Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries -- better known to many as Banks's -- looks set to buy up one of the country's best-known breweries to add to its growing portfolio of breweries and brands.

Jennings of Cockermouth in Cumbria was originally established, as a true family concern, in 1828, when John Jennings, a local farmer started brewing in the pretty Lake District village of Lorton, between Keswick and Cockermouth.

The company has brewed from its current premises since 1874, and has remained strictly independent, though several other major brewers have acquired small shareholdings in the company over the years.

Jennings is a very successful regional brewer with rising profits and sales and an estate of 128 pubs. In the last financial year Jennings beers enjoyed record growth in freetrade sales -- beers such as Cumberland Ale, Sneck Lifter and Cocker Hoop were responsible for this, and their names will be familiar to you all.

Banks's promises to keep Jennings Brewery open are no guarantee. In 1999 they acquired Mansfield Brewery and closed it within two years, so we can only hope that their intentions are genuine.

While Britain's regional brewers remain targets for takeovers (in addition, Dunbar-based Belhaven are rumoured to be in discussions with Greene King), the country's micro-breweries go from strength to strength.

East Anglia seems to be the hotbed of micro brewing at the moment, with new breweries springing up at an impressive rate. It's no surprise, then, that we often feature ales from this region at our annual beer festival, as quality is guaranteed where the competition is so fierce.

True to form, Norfolk has celebrated two recent major beer awards. Wolf Brewery, based about 15 miles from Norwich, picked up an unprecedented hat-trick of awards at the Small Independent Brewers, recent awards held in Bristol. Granny Wouldn't Like It was their top brew, named supreme champion after earlier being crowned Champion Premium Ale.

And the Fat Cat pub in Norwich has won last year's CAMRA National Pub of the Year title --the only pub to have been voted best pub in Britain twice since the competition began in 1988 -- a business built on the quality of its local ales.

MATT BULLOCK