Speak to the owner of any small, independent brewery and I’ll bet you 50p they’ve got feelings on how tough things are at the moment. Honestly, everything really does feel relentless. It’s a wonder there’s still any breweries and pubs left at all.

The majority of them, however, are still trading, and the thing is, I can’t remember a time when things weren’t tough for small breweries and the pubs they supply. This is not to diminish the very real economic pressures the beer and hospitality businesses are presently faced with. It’s more of an acknowledgement that for most operators, it has never been an easy ride.

As an industry, something or someone always manages to find new challenges to throw at those who would dare attempt to operate sustainably within its ecosystem. Whether it’s the rising cost of raw materials, crippling business rates, or simply the fact that customers have less disposable income in their pockets, the list of challenges feels truly endless. In fact, I think I’ll hang onto that 50p, if you don’t mind.

Despite this ever-present calamity, there are still good news stories out there. On my travels around the UK where I take in visits to various breweries and the pubs that surround them, they continue to spring up. With things as tough as they are, I feel it’s important to take stock of these, and hold onto them as tightly as possible.

Some of these stories feel quite small, but are by no means insignificant. Take, for example, the fact that Liverpool’s Dead Crafty Beer Company has just opened a second branch in the city’s Allerton Road neighbourhood, giving locals more options from small, independent breweries, right on their doorstep. Similarly, in my hometown of Stockport, we’ve just welcomed Fell brewery to the town centre, which has expanded on our already excellent beer scene with its sixth bar.

In Leeds, the pub scene feels like it has entered a turning point after a few tough post-pandemic years. Kirkstall brewery has recently reopened the Victoria and Commercial on Great George Street; a beautiful, Grade II-listed, Victorian pub dating back to 1865, that has been gracefully given a new lease of life. Not too far away down Kirkstall Road, the Highland Laddie, which was reopened in April 2025, has gone from strength to strength, following being named as the best pub in the UK by the Good Food Guide, and ranked at 30 in the UK’s Top 50 Gastropubs.

The Laddie seems to be leading by example, matching its high-end food offering with the fact it’s just a very nice place to pop in for a pint. Manchester’s the Angel, on Rochdale Road, has seemingly followed suit by updating its menu, and, as with the Laddie, is now offering oysters at the bar. It’s a touch of welcome decadence in these lenient times. After all, what are pubs if they’re not places where we can go to escape from the relentless intensity of the news cycle and give ourselves a nice treat.

There’s also plenty of good news flowing from breweries themselves. At Theakston’s brewery in Masham, North Yorkshire, owner Simon Theakston was bullish about the health of beers including Theakston’s Bitter and its flagship Old Peculier, both of which are presently in growth. Further south in Bakewell, Derbyshire, Thornbridge brewery has just revealed that its own headliner, the muscular, 5.9 per cent IPA, Jaipur, is now the ninth best-selling cask beer in the UK. Perhaps the demise of cask beer has been overstated?

It’s worth considering the success of Jaipur for a moment, and what it means. A beer, packed with flavour and served at a high strength – seemingly the antithesis of what you would expect to succeed in the UK – is one of the best selling beers in its category. It demonstrates how a focus on quality and provenance is still respected by consumers, and one that, in many cases, they’re willing to pay a premium to access. It would be remiss of me, however, not to mention the availability of this particular beer in Wetherspoon pubs, and its keen price point, which I’ve no doubt has contributed towards its success.

Most recently, my travels took me to Newton Aycliffe in County Durham. This part of the country is perhaps best known for its numerous working mens clubs, and the ubiquitous, mass-produced and near-tasteless brands it serves via metered dispense. But at Steam Machine Brew Co, which on a cold, wet Friday in late January is hosting its annual Big Mash Up beer festival, the local community has gathered together to support this small business and enjoy its bold and characterful beers.

A couple of years ago, conversations in beer often centered around the idea that there’s “light at the end of the tunnel”. In reality, I don’t think that chance of daylight is coming anytime soon. Instead, we’ve got to admire the glimmers that are somehow managing to shine through the cracks in the walls around us when we can. Good beer is still being made and good pubs are still open to sell it in – I’ve seen the proof! Let’s take a moment and remember to celebrate this, and not let everything else going on in the world grind us down to the point of hopelessness. There’s still plenty of reasons to be cheerful, if we look hard enough for them.