This is something I've been thinking about since I started collecting my Christmas beer stash. Despite my attempts to shop locally and support local producers, like almost everyone else, we end up at the supermarket because it's easy. So, despite getting a case in from Beer Ritz, and coming across the guys from Northern Monk selling their wares at Baildon Farmers' Market I ended up casually collecting more beer from assorted excursions to our local megamarts. The conclusion I drew from an admittedly small but varied selection across north-west Leeds is that the Craft Beer Revolution ™ *cough* isn't really reaching supermarket shelves and seems to be in decline in them.

I don't think there's any doubt that there's more real ale available than there would have been even five years ago, but there seems to be less than there was a year ago, with the big boys either entrenching with their pet providers or stocking up their own label brands, and campaigns such as Sainsburys' Great British Beer Hunt providing exposure to some of the more established independent brewers but with a fairly mediocre selection of beers and in a non-permanent way. My local Asda is the flagship store at Owlcotes, and despite the irony of now being owned by and styled like the notoriously dry Wal-mart in the US, it does carry quite a good range from the brewers who can supply stores of that size, even though it may be one beer from each. Beyond that though, it's big names from down south and a lot of fairly average beer, notably in Asda and Morrisons, both based in West Yorkshire, but who have gone out of the area for their own brand products: Asda to Shepherd Neame and Morrisons to Titanic, Marstons and, exceptionally, Black Sheep. At the next level, M&S have their somewhat variable relabelled range, Waitrose have adopted Thornbridge and their growing range of own brand beers is actually quite good in a sort of M&S kind of way and Booths are the real exception, stocking their shelves with local beers from Lancashire, Cumbria and beyond, but of course they still don't have much of a presence in Yorkshire, and it's hard to justify a trip to Ilkley just to  stock up the beer cupboard, but they have brought Hardknott, Stringers and Ulverston among others to a wider audience than they might have otherwise received.

However, back at the big four it really seems that momentum has dropped off. There was a time a couple of years ago when there was a sort of testing phase and new beers did seem to be appearing on the shelves. As often as not they might have been sourced through the megabrewers or beer distribution companies - and when you get into Belgian beers and the like, it's remarkable how many breweries are actually owned by ABInBev or indeed Duvel Moortgat - but there was a feeling that they were all testing this new beer market to see what to sell, and that that experimentation has more or less stopped.

Alternatively, the big four are currently jostling in a price matching race in response to competition from Aldi and Lidl and real ale or craft beer is one of those things that can't really be discounted unless it's bought in large quantities of the scale provided by Shepherd Neame or Marstons, or if there are guaranteed sales - Brewdog Punk IPA is notable by its ubiquity on the strong beer shelf, often somewhere near Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, for example. Even Sainsbury's, who are excellent at finding new products in odd categories, don't seem to have converted the Great British Beer Hunt into new products on the shelves (I just had to look up what 'won' last year and I haven't seen it at any of the three stores that we use, and I would try it as a matter of course).

Does it matter? Probably not. There are plenty of ways of finding and buying new beers, and if nothing else, the current interest in beer has been driven to a large extent by the Internet, which runs ahead of large scale retail at a rate of knots. The majority of what can be found on supermarket shelves is average and displays Marstons' forte for promotion. That there are local beers available is gratifying, and I hope it's the same in the rest of the country, but supermarkets are there for convenience, and most have enough beer to look like they provide a choice, so when I can browse Beer Ritz's virtual shelves (and even visit their shop, when I manage to find it), or visit The Curious Hop in Otley, I'm happy with what is available to me. What is remarkable I think is that none of the new bucks in the game, even the ones who have leapt on the beer wagon as a business choice, seem to have made it to the self-service checkout yet. However, as with the fruit and veg and artisan cakes at the farmers' market, it's as much about what you know as where you buy it from, and if a business can be sustained without having to kowtow to the supermarkets' demands, then we might be onto something.