scottdisco
rip this joint please
ooh York and chocolate, two favourite things of mine
as for the smell, yeah, not just Edinburgh, though perhaps it's more obvious there (for a start, isn't there at least one brewery in Edinburgh in the town itself, i dunno like, but i'm thinking that Caledonian brewery might be; quite a lot of city breweries aren't in the city centre are they, they tend to be ind estate jobs in quite far suburbs, well the large ones anywhere, of course you get city centre brewpubs, but they're simply not very big in physical terms so presumably create less odour).
i can definitely say that on the southern outskirts of Mcr city centre in a particular place i worked for a few years we were near (like a mile or less) from two of the large local breweries and not every day, more when the wind hit like Lichen, but it didn't half pong. not an entirely unpleasant smell is it? but you can definitely tell.
(i used to work in an otherwise rural Mancunian country estate - ie you know, when the cities dumped a load of families in what was once a tiny village in the 50s - and the muck spreading some days from local farmers was monumental.)
as for how the new growing-stronger super regional breweries acquired their estates, mainly buying some off pubcos (and occasionally buying up smaller independent breweries and so taking over their trade, like when Fullers' bought up the Hampshire based Gales brewery and most of Gales unique beers went down the swanney) i'd have thought.
my last post kind of implied maybe that there are freehouses all over the show that are ten a penny these days. that isn't the case, my bad, a true freehouse remains a bit of a rarity AFAIK. the pubcos are willing to sell now and again (i know in the area where i grew up in the last year, a resilient Lees, one of the big Manc indies, has bought about eight estate pubs from i think Enterprise Inns or Punch), especially w so many pubs in general closing and it being such a tough trade w very tight margins.
i think i'm right in saying cask ale is the only economic growth area in UK beer. sales of keg bitter, lager, Guinness etc are down year on year.
and oh yes actual new build pubs are very very rare. (i think. i can't think of any in Brum and Mcr, the two large British cities i'm most familiar w.) it's fairly rare to even get a conversion from another use these days, though breweries that have money often tart up older boozers, granted. (whether that is for the better or not is definitely a case-by-case, i have seen some perfectly lovely community or estate pubs ruined into bland tat, though OTOH have seen some sympathetic spruce ups.)
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