Last orders are called for successful brewery

Apr 17 2008 by Graeme King, The Journal

THE award-winning Mordue Brewery in North Tyneside has been placed in administration after the taxman complained about an unpaid bill.

The business is still trading normally while the administrator, XL Business Solutions from Cleckheaton in West Yorkshire, handles its affairs.

Meanwhile, the company’s assets are up for sale via a firm of chartered surveyors, Walker Singleton, in Halifax.

A report carried in the London Gazette said the Mordue Brewery was the subject of a winding-up petition brought by HM Revenue & Customs on March 13.

Mordue enjoys sales of some £700,000 per year, with founders Garry and Matthew Fawson presiding over a brewery which has won many awards.

The business employs around 10 staff at its base on the Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate in North Shields, close to the A19.

Garry, 44, and Matthew, 34, have given all their beers distinctive North East names such as Workie Ticket, Five Bridge Bitter, Geordie Pride and Radgie Gadgie.

The company’s India Pale Ale (IPA) was recently named Beer of the Festival at the 32nd Newcastle Beer Festival.

Mordue beers are popular in the North East’s real ale pubs such as the Crown Posada, the Free Trade and the Bodega in Newcastle, and the Magnesia Bank in North Shields.

The brewery, formed in 1995, has gone from strength to strength in recent years, steadily increasing its sales from £407,000 in 2004 to £423,000 in 2005, £532,000 in 2006, and now £700,000.

Mordue is one of a handful of independent breweries left in the North East. Other small operators include the Wylam Brewery at Heddon-on-the- Wall, the Double Maxim Beer Company in Sunderland and the Allendale Brewing Company in Allendale.

Garry and Matthew Fawson have recently formed two other companies – the North East Brewing Company in January this year, and Mordue Breweries in May last year. They are directors of both businesses, as well as the original Mordue Brewery.

Nobody from Mordue or its administrator XL was available for comment yesterday.