Craft brewer hops into bed with SABMiller

sOUTh African brewing giant sABMiller has bought Meantime Brewing company – a craft beer start-up established in a tram shed in London 15 years ago.

The move is sAB’s attempt to capitalise on the fastest-growing segment of the UK beer market as sales of its more traditional brews struggle to post anything other than anaemic growth.

It will see founder Alastair hook, the master brewer, and chief executive Nick Miller, a former employee of sAB, stay in place for ‘the foreseeable future’. Meantime can now expand capacity at its Greenwich brewery and push the brand across the UK and into Europe, as well as fund a regional brewing innovation centre for sAB, the world’s secondlargest brewing company, which sells beers including Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Grolsch and Pilsner Urquell.

sales of Meantime’s beers grew 58pc in 2014, compared with the UK beer market’s 1pc growth last year.

‘The variety of styles added to sAB’s extensive local and heritage beer menu should serve it well, while its experi ence will help with Meantime’s strategic goal of making beer attractive to a wider clientele, including the fairer sex,’ said Mike van Dulken at Accendo Markets. sABMiller head of European operations sue Clark added that the acquisition ‘fits well with our strategy of taking beer to a broader number of customers, particularly female ones’.

The news gave shares in sAB a lift – up 23.5p to 3623.5p – as investors switched focus from ongoing speculation that sAB might succumb to a bid from its largest rival Anheuser-Busch InBev, to sAB’s own acquisition trail.

Meantime Brewing Company’s Miller was ‘completely shocked’ by the approach at the end of March. ‘We haven’t sold out,’ he told the Mail.

‘This deal was right for us – I think this is a great partnership.’

Financial details of the deal have not been revealed and neither party would be drawn on the valuation ascribed to Meantime. Clark conceded that the price was not in the ballpark of ‘eyewatering’ transactions like the recent Brewdog deal.

‘Craft beer looks set to achieve the same success in the UK as in the UsA, so the acquisition of the UK’s biggest craft brewer makes a l ot of sense,’ said Jonathan Buxton, a partner at Cavendish Corporate Finance. ‘Now the challenge for sAB is to ensure it maintains the artisanal qualities that make Meantime beer so special, on a larger scale.’