Creditors of failed craft beer business Keystone Brewing were owed over £15m prior to its sale to Saltaire Brewing, newly filed documents at Companies House have revealed.
Keystone – formed after private investment group Breal purchased several breweries out of or on the verge of administration between 2023 and 2025 – was sold to Saltaire in a pre-pack deal for a total consideration of £4.1m, the documents showed.
Its largest single secured creditor – Secure Trust Bank – was owed a total of £8.6m and likely to see a shortfall, joint administrators Anthony Collier and Martyn Rickels of FRP Advisory wrote.
HMRC, meanwhile, was owed a total of £3.6m by Keystone subsidiaries Black Sheep and Purity Brewing in respect of VAT, PAYE and duty arrears.
There was not expected to be sufficient funds to distribute to HMRC and other secondary preferential creditors, the administrators said. Other unsecured creditors of Keystone’s limited companies, owed a combined £2.7m, were also not expected to see a return.
Keystone restructure
After swooping for the likes of Black Sheep, Purity, Brew By Numbers and Brick Brewery in 2023, Keystone had undertaken “a period of significant restructuring” with “significant time and financial investments” made to relocate the two London-based brands to Yorkshire, the administrators wrote.
However, “a combination of persistent cost inflation, margin erosion driven by sales mix, and suppressed consumer demand continued to adversely impact on the financial performance of the group”.
Sales across Keystone’s combined brands in the six months to 30 September 2025 stood at £13.9m, well shy of its stated ambition to grow annual revenues to £100m by 2028. Net losses, meanwhile, stood at £3.4m.
A further cash injection of £3.75m by shareholders in 2025 was made “in anticipation of a seasonal sales uplift over the autumn/winter period”, the administrators revealed.
Accelerated sales process
However, this uplift “did not materialise” leaving the business with “a severe cash shortfall, with a projected deficit of c£2m, making continued trading unsustainable without further support”.
FRP was first engaged in November 2025 “to conduct a short-term cashflow and options review”. Shortly after this the group was threatened with winding up proceedings due to arrears owned.
Therefore, FRP was asked on 28 November to “assist with preparing the group for an accelerated sales process with a view to securing its sale as a going concern”.
An NOI was filed in order to protect the group against creditor action, with further NOIs filed as FRP raced to find a buyer for the business over the festive period.
Seven offers were received, with FRP concluding that the proposal from Saltaire Brewing represented the best outcome for creditors. The sale was completed on 22 January 2026 – the same day the administrators were appointed to the business.
Additional NOIs were filed to allow sufficient time to finalise the marketing and sales process as well as the purchaser’s offer, as the timeframe was impacted by the Christmas holiday period.
Saltaire Brewing is owned by Paramount Retail Group, which plans to combine the business with the newly acquired Keystone brands to form a new entity called The Great British Drinks Company (GBDC).
“Our thoughts are with all creditors who have been damaged by Keystone’s administration,” said GBDC co-founder Sunny Sharma. “The Great British Drinks Company has settled all payment obligations as set out as conditions of sale, saved 145 jobs, and has a strong investment plan to restore the business and back regional craft beer. Our ambition is to rebuild supplier and customer relationships.”
No comments yet