The Greenwich-based brewery cleared up rumours that its London Lager was made with Grolsch beer last week, but admitted to beer blogger Beer Insider that it does sometimes contain a beer brewed at the Grolsch brewery in Enschede.
In a statement, Meantime said: “The liquid was brewed to the precise specification and recipe of London Lager and has the exact profile and microbiological makeup as any batch of London Lager brewed here at out brewery in Greenwich.”
However, critics have pointed to the prominent message on London Lager bottles that reads: ‘born and brewed in London.’
Writing for the Grocer, Gavin Cleaver said: “I’m sure even the purest beer snob couldn’t taste the difference between a pure Greenwich brew and a hybrid Anglo Dutch brew. The point is, when a craft beer customer spends an above average amount to purchase an upmarket product and buys a London Lager,’ born and brewed in London’, they’re expecting something that’s brewed in London.
“With the craft boom now taking off here in the UK, large brewers want to get in on the ground floor. In doing so, they’ll need to remember craft beer consumers want to feel like they’re an upmarket product produced with love and care in small batch breweries, not one that’s borrowing capacity from Grolsch and the like.”
Meantime did confirm that the use of Dutch beer will be ‘alleviated’ by the large investments happening at the brewery, with the eventual aim of keeping production entirely in London.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that bottles of Sharp’s Doom Bar is brewed in Staffordshire not Cornwall, despite its Cornish branding.