Arundel Brewery did very well back in August last year at the Hop Farm, Kent, where its beers picked up three prizes at the South Eastern regional finals of the SIBA Brewing Competition, but they have now gone one better.

At the SIBA National Finals held in early March in Stratford-upon-Avon, Sussex Mild won a gold medal to become National Champion Beer in the mild category. It also just missed becoming Supreme Champion by one place, gaining the silver medal instead — a great result for an endangered beer style. Sussex Mild wins friends easily, and young drinkers who have tried it during brewery tours have been greatly impressed.

Generally, production and sales are going well, with the company’s products gaining plenty of new accounts, such as the Capital Pub Co in London. The beers have also been featured in Wetherspoon outlets from Fareham to Hastings, and northwards to Haslemere.

Article supplied by Jeff Vinter, Arundel Brewery Liaison Officer. Arundel’s Sussex Mild can be found regularly at the Four Chesnuts, Chichester.

Marston’s has bought Ringwood Brewery for £19.2 million pounds.

The company has said that it is committed to the brewery, and that it will continue to brew Ringwood beers at Ringwood. While Marston’s has (so far) kept a similar promise regarding Jennings, the fear is that other large brewers will start snapping up small breweries in order to keep up — and those small breweries may well end up going the same way as King & Barnes did…

Story at the Publican’s site

Oh look. Greene King has confirmed that Hardys & Hansons will be closed at the end of the year.

The only printable response I can find is that GK is the 21st Century Whitbread. Although at least Whitbread usually waited a bit before closing the brewery they’d bought.

Isn’t it about time we said “enough is enough”? I for one won’t be drinking any of GK’s beers — oh, sorry, “brands”. Says it all, that.

At just after 4 today, Hardys & Hansons shareholders voted to accept Greene King’s takeover bid.

The board stated that the future of the brewery was a matter for GK so… well, place your bets. I give them until the end of the year, tops :(

No link for further information just yet, as we seem to have scooped both the Publican and the Morning Advertiser…

(Personal rant: Wonder how many more family brewers will need to be devoured before the Government gets off its backside and does something? Oh, but that would take vital resources away from spending all our money on half-baked identity card schemes, of course…)

Greene King have agreed to buy Hardys & Hansons for £270m. No news yet on the fate of the brewery. (Call me Captain Cynical if you like, but I doubt it’ll last long…)

More details in articles at the Publican and the Morning Advertiser.

Another one bites the dust — Young’s is to close its brewery in Wandsworth (the site is believed to be worth up to £100m) and merge with Charles Wells. The resulting company will be known as Wells & Young’s Brewing Company Ltd.

Another bit of brewing history down the toilet. Will the beers still taste the same? Will the bottled range be as extensive? (And what will happen to all the horses, come to that?)

(from thepublican.com)

(Edit: more in this article in the Times)

To nobody’s great surprise, Gales brewery in Horndean will cease brewing on March 31, with the site being used as a depot from then. The beers will be brewed at Chiswick — for now, anyway.

The Bitter is being dropped — always likely, considering it was up against London Pride. Butser, Festival Mild, HSB and Prize Old are safe — for now. Still, the more paranoid reader might like to consider stocking up on Prize Old… (Going off-topic for a second, what of the country wines? The Black Beer & Raisin would be sorely missed…)

(Story from The Publican — more at BBC News)

News just in: Gales have been taken over by Fullers for some vast sum of money (around about £90m, we hear).

That’s all we have so far — we’ve beaten the BBC to the story :) There’s no news on whether the pubs will be rebranded or the brewery closed, though with any luck it might get a bit easier to get hold of some Chiswick around here…

More info as we get it.

(Update: more details in the article in the Publican. Looks like a “complete review” is planned, so it could go either way. Might not be a bad idea to stock up on bottles of Prize Old, though…)