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300 jobs to go with closure of the capital's oldest brewery
Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Affairs Editor06.01.09
LONDON'S oldest brewery is to close with the loss of up to 300 jobs after more than 500 years.
The Stag Brewery in Mortlake will be shut down next year, operator InBev UK said today.
It blamed higher duties on beer and the poor state of the economy for the decision, which was described as "a further nail in the coffin" of brewing in London.
Brewing was first recorded at the site on the bank of the Thames in 1487 and there is a record of continuous beer making there since the early 18th century.
The brewery, which has been substantially modernised in recent years, will join a roll-call of axed beer-making sites in London. The closure will leave just one commercial-scale brewery surviving in the capital - the Fuller's Griffin Brewery in Chiswick.
The Stag Brewery has been operated by US giant Anheuser-Busch to make Budweiser lager since 1986. The company was taken over by InBev of Belgium in a $52billion deal completed in November to create the world's biggest brewing multi-national. In a statement InBev said the proposal to shut the brewery formed part of a planned restructuring of the two companies' UK operations. The company said: "This consultation is also a response to challenging market conditions and significantly higher costs imposed as a result of record rises in beer taxation, which mean that we need to review and propose any changes now."
John Cryne, London spokesman for the Campaign for Real Ale, said: "The fact that all that comes out of it at the moment is Budweiser does not exactly get the taste buds salivating but the decline in brewing capacity in the UK over the past five years, particularly by big players outside the UK, is something we would only see with regret."
InBev would not comment on plans to redevelop the site but its riverside location means it will be attractive to residential developers.
Liberal Democrat MP Susan Kramer said she hoped another brewer would take on the site.
Reader views (15)
Don't be too hopefull of another brewery taking this prime real estate site over, social needs and the rentless drive for LUXURY APARTMENTS will dictate the future of this site meanwhile another business is a thing of the past!
- Sb, Essex England
As the CAMRA spokesman quoted in the article, I very much regret the further decline in brewing in our capital city. Once InBev had acquired US brewer Anheuser Busch, it was always likely that this global company would look to rationalise its brewing operations by closing Mortlake and moving production elsewhere in the UK or overseas. As demand for insipid lager-style beers has fallen, it would have been far more imaginative if InBev had shifted production at Mortlake to quality, cask conditioned beers. This would have saved everybody's jobs and helped fulfil a demand in London, which has been seen elsewhere in the country, for locally produced craft beers. Once upon a time this company looked to project itself as "the world's local brewer". No longer local for Londoners though.
- John Cryne, London
It's a factory, not a brewery. It hasn't been a REAL brewery for a long time.
- Martin H Watson, Teddington
Somehow, this isn't surprisng news, somewhere from deep in my memory, bells ring about the expiry of a land covenant on the brewery, and also that the property is also rented, with a lease soon to expire. I may be wrong, but I don't think I am. I'm sure that there will soon be a lovely riverside development there! Though there must be a few tears about the drop in property prices at the moment.
I don't think too many will really shed a tear over the loss of brewing in Mortlake, other than ex Watney employees, though the days of the Watney family going up and down Mortlake High Street in a horse and trap are long behind us. Maybe there won't be so many mosquitos there in the summer, when the disused water purifying plant is gone.
It'll be interesting to see what some of the new residents will think of some of the existing ones though....maybe the area will shed some of it's "Peckham by the river" reputation!
- Dr, Twickenham, England
Well its not just the product is it, it the people who work there plus the supporting trades, their familes and their livlihoods, trust some real ale bods to think only of the pint - how many companies can actually operate as a business on the custom of these mean spirited individuals if thats the way they comment when numerous local jobs have been lost I'm suprised they even get a round in, to you all Cheers, lets hope your trade is not next for the chopping block
- Sb, Essex England
Another brewer with blinkers blaming increased taxes on beers for them having to close down. The other reasons include:
Credit Crunch followed by Recession
Cheap beer at supermarkets (including Budweiser)
Greedy PubCos overcharging their tenants
Underestimation of the effect of the Smoking Ban,
and probably most importantly,
Selling a poor quality product that has to be advertised by gimmicks such as "Born on Dates"
This is one brewery that I am not sad to see closing.
- Andrew W1, London
Hopefully it will be taken over by a more operative and Contractor friendly organisation wich makes a full tasting beer!
Good luck to all the poor souls who have worked there over the reign of Bud.
- Mindy Woodle, London UK
Spent 8 happy years working at the Stag Brewery in the 1990s. Sorry to see it closing, with the loss of jobs, after all the investment put into the Site by A-B at that time
- Adrienne Caldwell, Glasgow, Scotland
It might be good riddance to Budweiser but its sad for the community of SW14. With the brewery now gone, along with the working class community that used to live there, Mortlake becomes another bland, soul less, middle class suburb
- Lj, SW14
It's not some lovely brick built Victorian brewery with ivy growing round the gates (Not like Fullers). It's a hideous chemical factory of glass and steel brewing tasteless lager with different names. Good riddance.
- David, Teddington
Come down to East Hampshire, we've got new micro-breweries opening that make superb real ale. We've got Hogback Brewery and TEA and Warnboro Brewery. I'm not surprised nobody wants to dring insipid US Lager.
- T Oates, Farnham England
did Bud really buy it in 1986?
- Chaz Hobden, warminster wilts
Anything that means less Budweiser in the world has to be celebrated. It's the very definition of blandness, so typically American.
- Mctavish, London
An historic brewery closing "due to record rises in beer taxation". Doesn't that say it all. All Brown & Co know is tax, tax, tax, tax, and tax some more. They've taxed the U.K. into the ground over the last 11 years. All any socialist party knows is tax, tax, tax ... ; by doing so, they kill individual initiative and enterprise.
- Phil Jones, London UK
Hopefully it will be taken over by a proper brewery making decent beer not American piddle.
- Bob, Cheam
