More than 350 staff at Scottish & Newcastle's (S&N) Berkshire brewery stand to lose their jobs following today's announcement that the group intends to close the plant by early 2010.
S&N said it had already started talks with affected employees at the site, which is on the outskirts of Reading, and would also consult the relevant trade union bodies.
The closure announcement follows last November's announcement to cease bottling facilities at the site and the transfer of 3m hectolitres of production to Coors Brewers under a contract brewing agreement as part of a £20m cost savings commitment.
"The genesis of this was last year's Coors outsourcing deal, which leaves Berkshire at 50 per cent capacity," said a spokesman.
"We conducted a review of the operation and talked to our people and concluded that closure of the brewery was the appropriate way forward," he added.
S&N's plans have been shared with the Heineken & Carlsberg consortium as part of the due diligence.
The intention would be to transfer residual brewing and packaging work progressively to other S&N sites including Tadcaster in Yorkshire, the Royal Brewery in Manchester and Dunston, Gateshead. If fully implemented, the net effect of these changes would be a saving of £13m per annum from S&N's cost base, which will enable it to remain competitive within the UK market.
362 jobs are affected by the closure in what the spokesman described as a two-year process.
"We are conducting one-to-one briefings with those affected by the closure, looking at outplacements and opportunities within the company and elsewhere," he said, "although practically speaking we're not going to find 362 alternative arrangements. But we will do our utmost to help those involved."
Stephen Glancey, S&N group operations director said: "It is well documented that there is general over capacity in the UK brewing sector, and these proposals have been put in place to address this issue.
"The nature of the Reading site, the amount of investment required to make it competitive and its relative cost compared to other UK facilities means that there is a strong business case for closure. We will, of course, do all we can to mitigate the effects of the closure on the people affected."