Meantime Brewery (Meantime Brewing Company) is an award-winning brewery based in Greenwich, London, England.
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It was founded in 2000 by Brewmaster, Alastair Hook[1], who trained at the world famous brewing school at the Technical University of Munich of Weihenstephan. The Greenwich Brewery, home of the Meantime Brewing Company, is located 0° 2' 12" east of the Greenwich Meridian, though the brewery will be moving to new premises in 2010.
This mission driven company aims to help the consumer rediscover their cultural and culinary beer heritage, which it believes has, in the UK at least, largely been lost as beer manufacture has been concentrated in the hands of a smaller number of ever bigger brewers, who do not wish the consumer to have any great understanding or appreciation of beer.
Sinces its establishment Meantime has built a worldwide reputation for both quality and for the authentic recreation of several of the world's iconic and pivotal beer styles. Its India Pale Ale and London Porter (beer) are generally regarded as being amongst the most historically accurate recreations of these beers available today.
Meantime has matched its reputation for authenticity with one for innovation. Its CoffeePorter - launched in 2005 - was Britain's first Fairtrade beer (using coffee from the Maraba Coffee cooperative of Rwanda), and went on to win a gold medal at the 2006 World Beer Cup. Meantime was the first British brewery to win medals at the World Beer Cup in 2004 and is the only British brewery to have won medals at every WBC since. In 2007 Meantime had no fewer than four beers ranked in the 'Worlds 50 Best Beers' as compiled by the UK based International Beer Challenge; a feat it repeated in 2008.
As a consequence of Meantime's striving to raise the bar of British brewing Alastair Hook was named the 2008 Brewer of the Year by the British Guild of Beer Writers.
Meantime brews a range of 12 regularly available beers which focus on traditional British and European styles, such as Kolsch, Helles, Porter and India Pale Ale.[2]
In addition it also produces an annual range of Limited Edition seasonal ales, which vary each year.
Prior to September 2009 Meantime also manufactured all the beers in Sainsbury's "Taste the Difference" range.[3]
Meantime owns and operates the Greenwich Union public house on Royal Hill Greenwich and in 2010 will be opening the Old Brewery, bar and restaurant with brewery in the original 1836 Brewhouse of the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, making it only the second brewery in the world to be located within a UNESCO World Heritage Site.