Meantime rebrands flagship brews

Meantime Brewing Company, which is in the midst of a buyout by Japanese food and drink group Asahi, has unveiled new branding for its London Lager and London Pale Ale brews and also plans to refresh Yakima Red soon.

The clock motif is a main feature of the rebranding, which is a nod to Meantime’s base in the heart of Greenwich – the home of time.

Recent key style changes were also incorporated into Meantime’s new ‘Pilot Series’, a range developed to showcase the brewer’s innovative edge and expertise.

Pilot Series

Lager-lager.png
New branding for top Meantime brews

The Pilot Series is a range of limited-edition beers that launched in April and will see a new beer released every two weeks.

Future beers will be developed based on the performance of their predecessors and could make way for new brews in the brewer’s core range.

In an exclusive video interview with the Publican’s Morning Advertiser (PMA), Meantime brewmaster Ciaran Giblin said the Pilot Series would allow the business to constantly look at and change its beer repertoire.

Meanwhile, Meantime is set to be sold to the Japanese beer behemoth Asahi in a deal estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds, in the fallout from AB InBev’s takeover of SABMiller.

In April Asahi announced it had executed the purchase of shares to acquire the Peroni, Grolsch and Meantime brands, after it submitted a final binding offer in February.

AB InBev acquires SABMiller

The buyout will be concluded after AB InBev acquires SABMiller, which received the go ahead from EU regulators this week.

It is expected the merger will be fully completed in the second half of this year, although the acquisition has resulted in bouts of criticism from craft beer representatives. The most recent example came from Publicans Morning Advertiser columnist Roger Protz in his latest column in the magazine.

Protz launched a scathing attack on big breweries and described mergers such as AB InBev’s and SABMiller’s as like “storm clouds gathering”.