According to this article:
Neither made a public statement yet.
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Shame, I thought about Brew by Numbers earlier, and that they had tailed off somewhat in my mind. Checked and actually last beer I had from them was in May 2021,from M and S, so I will not miss them. There are still plenty of great brewers out there, hope they continueā¦
Damn share about BBNo, generally excellent brews and really liked their taproom. My brother will be devastated they were his favourite brewery, he regularly ordered from them. Havenāt had Brick so much, but the few I had were certainly above average.
Just hope everyone involved manage to get new jobs in the industry ok.
TBH when I visited BBNo in Bermondsey in 2018 after moving to England I was impressed, but itās steadily went downhill on every visit thereafter. The tap room is a frail shell of what it once was. Whoever decided to change from the numbering system needed to be fired first!
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Iāve not had many Brick beers but Iāve enjoyed a lot from BBN. Very surprised and sad to hear this news about both breweries.
BBNo were a firm favourite of mine around 2018 too, but they definitely dropped off in a massive way since then. A few hits here and there over the last few years, but mostly they became fairly run of the mill, highlighted by their supermarket entries. There were rumours of their demise back in March - looks like they were sadly true.
Brick is a bit of a surprise though. Never seemed to make it big but were always quietly working away in the background. Not had many from them myself.
Very sad news in any case though. I suspect there are still many more to come, too.
I got a general gist that something wasnāt right with BBNO when I went to Moorās Taproom and mentioned I wanted to go to BBNO. She was like āif thereās anyone actually working thereā¦ theyāve laid pretty much everyone offā. That was the start of the year.
My guess is the move to the new place completely out of the way wasnāt a wise move.
Very sad news about both breweries though, if itās true, as Iāve only ever had excellent beers from both and like many have always had time for BBNO, having been a constant presence in the scene for over ten years.
Only just last week had an incredible Brick sour. Very sad.
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Bbno was traditionally the #2 stop back in the day, after the Kernel
It had slipped down the list in the past few years behind most tbh
As for staff ā¦ in recent times nearly as many staff as beers on tap!
A once solid taproom with 10 to 12 picks dropped away to just 4 or 5
I hardly bothered with it in the last year
Despite regular visits to Bermondsey after work every 2nd or 3rd week Iāll wager ive not set foot there since last autumn
Worth adding the beer quality definitely declined after the expasion ā¦ for me solid 3.7 to 3.9 rates gave way to 3.5 to 3.7
I actually had a BBNO beer last night ā¦ 421 an emporers collab ā¦ presume brewed for BD AGM. It was okay ā¦ a 3.7 but a little stuck in third gear and if this was 5 years ago id have been laying 3.9 to 4.1 im pretty sure!
I actually remember when Tom and Dave brewed out of their basement and them turning up at Craft Beer Co Clerkenwell with a couple of kegs for what was their launch ā¦ 2012 time i reckon
Sad decline
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Brick arenāt too happy about being lumped in with BBNo. Though they havenāt actually confirmed if theyāre in administration or not, they are adamant that they are still āopenā for the time being.
Iāve got a can of this, and the ONLY reason I bought it was because of Emperorās involvement. Itāll be my last ever BBNo beer I suppose.
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I had the 421 Emperors collab at BrewDog Leeds. Gave it a high rate but Iām a sucker for impy stouts with cherry. And I did enjoy the 10th anniversary collab with cloudwater.
Have had 23 beers from BrewByNumbers, and 3 from Brick. Most of them were very good, so it canāt be a general lack of beer quality causing their problems. Maybe there are simply too many breweries in the UK now, for what the market can absorb? We see the same tendency, on a smaller scale, in Norway too.
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Sorry to see but Iām hopeful both breweries might find a way to continue.
BBNo has always been a favourite, although the beers havenāt impressed me as much in the past few years. Still good, though.
I think Brick produces some of the best sour beers in London (if not the UK) and the rest of the breweryās output really isnāt bad either.
So BBNo is fine (relatively speaking) and not going anywhere.
On a related note, the BBNo Bermondsey tap can be closed, but whatās up with the Barrel Store in Peckham Rye and is the Netil Street market store still going.
It seems that James Beeson was a bit hasty in getting this article published, getting āno commentā from both breweries last week, who then post this week that they are not calling in the administrators. Cue lots of crying on Twitter from said journo, wailing about breweries ānot talking to himā.
Hardly surprising when heās not exactly building bridges
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While this might happen to either of these breweries in the future this has become the norm to try and beat the next guy to the news. Right, wrong or indifferent. We definitely had some breweries retired off on RateBeer before and low and behold they werenāt closed. Thatās why I am firm believer we wait until the doors arenāt opening up anymore to stick nail in their coffins.
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Beer journalists are an interesting lot. I thought it was him but it appears to be another one who annually throws his toys out of the pram when he doesnāt win any awards for his writing.
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Think toys out of the pram is Matt Curtis, needs a hug quite a lot
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We both went to the launch opening day at BBN and it was relatively dead. The decline of the beers has (for me) started since Bates started Duration and the last good brewer left to joined Mikkeller (since left) and the last time I went; for a friendās birthday; 2022; the tap-room was semi-rammed. I ordered an undrinkable kettle sour so I left to go Kernel. I think BBN struggled with consistency and reliable brewers and the move didnāt help.
Doing expensive festivals when thereās too many festivals. Not really advertising their beer festival as well when youāve got big sponsored ones already happening with marketing teams doesnāt help either. Actually it took Pierre Tilquin to post it for me to notice and thatās saying something!
Itās a sad demise for Brick who have quality beers but suffered since selling-out to supermarkets early on. The lack of special releases for bottle shops and not doing nearly enough social media/tap-takeovers was part of their decline.
Also the industry is maturing; maybe faster than we are 
but that evolves and change happens. You can get better beer a lot more than you used to. The choice is staggering and with inflation itās impossible for some to operate.
Sacking all of the bar staff at once is commercial suicide for their tap-room.
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