Diageo’s decision to keep open the famous St James’s Gate brewery in Dublin bucks a Europe-wide trend that has seen brewers from Carlsberg in Copenhagen to Scottish & Newcastle in Edinburgh, and Young’s in Wandsworth in south London shut down city centre facilities to realise the property value of the sites.

In the pre-railway age when barrels were ferried to pubs by horse and cart, a closeness to your customer was essential. But today with improved communications, and with local authorities and neighbours complaining of the brewing smells, there would seem to be few reasons to hang on to city centre sites – except intangible questions of brand and heritage.