By Scotty Morgan.
Well it’s been a crazy, often scary year with a whole shebang load of things going on for Rocks Brewing.
Late in 2012, after a visit to the US, we started working on our brewery installation project. We were introduced to IDD by our mate Barry Broughton (Franke Blefa kegs fame) and started the process of looking at the revolutionary new HEBS system Jeff had designed. We were lucky enough to inspect the first prototype system built for Tin Man Brewing in Indiana, and it sealed the deal for us.
January rolled around, beer sales were on the up, we had to go to three different breweries to get our beer contract brewed – the new brewery was looking better and better all the time.
April came around, and enough was enough. With beer in four plants for the month, Mark (the MD) placed the order for the HEBS unit. The unit will make up to one and a half million litres of beer with the current number of tanks, pushing to three million with more tanks added.
July arrived and you guessed it, beer sales were on the up and we were at five plants and still waiting desperately for our brewery to ship.
September, I took off to the US to inspect our equipment prior to shipping and to brew a collaboration brew with Chris Anderson at Coachella Valley Brewing. Coachella have the same brew house, so it was part collaboration brew and part ‘lets see how this sucker works’ trip. And work the brew house did. We made a 10.0% Imperial IPA with fresh wet hops flown down direct from Washington State. The hops had their own plane seat. We got 95% efficiency from the brewery (that’s massively impressive, a normal system would push to give 75%) and the beer – from Chris’s reports – turned out killer. Some of the beer will be oak aged, waiting for our next visit.
October, well lots of men with work boots, cranes, and what not started the putting the building together for the brewery. The brewery, incidentally named Connie, also arrived.
Here we are in November, waiting for the brew house to be installed and knocked together. This part of the process begins on 9 December, with Frank from IDD coming out to supervise works. The brewery will be fired up by mid-late January, and I am very excited... Oh, and we still have beer in four breweries this month, so thanks to those brewers helping to make our beer!
