Mountain Culture brewery, one of the fastest growing craft breweries in Australia, has installed a Krones Craftmate C canning line – the 100th of its kind installed globally, and the 8th in Australia – at its new brewpub and brewery in Emu Plains. To mark the milestone, executives from Krones presented a plaque to co-founders DJ and Harriet McCready. PKN Packaging News and Food & Drink Business were in attendance to witness the handover.
The Mountain Culture success story is one of pioneering spirit and remarkable tenacity. DJ McCready, an experienced brewer who learned his trade in large breweries in the US, wanted to try his hand at craft beer, which would give him scope to experiment with new beer types on a smaller scale.
Three years ago, in 2019, DJ and partner Harriet opened Mountain Culture’s first brewpub in Katoomba, Blue Mountains. But things got off to a rocky start because soon after opening the bushfires struck, followed in quick succession by the outbreak of Covid and the attendant lockdowns. Not to be deterred, the duo set about transforming the brewpub into an e-commerce business.
“This was a gamechanger for us,” DJ McCready tells PKN. “By selling our canned brews online, we were able to bring the experience of trying a new beer on tap into people’s living rooms during lockdown. That put us on a fast track to expansion – we went from our original output of 60,000 litres to half a million litres, all in a matter of a few months, just by leading the charge this way.”
Not only has the e-commerce side of the business taken off (and still accounts for 20 per cent of the business), Mountain Culture is now also servicing demand from the country’s two largest liquor retailers – Coles Liquor and Endeavour Group.
With sales rocketing, Mountain Culture quickly outgrew the original brewpub’s capacity and the company set its sights on new premises with expanded capacity in Emu Plains, located in the foothills of the Blue Mountains.
The new facility would emulate the Katoomba brewpub (which still operates) on a larger scale, including a full brewery and packaging lines as well as a brewpub for on-site consumption. The Emu Plains site will take capacity from the current two million litres to eight million litres per annum.
A core piece of equipment in the production of canned beers is naturally the canning line.
Mountain Culture, unlike many start-up craft brewers, has run its own canning line from the outset rather than rely on contract canning. With its first canning line having hit capacity, the company was in search of a machine that would not only meet the new levels of demand but would accommodate future expansion.
Enter the Krones Craftmate C, a specialist filling line designed for the craft brewer, with all the technological capability of a large-scale brewing line. This volumetric filler is compact in design, with flexibility to fill beer (and carbonated beverages) in different can sizes and shapes. Filling accuracy is high, ensuring no ‘giveaways’, with electropneumatically-controlled filling valves and an inductive flow meter ensuring fill quantity can be determined to the last millilitre.
Pressing-on and pressurisation of the cans is performed via a double-acting cylinder and a differential pressure chamber. The product is fed to the machine via laterally-positioned buffer tanks and the valve manifold and control cabinet are right next to the filler. This way, the Craftmate C requires only very little space in the packaging zone.
The Krones Craftmate C will be able to meet the current capacity demand for Mountain Culture, 6000 cans per hour – and expand to runs of 15,000 cans per hour.
McCready says Mountain Culture chose Krones Craftmate C because it was looking for technology that would match the types of beer the company brews – from classic IPA and Pale Ale varieties to lagers right through to typical European beers such as Pilsner, Schwarzbier, or Märzen.
“I’m a co-founder but I’m also a brewer, so my number one priority has always been the quality of our beers. The Craftmate filler is known for packaging beer with super-low dissolved oxygen pickup, which is extremely handy given the hop-forward styles of beers Mountain Culture has become famous for,” McCready said.
Krones head of sales Asia Pacific, Thomas Gerstl, visiting from Germany for the occasion to present the plaque, told DJ and Harriet he was proud to deliver the 100th Craftmate C to Mountain Culture, which he believes will support the company on its pathway of “unbelievable success”.
“Brewers like Mountain Culture are motivating us at Krones to continue with the quality R&D in technology development for craft brewers. I'm proud of this product because it was specifically designed for companies like Mountain Culture – a successful product for taking a successful company further,” Gerstl said.
Krones Pacific managing director Richard Gahagan said, “We’re very proud to be associated with Mountain Culture, especially now on their third birthday. We see it as a strategic partnership, to commence a relationship with a customer who is at the start of growth journey that we will accompany them on, hopefully for many years, is very exciting. This plaque not only marks the 100th Craftmate C installed for Krones, but it is also for us the commencement of a long-standing relationship.”
Alongside the Craftmate C, Mountain Culture has also taken delivery of a Sensicol Linear labeller from Kosme, a Krones division.
Harriet McCready says Mountain Culture is known for its striking, creative, and colourful labels. “We need the flexibility to be able to turnaround a label changeover quickly. We often engage with our customers on new brew creations, and then we create a label to match the innovative new brew – speed to market is essential.”
Both machines, shipped here from Krones Neutrabling in Germany, are in situ awaiting commissioning at Mountain Culture Emu Plains, with the first cans set to roll off the lines some time in November.
