UK: Molson Coors’ historic Burtonwood Brewery put up for sale

Molson Coors’ historic Burtonwood Brewery has been put up for sale ahead of the site’s planned closure, The Warrington Guardian reported on April 18.

The brewing giant announced last year that it would be pulling out of the Bold Lane site, which is shared with the Thomas Hardy Burtonwood bottling plant.

It is expected that the premises will be closed by the end of September this year, putting 25 jobs at risk.

Now the 9.64-acre brewery has been brought to the market as a going concern by commercial real estate agents Colliers International.

Burtonwood Brewery is equipped with five brewing lines, 33 fermenter vessels, a borehole water source, automated kegging line, filter house, cold storage and specialist draining facilities.

It also benefits from multiple heat sources and includes office space and staff canteen facilities.

Peter Vass, associate director at Colliers, said: “The Burtonwood Brewery is an ideal site because everything is already up and running – meaning new tenants can quickly move in, escalate their production and get out to market in the north and north west at a minimum expense.”

Thomas Hardy Burtonwood sold its brewery to Molson Coors in 2015, but its remaining operations on the shared site will be unaffected by the move.

If the closure does go ahead, it would bring to an end more than 150 years of beer production at Burtonwood Brewery – which dates back to 1867.

Molson Coors says that the move will 'help to drive efficiencies' within the business, with production set to be transferred to other sites in the UK.

A spokesman told the Warrington Guardian in December: "We can confirm that, with regret, we have announced a proposal to close our Burtonwood Brewery by the end of September 2021.

"We are providing every support to the 25 impacted employees and have now entered a period of consultation.

"As part of this proposal, we are seeking to minimise any redundancies by marketing the site as a going concern or redeploying staff where appropriate.

"If the proposal is accepted and should redundancies prove unavoidable, there would be no redundancies until well into next year.

"This proposal is in no way a reflection of the skill and dedication of our colleagues, but is intended to help drive efficiencies in our operations network.

"Burtonwood Brewery currently produces just one per cent of our volume, and it is proposed that production would transfer to other sites across our UK network."

18 April, 2021