The BBI had another good turnout of members on a recent visit to Carlsberg’s Brewery in Northampton.

In 1868 Carlsberg first imported into Scotland and during 1970 a joint venture between Carlsberg and Watneys resulted in the agreement to build a £16 million brewery of 1 million hectolitre capacity, and by 1976 Carlsberg had acquired the whole equity. Hence, this impressive brewery was opened in 1974; the building was designed to represent the profile of a large scale Danish longship and was praised at the time of building for its architectural qualities. It now houses a large Brewhouse and a Packaging Hall containing four high output production lines, one for kegs, one for bottles and two for cans. The site concentrates on lager and produces the major UK brands of; Carlsberg, Carlsberg Export and Holsten Pils and the U K business is part of Carlsberg the 5th largest brewing group in the world.

Carlsberg Brewery, Northampton

The visit was hosted by Barry Kyriakides, Packaging Maintenance Support Manager, and before our tour of the Brewery Barry gave members a very comprehensive presentation covering the aspects of the UK operations and details of the Northampton Brewery facilities.

During a detailed description of the lager brewing process at Northampton Barry explained that for Carlsberg lager lightly kilned malt is used to control bitterness levels which are relatively low. Fermentation takes place in chilled tanks where the yeasts sinking to the bottom and the lager is then matured at a low temperature, a standard process for lager. The Northampton Brewery uses over one tonne of hop pellets and 400 kilos of hop extract per week.

A great deal of attention is given to the site culture which is built around six key business areas namely productivity, quality, service, people, health and safety and environmental and legal requirements.

There has been considerable capital investment at Northampton during the last 4 years (approx £22m) with the brewhouse being upgraded, a second can line installed, and the original can line being upgraded as well as additional fermenting and bright beer vessels.

The Kegging line was installed during 1993 and fills 1000 kegs/ hour. There are 3 keg sizes, 30litre, 50litre, 82litre. By upgrading in 1998 the line now produces 65,000 kegs per week down two lanes feeding one Unitiser. After further investment in 2002 the line is operating at 100% micro compliance.

The bottling line was installed in 2000 as an investment of £9m and is at present run as a 5 day continuous operation having recently moved to filling non returnable bottles only. With the Krones 130 head block filler, running at a speed of 900 b.p.m. via a high capacity double deck pasteuriser feeding two Krones labellers the line is capable of filling 4 bottle sizes, 250ml stubby, 275ml, 300 ml and 330ml. There are two packaging arrangements for the line, firstly 20 or 24 bottles are packed in corrugated board packs, or secondly 4, 6, 8, or 10 bottles in all bottle sizes are packed in cardboard sleeves on a Mead multipacker.

The fastest of the Can lines (1) was installed during 1999 and was uprated during 2003 to run at 1800 c.p.m. on 202 can size. The KHS filler has 140 heads and feeds 2 Kister tray packers and a Riverwood multipacker.
Can line 2 was installed in 2003 as 202 and is rated at 1200 c.p.m. and has a Widget applicator.
Both these lines give the opportunity for the Brewery to produce:
Hicone tray and shrink 24 can packs containing RAHC (Rim Applied Hicone) 4 or 6 can packs or SAHC (Side applied Hicone) or MPC (Mid position carrier) both in 4, 6 or 8 can packs. Alternatively, Riverwood fully enclosed board packs with 6,8,12 or 24 cans palletised as 24 can packs or 9 or18 cans palletised as 18 can packs.

On a tour of the Facilities we were able to appreciate the size and complexity of the operation at Northampton. The brewhouse was large but spacious, size being demonstrated by an enormous Mash Filter being fed from the Mash conversion vessel. The line layouts were excellent with intake and discharge in the same area for all lines giving a good visibility of all operations.

The visit was well attended and gave a much appreciated opportunity for members of the BBI, who were impressed by Barry’s’ informative presentation and tour. Northampton brewery is a very versatile site and large scale operation with many packaging alternatives for the Carlsberg International Brands. We could see how Carlsberg is fulfilling their customer requirements with the variety of choice in different packaging configurations.

On conclusion of the visit John Yates, BBI secretary, on behalf of BBI members praised Carlsberg for their bold and forward looking capital investment programme and also thanked Barry for hosting this visit to what is a very interesting and impressive operation.

To visit Carlsberg website please go to www.carlsberg.com

Brian Gibbs