricant mankind has found in 7,000 years with Jonathan Neame & How Brtiain's oldest brewer has survived by bloodymindedness and 450 years of adaptation
Shepherd Neame has been brewing beer on the same site in Faversham, Kent, since 1573. That's before Shakespeare. Before the King James Bible. Before anyone called a pub a pub. It has survived two World Wars, the Temperance Movement, the craft beer revolution, a very public family falling-out, and a pandemic that shut down every pub in Britain overnight.
Jonathan Neame is the fifth-generation CEO, a qualified barrister, a former management consultant, and a man who once swore he would never work for his father. He changed his mind. In this conversation, Jeremy McKeown talks to Jonathan about family governance and succession, the economics of the British pub, why three pubs are closing every day in the UK right now, and what the government could do tomorrow to stop it. They also get into the craft beer revolution, the bifurcation between London and rural pub markets, and what it means to run a nearly 500-year-old business on a site where James Watt installed his second-ever steam engine in 1789.
Jonathan's answer to why Shepherd Neame has survived while almost everyone else hasn't: they're not in the alcohol business. They're in the socialising business. Beer is just the best lubricant mankind has come up with in 7,000 years.
Guest: Jonathan Neame, CEO, Shepherd Neame
Sponsored by: Progressive Equity & Finance Talking
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