The Meantime brewery is to be moved out of Greenwich and will now be based in west London, its Japanese owner Asahi has announced.
Production of Meantime beers, together with Dark Star ales, will be moved to the Fuller’s Griffin Brewery in Chiswick.
Asahi UK said it wanted to keep a Meantime presence in Greenwich to celebrate the company’s significance in the history of British beer.
“Plans are under way for the creation of a new standalone consumer retail experience, including a continuation of brewing, where the brand was established as a pioneer of modern craft beer,” it said in a statement.
Some staff will be made redundant but others will be moved to Fuller’s, trade website The Grocer reported.
An Asahi UK spokesperson told The Greenwich Wire: “Our absolute priority right now is to support all colleagues who may be impacted by this proposal, and we are currently in the process of consultation with them. It would therefore be inappropriate to provide any further detail at this time.”
The company said that moving Meantime to Chiswick was “the best course of action for supporting the success of our brands and our sites”.
Only three weeks ago it was confirmed that Greenwich’s other major brewer, Brew By Numbers, was moving from Morden Wharf to North Yorkshire after being bought by a private equity company.
Meantime was founded by Alistair Hook in 1999 and is often said to have pioneered the craft beer movement in the UK. It was originally based in Penhall Road, Charlton, before moving to to Blackwall Lane in east Greenwich in 2010.
The company originally brewed own-brand beers for Sainsbury’s but later switched to producing for M&S.
At its peak, Meantime ran three local bars — the Greenwich Union on Royal Hill, the Old Brewery at the Old Royal Naval College and the pop-up Beer Box on Peninsula Square, next to the O2 — as well as the taproom in its brewery.
Hook sold the company in 2015 to SABMiller, then the company behind Grolsch, and it was sold on to Asahi a year later. The Old Brewery was taken on by Youngs in 2015, just three years after had opened, while the Greenwich Union closed during the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020 after 19 years in business.
In 2022 Meantime announced a partnership with Charlton Athletic to have its beers in the bars at The Valley — with pitchside slogans sboasting that its beers are brewed one mile from the ground.
Last year the production of Dark Star beers, including Hophead, was moved to Greenwich after Asahi bought the Sussex-based brewer. Asahi says it wants to concentrate its British beer production at Fuller’s, whose brewing operation it bought in 2019.
“We will share more on our plans for the brand and its future brewing arrangements in due course,” the spokesperson said.
Meantime’s move will prompt speculation about the fate of the brewery site — while there has been a lot of new housing in the area, the land could also be attractive for logistics companies with the Silvertown Tunnel opening next year.
Greenwich will still retain one brewery after Meantime departs — the small operation at the Up the Creek comedy club on Creek Road.
Updated at 7.20pm to include comment from an Asahi spokesperson.
You must be logged in to post a comment.