NEW WEST BERKSHIRE BREWERY IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS
The new £6m. state-of-the-art West Berkshire Brewery and its innovative packaging facilities are now OPEN FOR BUSINESS. Having moved into the new premises in October, Head Brewer Will Twomey and his brewing team have now completed all their trials and the new facility is up and running.
“This is a big moment for us at the West Berkshire Brewery,” said Chairman David Bruce. “It is the culmination of a three year project that has seen us plan, fund and build a cutting-edge, custom-built brewery complete with extraordinarily sophisticated packaging lines. It means that as well as being able to continue to brew our own exceptional beers, we will be able to offer extensive brewing and packaging facilities to other brewers from all over the U.K. We are extremely excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.”
The new facility can cater for large and small volumes with equal ease, offering unrivalled quality control and flexibility whatever the size of brew.
All of the equipment for the 3 vessel 60HL Brewhouse including the Mash Kettle, Lauter Tun, Copper Whirlpool and the automated packaging line comes from well-respected industry leaders, CFT of Parma, Italy. The automated line will mean that West Berkshire Brewery will now be able to offer contract packaging to other brewers on our top-of-the-range kit which can package into can, bottle, keg and cask in volumes from 30HL to 210HL.
The new packaging line is rated to fill 9000 330ml bottles or 12,000 330ml cans per hour and is flexible enough to allow a run to be packaged into four different bottle varieties or three different can sizes, as well being racked into keg or cask. Larger runs have even greater flexibility, allowing customers incredible choice when it comes to how they want their beer packaged.
At the heart of the facility will be quality control, with Heuft control units to ensure that the packaging is faultless and an on-site laboratory which will run full micro-analysis before and after filling to guarantee an excellent finished product.
The minimum run will be 30 hectolitres or 9090 330ml bottles. This small volume will allow brewers to prototype new beers and customers such as restaurant chains and supermarkets to launch their own beer brands. Beer can be brewed for customers at the brewery, or brewed by the client and transported to the brewery for finishing and packaging.
