They've spent £12 million on the brewery so they'd been able to afford a few shiny things.
We were shown round by the Production Manager,
They have a 24 head bottling line.
And a 24 head canning line.
And lots of space.
Space is the absence of time and of matter
They've a way to go to get that 12 million quid back. This was a yeast propagation vessel and I definitely want it:
Here's some fermenting vessels:
And here's a hop rocket. I want one of them too.
Racking port not 12" about the bottom of the cone:
Combined cask and keg racker depending on if god or the devil is winning:
Some filter housings and a centrifuge at the back. I wouldn't mind one of them too.
More stuff:
The brew house is continental style with a Mash Conversion Vessel and Lauter Tun. They have a 60hl brew length and since the addition of a pre-run vessel (extra tank for wort collection) do up to four brews a day.
The brew house was branded as "Renegade", which was their crafty sub-brand. But no one seemed to care so they've dropped it.
Nice to see those pics of it up and running - when we visited, two or three years ago, they were still installing. Did you get to meet David Bruce? Apparently a lot of that £12m was his, quite a bit of it from his share of Elysian when ABI bought it out. Did they look busy? As I recall, the aim was to use all that kit to do a *lot* of contract canning, bottling and presumably also brewing.
ReplyDeleteDidn't see David Bruce. There was a lot of empty warehouse space so I don't think they're as busy as they'd like to be.
DeleteWith such a large plant, how come we rarely see West Berkshire beers? They are as rare as "hen's teeth" in this part of the world.
ReplyDeleteI guess they've got the kit in place but not the market share as yet.
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