With the West Country anticipating a great summer influx of holidaymakers this year, their 169 pubs should benefit from the increase in footfall. Coupled now with national distribution in Tesco's, and regional distribution with other leading supermarkets, their investment could not have come at a better time. The turnaround in St Austell's business coincided with the appointment of Roger Ryman as Head Brewer, 10 years ago. At the age of 32, Roger was probably the youngest H.B. of any national or regional brewery at that time. It would be fair to say that the quality of their beer, prior to Roger's arrival, was pretty average but in the past decade the awards have been coming thick and fast as witnessed by all the certificates hanging on the walls of the thriving Visitor Centre. Roger's early plans were fairly simple, first get the beer right, produce Ales that both locals and holidaymakers want to drink, and success should then follow. In 1999, all the beer that was bottled for St Austell, was contracted out to a northern brewer. With new beers coming along, Roger and the team recognised that there was not a 'family' of beer that would be recognisable. With the move to more bottle condition ales, Roger believed that the only way to keep a tight control on all aspects of quality was to bottle in-house. It was a case of keep asking the Board, until they eventually say yes. James Staughton, the company Chairman and Managing Director, and the Board, were naturally cautious about an investment that could approach the £1m mark as the dark clouds were rolling in on the economy. A lot of building work had to be done at the site to accommodate the bottling line and ancillary tanks and filters, coupled with a major training programme for Roger's team who had little experience of bottling within the brewery. A number of key appointments were made, Paul Bowley, as Bottling Manager, Clive Nichols, Maintenance and Engineering Manager. If you get the chance to visit the Brewery, you cannot fail to notice the tremendous camaraderie that is within Roger's team. Somebody must have been smiling on them as in November 2000, just as the Board approved the investment, Clouded Yellow won yet another award, this time within the Tesco Beer Challenge, and as such this became their first Nationally distributed beer.
If ever a group of people operate a 'can do' approach the St Austell team certainly do it big time. This approach has led to the three main suppliers for the bottling line supporting them to make sure that everything worked well for their July 12th line start up. Here Paul picks
up the story: "Our next challenge was our choice of bottling equipment", Paul continued, "My main objective was to evaluate and buy the best labeller and filler bloc that we could afford, that we knew would last for many years, this is why we approached Krones and their subsidiary company Kosme UK.We evaluated other suppliers and have complete faith in the Kosme team, the installation went without a hitch, delivery was on time and we had filled bottles on the day we pressed the button. There have been some very minor items on the snagging list, but the Kosme UK team have been first class. From day one the output, of 5,000 bph, 500ml bottles, has been achieved so we are well pleased with their co-operation and commitment to the project". The line consists of a Kosme low level bulk glass depalletiser, that sweep the OI 500 ml brown glass onto the slat band conveyors. The bottles pass through on a pressurless combiner and head towards the Kosme Adhesive three station labeller that applies clear SA Labels to the neck, shoulder and full wraparound body. Exiting the labeller, a Domino laser printer applies best before details.
The Sterile Filtration / Carbonation equipment was supplied by Moravek, from the Czech Republic, who have gained a good reputation for quality beer processing systems, with the Bright Beer tanks (vessels being supplied and installed by Moeschle UK Limited as a direct contact with the Brewery). There will be an official opening ceremony in late September, which will give St Austell the chance to show their latest investments off to local dignitaries, customers and suppliers. I have a feeling that this is just the start of another very exciting period for the Brewery. They have made a very sound investment, which should allow them to fulfil all of their own bottling requirements and allow them to do some contract bottling in the future, not only for beer, but cider as well. Richard Portman, Managing Director and Cliff Salmons of Kosme UK are both delighted with the way that the project has come together in such a short space of time. It is the first complete beer line contract for Kosme in the UK, working in conjunction with other suppliers, and their colleagues at Krones UK, when they put the design concept together. Richard and Cliff believe that there is a lot of scope for further investments of this type with other regional brewers. The St Austell line at 5,000 b.p.h. is at the lower speed end of their supply offering. Kosme could supply beer lines up to 12,000 b.p.h. on a similar basis to this project. Should the higher speed be required the filler bloc would of course be increased in size and the end of line would incorporate a Kosme Flypack tray erector and shrinkwrapper and a Kosme palletiser and automatic pallet stretchwrapper. It
is always great to see a well thought out plan come to fruition,
*Article reproduced from International Bottler & Packer - September 2009
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To
celebrate, one success and the investment, Roger created new ale,
'Vintage Ale Smugglers' which will soon be bottled on the new line.
The
bottles then pass to the 24:24:6 Kosme rinser/filler/crowner bloc
unit which has double pre-evacuation, water injection to make the
beer foam and a wash tunnel as the bottles exit the bloc unit. The
now filled, capped, and labelled bottles pass through a Mapex detection
system for missing crowns and underfill, supplied by M&A Packaging
of Malvern, towards the collation unit prior to the Cheops Thermopak
400T shrinkwrapper. Currently the trays are erected by hand and
the finished twelve bottle packs are manually palletised. A Matco
semiautomatic pallet stretch wrapper completes the bottling operation
which has four operatives on the line.
