Britain’s oldest brewery unveils £15m plan to move to new site

Britain’s oldest brewery is to sell off land and move to a new site, in a £15m investment plan that seeks to safeguard the future of its operations. Shepherd Neame, which is based in Faversham, Kent where it has been brewing ale since the 17th century, intends to put much of its existing footprint in the town up for sale in a bid to self-fund a new high-tech, scaled-down brewing facility. The maker of Master Brew, Bishop’s Finger and Spitfire said the new brewery would be built on the site of its existing bottling hall and would open in 2029. The existing brewery will continue to operate until the new one comes online. The plan ends a period of uncertainty for the Aquis-listed company s beer-making operations after it warned last month it was weighing up its future in brewing amid surging costs and soft demand. Jonathan Neame, chairman of Shepherd Neame, told City AM there were “three specific issues that ourselves, but frankly everybody else in the drinks industry is facin