Newlands Brewery, the oldest commercial brewery in South Africa, has embarked on a R39 million expansion plan.
Nestled in the heart of Newlands on the Liesbeeck River, The South African Breweries Limited’s Newlands Brewery is the cradle of clear beer brewing in South Africa. The first brewery on the Liesbeeck River was established in 1658 by Pieter Visagie. The current Newlands Brewery dates back to the mid-1800s when Jacob Letterstedt built the Mariendahl brewery. After his death, a fellow Swede, Anders Ohlsson, bought the premises and the rest is history.
Diarmaid De Burca, the brewery’s general manager, says: "Newlands is proud to retain its link with its past and is one of the oldest industrial sites in the Western Cape. It was granted National Heritage status in October 1995."
However, the brewery is not just about history and, while celebrating its roots, it is constantly improving its brewing techniques and operates sophisticated technology, all of which can be seen on SAB’s specialsed brewery tours.
Newlands is also undergoing a process of growth as part of SAB’s national R5 billion capacity and capability expansion of its operations.
Six new storage vessels each with a capacity of 2 600hl will be in place by July 2006, as well as two new bright beer tanks with a capacity of 2 400hl each which will be installed by December this year. This investment will allow Newlands to extend its production by 4 000hl a week, taking its weekly total to 93 000hl.
The increased production will not affect the environment or the brewery’s neighbours as precautions regarding air, water and noise pollution have been taken. For example:
· Its water, electricity and steam use are continuously monitored and tightly controlled to reduce their environmental impact.
· The use of glycol as a chilling agent for the brewery’s bright beer tanks has enabled Newlands to further reduce its use of ammonia.
· An electrode boiler has replaced the old coal-fired boiler reducing emissions.
· All brewery fridges have been modified to make them more energy efficient.
· All brewery trucks have had standard suspensions replaced with air suspensions and dampeners. Braking systems have been enhanced to eliminate air brake noise, and the trailers have all been light weighted to reduce their impact on residential roads.
· An anaerobic wastewater plant has been installed which processes wastewater before it goes to the municipality.
Earlier this year, the brewery was named the best performing SAB brewery at the company’s manufacturing conference.
Newlands brews 11 beers - Castle Lager, Castle Milk Stout, Castle Lite, Castle Draught, Amstel Lager, Amstel Draught, Carling Black Label, Hansa Pilsener, Hansa Draught, Redd’s Cold Filtered and Redd’s Dry. Last year nearly 4 million hectoliters of beer were packaged.
Says De Burca: "Our greatest success last year was to co-operate across the brewery value chain so that we were all chasing a similar objective, namely increasing our throughput capacity over peak. Brewing, packaging, warehouse logistics and all the support services worked towards the same goal and supported each other."
"Looking forward, we intend to sustain last year’s excellent performance and seek ways of further improving our capacity to take Newlands to new heights."
