Hawkshead brewery and taproom to close with at least 4 jobs lost

Halewood Artisanal Spirits said that in order to remain competitive, the manufacturing of Hawkshead beer would be moved to its site Flookborough.

Opened in 2006, the Staveley site featured a tap room called The Beer Hall which will also cease to operate.

Staff at the brewery will be offered the “possibility”​ to relocate and work from the Flookborough site, which is 20 miles away.

However, four staff at the tap room will be made permanently redundant.

The site in Flookborough, opened in 2018, will also produce Crabbies Ginger Beer and Bankhall British whisky.

‘Brewery is not sustainable’​

In a statement explaining the decision, a Halewood spokesperson said: “In order to be competitive on price we need to utilise our larger state of the art Krones Beer Line at our owned production site in Flookborough, Cumbria.​

“The old small brewery pub site at Staveley is leased and is not sustainable from an energy and efficiency point of view with manually operated equipment which will be unable to cope with the increased volumes.​

“In addition, we have renewed and increased the size of our delivery fleet of vehicles for our cask and keg business to allow a greater service outside of the Cumbria area.”​

Touching on the tap room’s closure, the spokesperson added: “The Staveley Hawkshead Bar is also leased and is no longer profitable to operate due to the landlord applying new parking charges which has deterred customers.”​

Moving forward, Halewood emphasised that the beer would continue to be made in Cumbria and that the transition across to the Flookborough site is expected to be “smooth”.​

It also outlined plans to invest in Hawkshead beers and make them available on keg at its bars in Liverpool, London and Bristol.

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