Powderkeg Brewery in East Devon have installed a brand new canning line at their facility in the Greendale Business Park, supported by a grant from East Devon Council’s Innovation and Resilience Fund.
Powderkeg are renowned for their session-strength craft beers, packed with modern hop flavours. They look beyond the established ideas and opinions to revolutionise a style to create something fresh, interesting and always outstanding. Now in its eighth year, the brewery’s consistency and quality have made it an obvious choice for businesses stocking the best local produce.
With the new canning line now installed, the brewery will be able to package their beers in-house, meaning more limited edition releases, even higher quality standards and a considerable reduction in its carbon footprint. The brewery’s core range of beers, Speak Easy pale ale, Cut Loose pils and low-alcohol Green Light are all well recognised – both for their eye-popping designs and their multiple awards – but the brewery has much more to offer.
“We’ve brewed over 70 different beers in the past seven years, but many of them have had very limited release due to packaging constraints. This canning line should let us offer the full Powderkeg Experience to a much wider audience,” says Co-founder and Head Brewer, John Magill “That’s a very exciting prospect for us and our supporters.”
Dream Land session NEIPA is the first special edition release off the line and is available now. That will be swiftly followed by Cool Hand, a summery Kolsch-style with white wine notes from New Zealand hops. Then the sensory flood that is PKIPA will return, along with 6ixes & 7evens west-coast amber which is making a much anticipated comeback. Harmony Helles has earned a permanent place in the 440ml line-up for being a perfectly tuned session lager.
Having packaged products is an increasingly important way to reach drinkers, as 70% of craft beer sales are now of bottles and cans. Home consumption for beer is on the rise, and while Powderkeg are staunch supporters of the pub, they also want everyone to be free to enjoy the beers in any way they see fit. Powderkeg considers cans the best packaging for beer because they are opaque, lightweight and infinitely recyclable; they chill down quickly and are perfectly portable.
Powderkeg Sales Manager Dan Poulson is excited about the many improvements this will offer the business:
“Canning in-house will allow us to develop our packaged sales, do shorter runs of special edition beers and improves our flexibility and ability to respond to market demand. It also reduces our carbon footprint significantly, something we are always striving to do.”
The machines are being supplied by Vigo, a Devon-based specialist in drinks equipment, and will be able to fill both 330 and 440ml cans, at a rate of up to 35 per minute. The model is an ABE Craftcan 35 with an auto depalletiser, twin Z-rinse, in-line labelling and inkjet date coder.
“This year we will prioritise canning our own beer and gaining industry accreditation, then in 2023 we will look to offer a contract canning service.” says John. “It’s a really exciting move for us to have full quality control over our end product and develop the business in this way.”
Powderkeg’s canned beers are available in all good independent off-licences in the region and directly from powderkegbeer.co.uk.
