Black Sheep Brewery redundancies confirmed by Keystone Brewing

Keystone Brewing, the beer and brewing arm of private investment group Breal, has confirmed it has made a “small number” of redundancies at Black Sheep Brewery.

The group, which bought Black Sheep out of administration in May last year, said it had undertaken a “strategic restructuring” in January. This, it said, had resulted in “the reduction of a very small number of roles” at the north Yorkshire brewery.

It said all staff who had since left the business had been paid within the terms of their redundancy.

Keystone’s CEO Mark Williams – who last month replaced Charlene Lyons at the helm of Black Sheep – said the restructuring was “about making the brewery as efficient as possible, and securing its legacy for years to come”.

“Making redundancies is always the last resort, but unfortunately we have been forced to consider all options available to us,” he added.

Keystone Brewing said plans to invest more than £1m in production and packaging improvements at Black Sheep were unaffected by the restructuring.

It came as figures from audit, tax and advisory firm Mazars revealed an 82% leap in the number of breweries becoming insolvent last year.

Mazars said the increase, from 38 in 2022 to 69 in 2023, was attributable to an oversaturated market, high interest rates and soaring inflation.

Breweries to have gone into administration in the past year include Brew By Numbers and Purity Brewing, both of which were acquired by Keystone, and North Brewing, which was purchased by the owners of Leeds brewing peer Kirkstall Brewery.