Company type | Privately held |
---|---|
Industry | Brewing |
Founded | 1999 [1] |
Headquarters | Greenwich, London, England |
Key people | Alastair Hook (founder) |
Products | Beer |
Owner | Asahi Breweries |
Website | www |
Meantime Brewing Company is a brewery based in Greenwich, London, England, and owned by Asahi Breweries. The company was founded by Alastair Hook in 1999. [1]
It was founded in 1999 by Alastair Hook, [2] who trained at Heriot-Watt University and the brewing school of the Technical University of Munich of Weihenstephan. He started the brewery in a small lock-up on an industrial estate opposite Charlton Athletic’s ground, before moving to the Greenwich Brewery, 0° 2' 12" east of the Greenwich Meridian, and then to a site on nearby Blackwall Lane in 2010. [3] The brewery, including Rolec brewhouse, cost £7M; by 2013 they were producing 50,000 hectolitres but a growth rate of 60% per year meant that they expected to reach their capacity of 120,000 hectolitres by 2016. [4]
In May 2015, it was announced that Meantime was being bought by SAB Miller, for an undisclosed amount. [5]
In July 2015 Hook was named Brewer of the Year by the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group at its annual awards dinner. [6] In the same year The Beer Academy awarded Rod Jones, Meantime's beer sommelier and brewer, the Beer Sommelier of the Year title. [7] This was also the year that production of Thomas Hardy's Ale began at Meantime. [8]
In August 2015, Meantime stated that production of their London Lager had, on occasion, been outsourced to Grolsch (another SAB Miller brand) in the Netherlands to meet demand, but that the Dutch beer made up no more than 10% of any bottle. [9] Meantime confirmed that the use of Dutch beer would no longer be necessary after additional investments at the brewery, with the aim of keeping production entirely in London. [10]
Meantime was purchased by SABMiller in May 2015. As part of the agreements made with regulators before Anheuser-Busch InBev was allowed to acquire SABMiller in 2016, Meantime was sold to Asahi Breweries in October 2016. [11] [12]
Meantime was sold to Asahi Group Holdings of Japan in April 2016. [13] The sale was completed on 13 October 2016. [11] In January 2019 Asahi also bought the brewing division of Fuller's Brewery and its subsidiary Dark Star. [14] Meantime started production of Dark Star's portfolio of beers after Asahi closed the Sussex brewery in December 2022. [15]
In March 2024 Asahi announced the closure of the Meantime brewery site in Greenwich. Production of Meantime and Dark Star beers will transfer to the Asahi-owned Fuller's Brewery site in Chiswick. [16]
Meantime brews a range of twelve regularly available beers which focuses on traditional British and European styles such as Lager, Pale Ale, Porter and India Pale Ale. [17] In addition, it also produces an annual range of limited edition seasonal ales, which vary each year.
Meantime owns and operates the Greenwich Union public house on Royal Hill, Greenwich and, in 2010, opened the Old Brewery bar and restaurant with brewery in the original 1836 Brewhouse of the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, making it only the second brewery in the world to be located within a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After Asahi's purchase of Meantime these outlets were sold to Young's. The Greenwich Union was next door to an existing Young's pub, the Richard I, and the two pubs were combined into a larger Richard I.
Meantime also operates a visitor's centre attached to its brewing site on Blackwall Lane. In August 2014, Meantime opened the Beer Box on the Greenwich Peninsula close to the North Greenwich underground station, and in December of the same year, the business opened its Tasting Rooms and Brewery Shop within the grounds of its Greenwich brewery,
Foster's Lager is an internationally distributed brand of Australian lager. It is owned by the Japanese brewing group Asahi Group Holdings, and is brewed under licence in a number of countries, including its biggest market, the UK, where the European rights to the brand are owned by Heineken International.
South African Breweries is a major brewery headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa and was a wholly owned subsidiary of SABMiller until its interests were sold to Anheuser-Busch InBev on 10 October 2016. South African Breweries is now a direct subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV.
