When the Bluetongue beer brand was established in the 1990s, it was a boutique, hand-crafted brew with the stamp of the creators’ local region.
The brain child of four Hunter-based entrepreneurs, the beverage combined their passion for their local region and quality Australian beer.
In 2003, the foursome’s first brewery was built at Cameron Park, Newcastle on New South Wales’ central coast. Now, eight years later, the team has garnered the backing of SABMiller and Coca-Cola Amatil’s joint-venture, Pacific Beverages’, which has just re-located the Cameron Park facility to a new, purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility costing $120 million in the Hunter Valley region of Wyong.
This new premises is being hailed as the most high-tech, significant brewery of its size in Australia.
At five acres in size, with the potential to double this over the next year, the new brewery will create almost 150 jobs in the plant alone, and is estimated to grow to a $150 million investment in under a decade.
The Bluetongue Brewery is reportedly one of the most sustainable breweries in Australia, and has water-saving and recycling measures in place at every stage of the brewing process.
The brewery manufactures the Peroni, Grolsch, Miller and Bluetongue brands for distribution around Australia. Though the business already supplies up to 20% of the country’s premium beer needs, Pacific Beverages technical director, Kevin Hardman, says this could grow to 40% in the near future.
“We are brewing 250,000 hectalitres this year, and the plant’s whole capacity is 520,000 hectalitres. One expansion could take us to 850,000, and then we could potentially go as high as 1.5 million hectalitres,” Hardman told Manufacturers’ Monthly.
These planned expansions could pave the way for new opportunities for technology suppliers in the area.
Though the brewing side of the business uses process control and instrumentation technology from Germany and Italy which is designed specifically for breweries, local companies could have the chance to bid for tenders for construction, building supplies automation and materials handling technologies over the next six years, Hardman says.
Wyong’s new Bluetongue Brewery is differentiated in the market for two reasons: it is one of the most environmentally-friendly of its size; and it uses a brand new packaging technology called ‘autofill’ that doesn’t require the beer to be heat-treated.
“Where we’re significantly different is that we sterile-fill all our products. We achieve that through a filter that is completely enclosed in a sterile enclosure that allows us to get a lot more freshness in the beer because you don’t use heat to treat it,” Hardman said.
The brewery will reportedly use this state-of-the-art packaging technology to enable the production of a variety of beer styles ranging from traditional European lagers to modern American and Australian beer styles, with a particular focus on the draught beer market. The company has just launched two new beers: Bluetongue Premium Lager and Premium Light.
On the sustainability side, the brewery includes a large water processing plant to allow the business to re-use water from the brewing process.
“We’re very water sensitive. We save water at every part of the process. We’re the only company that does it to this degree. We don’t use the water back in the product, but we use it for secondary duties including cleaning and maintenance,” Hardman said.
For a plant that includes a separate brewing room for season brews and test beers, the premises requires a high amount of water to wash-down the vats – each of which holds up to 450,000 serves of beer and stands 18 metres high – so the business saves both money and the environment by recycling its water.
The brewing technology itself – including the entirely-sealed bottling room – was provided as a turnkey project from German company, Ziemann. Ziemann also provided a special centrifuge which is required in the production of the Miller draft beer.
In terms of energy management, the brewery captures 50% of the methane it exudes during the production process to re-use as energy to fire the building.
The packaging process and conveyors at the Wyong plant are also very high-tech, delivering 60 kegs or 48,000 bottles per hour. The bottles are manufactured using gear from Sidel, and the conveyors are water-free, meaning the process is completely dry. The labeller is from KHS, and labels 14 bottles every second.
According to Pacific Beverages chief executive officer, Peter McLoughlin, the plant is trialling some unusual packaging options to cater for fussy clientele.
“We can do lots of different types of beers in different packages including 2-, 4-, 6-, 10- and 12-packs. It’s all around consumer and customer preference,” he told Manufacturers’ Monthly.
The business is also looking for new markets in which to launch: “We will be going to New Zealand, and we are also beginning to look at Singapore more and more as an opportunity for export,” McLoughlin said.
The plant itself is expected to be a boon to the Hunter Valley region, with a new 100-seater restaurant to be built on the premises within two years, which will be designed to feed hungry punters that start or finish their winery tours at the Bluetongue Brewery.
The brewery is an important milestone for the coastal area due to its size and stature, along with its focus on local production and manpower.
“This is the largest brewery built in NSW for 40 years, and the second-largest in Australia. It is the most high-tec and significant brewery of its size in the country,” said Coca-Cola Amatil managing director, Terry Davis, at the official launch in November 2010.
“It’s all about locally-produced product. I’m passionate about local production. This country has to innovate more otherwise we’ll end up a nation of importers.”
According to Davis, the beverage industry in Australia is a quarter of the size of the automotive industry, and has “fantastic support and assistance” from locals and government.
The locals in the Hunter Valley area reportedly approve of the brewery due to the management team’s whole-hearted commitment to sustainability. In fact, nearly 10% of the cost of the brewery went into the water-saving technology alone.
“Our sustainable initiatives have focused on six key areas namely water and energy consumption, product packaging usage, waste generation, atmospheric emissions and considered land use,” said Pacific Beverage’s McLoughlin.
“We will be utilising approximately 2.2 litres of water to produce one litre of finished beer, which is significantly below the international average of between four and five litres. Our customers can be assured that not only are they getting brewery fresh tasting beer, but that it is also brewed in an environmentally friendly facility.”
The Bluetongue Brewery has taken 18 months to build to its current capacity and will continue to develop its beer and its brand over the coming years. The Bluetongue brand has become an important part of the Hunter Valley culture and the developers are reportedly committed to supporting their community in the future.