But one sector of the industry is bnucking the trend - real ale.

To find out why, we went to meet the family behind the award-winning Jarrow Brewery.

Anyone who was alive in the 1960s will know there was no such thing as a lager lout.

That is because the fizzy beverage, blamed for all manner of social ills ever since, simply didn't exist. Not in this country anyway.

That meant come a night out, your choice of tipple was stark. Real ale, spirits or nowt.

Fast forward to 2010 and the pub trade is a very different beast.

Lager and kegged beer are kings, but what with tax increases and the smoking ban, sales are way down.

Pubs are no longer on every street either. In 2009 more than 2,700 closed their doors for the last time.

Yet amongst all this doom and gloom, there is a chink of light; real ale is making a comeback with a one per cent growth last year.

It might not sound much, but one man who's taking advantage of this renaissance is Jess McConnell, 57, owner of South Tyneside's only real ale production company, the Jarrow Brewery.

Having been licensees for 20 years, Jess and his wife Alison went on a brewing course and set up their brewery at The Robin Hood, in Jarrow, which they still run to this day.

Due to demand for their ales, they had to purchase a larger plant and transfer all brewing to The Maltings, Claypath Lane, South Shields.
Their lives have never been the same since.

While their evocatively named ales are lauded all over the region, their magnus opus, Rivet Catcher, has gone on to achieve national notoriety.

Already the current Champion Beer of the North East, it has also won silver and bronze at the annual Great British Beer Festival held in London.

Not bad going for a brewery which hasn't even celebrated its eighth birthday yet.

Jess puts the secret of their success down to a few magic ingredients: "Quality control, attention to detail, and, above all, consistency.

"For the beers to achieve this consistency, all procedures' of the brew must be treated methodically, and with regimental detail."

Standing in The Maltings bar, so far these were just abstract words.

Jess therefore decided to take Gazette photographer Stu Norton and I downstairs to the brewery to show us what this all meant.

Once down there the first thing that hits you is the overpowering smell of malt, much like 'Horlicks'. I liked it. Stu hated it. Those who work here don't even smell it any more.

The first stage of the beer-making process is to bring in the malt and pour it into the auger, a kind of huge collecting and lifting chute.

Doing this was Chris Mills, 24, from South Shields, who has worked here for five years as a brewer and delivery driver.

"It's a good job. I like it because it's unusual. You don't see many people brewing beer any more."

From here, the malt is taken through a pipe up to the 'hopper', an upside-down pyramid-shaped box, which feeds into the mash tun; a huge metal tank which holds 270 gallons, or 2,160 pints.

Water, heated to 71 degrees, is mixed in with the malt in a process called 'mashing'. The mixture, which Jess described as looking "like porridge", is then left for one hour.

From this tank the 'malt liquor' is extracted and transferred to the 'copper boiler', where it is boiled for one-and-a-half hours.

Making a schoolboy error in asking when the sugar was added, Jess soon set me right: "We don't add sugar. The mashing process releases the malt's natural sugars."

During the boiling process hops are added at three critically-timed stages. It is the secret combinations of hops and malt which give each beer its unique flavour.

With the boil complete, the beer is transferred to stainless steel vessels in the fermentation room, which is kept at a constant temperature of 18 to 21 degrees centigrade.

This is the optimum temperature for the yeast – which is added at this point – to turn the sugar into alcohol.

Once the beer has been fermented for a week, it is then transferred into 180 gallon stainless steel tanks where it is left to cold condition for three days.

During this period the beer loses its 'yeastiness' and develops its unique natural flavours. And that's about it!

After approximately 10 days, the beer is transferred into sterile casks ready for sale.

"Meanwhile Alison looks after the sales, marketing and logistics side of the business," said Jess.

"We deliver it all over North East England, and wholesalers buy and send it all over the UK."

Asked how many pints they brew a week, Jess showed he is as old school in his mathematics as he is in his beer tastes by doing some calculations on my notepad.

"50 brewers' barrels a week, that's 1,800 gallons. Eight pints to a gallon ..." he mumbled to himself.

Then came the magic number. "14,400 pints a week."

Back upstairs it was time for us to try the fruits of their labour.

With some eight real ales to choose from, we plumped for Jobling's Swinging Gibbet, named after the last man to be 'gibbeted', or hung, in South Tyneside.

Enjoying a pint of this was regular Malcolm Dunn, 73, a retired payroll manager at the Town Hall.

"It's got some character, and you don't have to chew it like some real ales," said the dad-of-three.

Hmm, quite nice Stu and I agreed, though neither of us were convinced it could sway us away from lager.

Red Ellen was next, named in tribute to Ellen Wilkinson, the firebrand Jarrow MP who joined the Jarrow Marchers in 1936. Again nice, but no cigar, we both agreed.

Our final tipple, the famed Rivet Catcher, was pushed our way by Jess's daughter Mikaela, 20, who, as the brewery manager, was justly proud of what they'd achieved.

Like a growing number of women, she too enjoys drinking real ale.

"The image of real ales is changing. Women are even drinking it now out of nice wine glasses."

We wouldn't be needing those today, though. Pint pots were fine.

Two gulps in, we both stood there with that blissed-out look men often do when they've tasted something new and quite wonderful.

It's smooth and hmm ... I never thought I'd say this – fruity.

Malcolm seeing our smiles, added: "The only problem with Rivet Catcher is that is puts a smile on your face and the wife will know you've been having a good time."

Good job I'm not married. Being dyed-in-the-wool lager drinkers, both Stu and I never thought we'd be swayed to the dark side of real ale.

It happened though. That's the magic of Rivet Catcher.