Keystone Brewing Group has acquired the Magic Rock brands after the Huddersfield-based brewery went into administration. The beers will be brewed at other breweries owned by the group, either Black Sheep or Purity, but the Magic Rock brewery and taproom has closed and will now be sold off and staff will lose their employment. While it is good news that Magic Rock beers will still be brewed, they have now become just another faceless beer brand along with others in the group's portfolio such as Fourpure and Brew by Numbers. Once a revered craft brewery, Magic Rock's problems began when they were sold off to Australian drinks company Lion (brewer of Little Creatures beers) and then to the UK's In Good Company. A sad end for a once-great brewery.

Carlsberg Marston's Brewing Company (CMBC) has announced that it will close the Banks's Brewery in Wolverhampton next year, citing the lower demand for cask ale and the loss of the contract to brew Sam Miguel to A B Inbev. CMBC say that Banks's beers will continue to be brewed at Marston's Brewery at Burton-on-Trent and that a £6m plus investment at Burton over the next two years will enable a wider range of cask ales in modern hop-forward styles to be brewed. Redeployment of the 97 Banks's staff to elsewhere in the CMBC group is being considered in talks with their union.