Grolsch Brewery , known simply as Grolsch, is a Dutch brewery founded in 1615 by Willem Neerfeldt in Groenlo. In 1895 the de Groen family bought the brewery. They had started their own brewery in Enschede in the early 19th century. It held a significant stake until November 2007. Today the main brewery is located in Enschede.
SABMiller plc was a South African multinational brewing and beverage company headquartered in Woking, England on the outskirts of London until 10 October 2016 when it was acquired by AB InBev. It was the world's second-largest brewer measured by revenues and was also a major bottler of Coca-Cola. Its brands included Foster's, Miller, and Pilsner Urquell. It operated in 80 countries worldwide and in 2009 sold around 21 billion litres of beverages. Since 10 October 2016, SABMiller is a business division of AB InBev, a Belgian multinational corporation with headquarters in Leuven.
Foster's Group Pty. Ltd. was an Australian beer group with interests in brewing and soft drinks, known for Foster's Lager, now called Carlton & United Breweries since the company was renamed in 2011. Foster's was founded in 1888 in Melbourne, Victoria by two American brothers, who sold the brewery a year later.
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Castle Lager is a South African pale lager. It is the flagship product of South African Breweries and has been recognised as the National Beer of South Africa, based on the fact that it is 100% grown and produced in the country.
Fuller's Brewery in Chiswick, west London, England, is the former brewing division of Fuller, Smith & Turner PLC. It was a family-run business from its foundation in 1845 until 2019, when it was sold to the Japanese international beverage giant Asahi.
Full Sail Brewing Company is a craft brewery in Hood River, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1987, Full Sail was the first commercially successful craft brewery to bottle beer in the Pacific Northwest for retail sale, and one of Oregon's early microbreweries. The first beer packaged was Full Sail Golden Ale, followed in 1988 by Full Sail Imperial Porter, Full Sail Amber Ale, and Wassail Winter Ale.
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Kompania Piwowarska is a Polish brewing group based in Poznań, established in 1999. Since 2017 it has been owned by Asahi Breweries. Kompania Piwowarska currently has three breweries: Lech Browary Wielkopolski in Poznań, Tyskie Browary Książęce in Tychy and Browar Dojlidy in Białystok. Tyskie Browary Książęce, one of the oldest breweries in Europe, was founded in 1629.
The Granville Island Brewing Company (GIB) was a brewery originally based on Granville Island in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It was founded in 1984 and calls itself "Canada's first microbrewery". In 1989, it was sold to the wine conglomerate Andrew Peller Ltd. In 2009, it was bought by Creemore Springs, a subsidiary of Molson Coors, which in 2016, became the third largest beer corporation in the world. Of brewers with locations in British Columbia, Granville is the seventh largest based on sales to the BC Liquor Distribution Branch.
Peroni Brewery is a brewing company, founded by Francesco Peroni in Vigevano, Italy in 1846.
Dark Star was a brewery in Partridge Green, Sussex, England.
SABMiller was one of the top five global brewing companies, and had a range of over 150 beers, including international beers such as Pilsner Urquell, and Miller Genuine Draft, and local ones such as Gambrinus and Castle Milk Stout.
The Great Western Brewing Company is an independent brewery in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The company currently produces several varieties of beer and hard seltzer, some of which have received international awards for excellence. With annual production capabilities of >300,000 hectolitres annually, it is one of the larger regional brewers in Western Canada.
Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, commonly known as AB InBev, is a Belgian multinational drink and brewing company based in Leuven, Belgium and is the largest brewer in the world. In 2023, the company was ranked 72nd in the Forbes Global 2000. Additionally, AB InBev has a global functional management office in New York City, and regional headquarters in São Paulo, London, St. Louis, Mexico City, Bremen, Johannesburg, and others. It has approximately 630 beer brands in 150 countries.
InBev was a brewing company that resulted from the merger between Belgium-based company Interbrew and Brazilian brewer AmBev which took place in 2004. It existed independently until the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch in 2008, which formed Anheuser-Busch InBev. InBev had operations in over 30 countries and sales in over 130 countries. In 2006, it had a market capitalization of €30.6 billion and net profit of €3.2 billion on sales of €13.3 billion.
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