By James Atkinson
The White Rabbit Brewery in Healesville, Yarra Valley will be closed, Lion has confirmed.
Lion spokeswoman Elise Gare today confirmed the move that had been strongly anticipated since August, when the brewer confirmed the future of the site was under review.
“We have made the decision to close the Healesville site and establish a new dedicated White Rabbit Brewery at our state-of-the-art brewing operations in Geelong,” she said.
Gare said Lion will be making a sizeable investment in the Geelong site to accommodate White Rabbit, which was quickly outgrowing its Healesville digs.
“The Healesville site will close at the end of May 2015. Regrettably, there will be a small number of redundancies associated with the closure of the site. Our people are our number one priority and we will be working with them to provide all the necessary support during this period of transition,” she said.
New head of craft sought
Meanwhile, Lion has confirmed it is looking for a new head of craft beer following the recent resignation of Brett Grebert.
Grebert, who had been with Lion in sales and marketing roles since 2003, took on the craft role in December 2012 following the integration of Little Creatures and White Rabbit.