Head brewer Roger Ryman said: “At the moment, our problem is we can brew it quicker than we can rack it so we fairly quickly grind to a halt.”
The new building will be fitted with a Microdat racking line, increasing St Austell’s packaging capabilities from 120 firkins to 300 firkins an hour and resolving packaging bottlenecks.
“We’re also going for a lot more mechanical handling within the operation,” said Ryman, “such as automatic palletising and depalletising and automatic keystone removal.” The plant, slated for completion by June, will also include a large cold storage area; much of St Austell’s beer is currently stored in the brewer’s century-old cellars.
As it planned the six-figure project, St Austell also took the opportunity to draw up a logistics plan to increase efficiency at the plant. “We’ve worked very hard on a time and motion study to sure that we minimise vehicle movements,” said Ryman. “We want to get everything moving as efficiently as we possibly can.”
Ryman said he buys British-made machinery for the brewery wherever possible.
He added: “With the exception of the [Krones] bottling line we put in two years ago, all of our investments into the brewery have been with British manufacturers. Our brewhouse came from Musk engineering in Burton and we’ve had fermenting vessels from Bibby’s [Halifax] and Industrial Techniques [Stowmarket].
“I find it really encouraging that despite all the gloom and doom in the economy there are regional brewers and new-generation craft brewers, microbrewers, whatever you want to call them, doing really well.
“When you go to some of these British engineering companies and you see busy factories it shows we do still have a manufacturing industry in this country producing top-quality brewing equipment. That’s great. I’m quite proud of the fact that I buy British equipment whenever that’s possible.
The new building will be energy self-sufficient, with features including solar panels, heat recovery and low-energy lighting.
The Tribute and Proper Job brewer has invested millions of pounds in recent years to update its Victorian brewhouse. Last year it spent £550,000 on equipment including a malt mill, grist case, mash tun and hop back.
Rebecca Evans
3rd February 2012
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
