Founded in 1999, Meantime were trailblazers of the craft brewing movement over the following decade. Alastair Hook took his ideas from a small Greenwich flat, to a lock-up by Charlton Athletic’s Valley ground, to an ambitious start up brewery and on to game changing international acclaim.
In 2001 they opened The Greenwich Union, the only pub in London not to sell the products of national brewers and were already gaining national attention. International recognition would come in 2004 when Meantime were the only British brewery to win any medals at the World Beer Cup (picking up three). Two years later they released the UK’s first Fairtrade beer, a Coffee Porter, which went on to win Gold at the World Beer Cup itself.
Alastair Hook was named the Brewer of the Year by the British Guild of Beer Writers in 2008 and by the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group in 2015. Meantime also brewed all of the Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference beers up until September 2009.
2010 saw the opening of The Old Brewery at the Old Royal Naval College as well as the main brewing operation move to Blackwall Lane. Despite the move, the brewery would have to be hugely expanded over the next few years, more than quadrupling their capacity to well over 100,000 hectolitres!
In 2015 Meantime was bought by drinks giant SAB Miller (who in turn may be acquired by the other biggest beer producer in the world Anheuser-Busch InBev for around £71 billion).