You are right that the purpose of the state management scheme was to control end users, but the end result was good drinks that were harder to get intoxicated on and a nationalised industry that was consistently profitable. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked if the scheme had to serve more than 100,000 people though.
My source for this was my grandad and (indirectly) his friends, who enjoyed the state management beer and were sad to see it replaced by what they thought were inferior drinks. The companies buying the breweries were not interested in continuing with those drinks.
I should repeat that I am not a fan of nationalisation, and prefer co-ops, whether they be customer co-ops, workers self management or some combination of the two.
