Japanese owner Asahi has announced that the Meantime brewery is to be moved out of Greenwich and be based in west London.

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.

The closure has been condemned by CAMRA.

CAMRA’s campaigns director Gillian Hough said: “Having first moved production of Dark Star from Sussex to the Meantime brewery in Greenwich, it’s a further blow for British brewing to hear that Asahi will now move production of both Dark Star and Meantime to a single site in Chiswick. 

“Multinationals constantly seek out the authenticity of smaller brands, whose integrity is tied to their founding, their place of production, and the love and care that comes from a team of skilled brewers.

“Buying up and consolidating these brands in the name of profit not only strips communities of their brewing heritage, and creates redundancies for the brewers themselves, it often fundamentally destroys what made that beer special in the first place and reduces consumer choice to a meaningless selection between products owned by a single brand.

“CAMRA believes consumers deserve real choice at the bar, and that small independent breweries should be able to retain their unique character. 

“We condemn Asahi’s choice to further consolidate its brands in the strongest possible terms, as well as their decision to announce this while all eyes are on the Spring Budget announcement. With so much at stake for brewers across the UK, Westminster will rightly be where much of the trade’s focus lies today.”