A classic of the genre. Purchased one very successful brewery in the North and one rather more middling in the South.
Brands trashed by Lion's association with indirectly funding genocide in Burma.
People stop buying said brands (me being one).
COVID happens. How much that really had to do with it I don't know - both were stocked regularly in supermarkets and appeared in beer boxes. They actually had more market exposure than most of their peers.
Brands no longer profitable.
Dumbing-down, closure etc is what happens 95% of the time when one larger brewery swallows up a smaller one (Marston's portfolio currently excepted - though for how long if they themselves get taken over??).