ABSTRACT
This chapter briefly describes the industry in 1951, explores aggregate data on spatial change, examines case studies of spatial growth by the five core enterprises and considers the interaction process. Identification of the leader role in spatial growth is more problematical, but it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that different enterprises occupied it at different times. The markets for cask beer in 1951 were supplied by the small single-plant firm characteristic of the market system. The development sequence envisaged a pattern of change such that large enterprises would come to dominate the industry, and that those large enterprises would grow out of either a resource base or a metropolitan centre. These two elements can be explored by examining changes in industrial concentration, and by identifying core enterprises and investigating their pattern in 1951. The change in the merger distance produced an increase in multi-plant operation, a feature characteristic of the later stages of the development sequence.
