Lion has laid off 38 people employed at its brewery in Canterbury.
The multi-storey black and red brewery in central Christchurch was damaged beyond repair in the earthquake on 22 February and will be replaced by a $15 million warehouse and distribution centre.
Lion does not expect to resume brewing in Christchurch in the foreseeable future, and will increase capacity at its Dunedin and Auckland breweries to maintain production.
Some $20 million will be spent on the Speight's Brewery in Dunedin and $8 million at The Pride brewery in East Tamaki.
Lion corporate affairs director Neil Hinton told Checkpoint on Thursday the centre is likely to employ more people but, until then, the company wants to offer Christchurch workers jobs elsewhere.
Mr Hinton says there will be 16 new jobs in Dunedin and 28 other jobs across the company.
He expects plans for the distribution centre in Christchurch to take about three months to draw up.
The rest of Lion's Canterbury-based operation, which employs about 70 sales and administration staff, has been operating from a new site since soon after the quake.
