Beavertown Brewery in which Heineken holds a minority stake has opened its new Enfield brewery, which is reportedly the biggest breweries in UK’s capital London.
The new brewery has an annual capacity of 500,000 hl and costed GBP 40 million (USD 53 million), a money which was raised by selling a 49% stake to Heineken in June 2018. Many consumers rejected the move because they were apparently intrigued by the anarchic appearance of Beavertown which did not fit with a well-established partner like the Dutch brewing giant (inside.beer, 26.5.2018).
The brewery, was founded in 2011 by Logan Plant, the son of Robert Plant, singer with Led Zeppelin. The successful venture fastly expanded and outgrew its brewery site in Tottenham. As a consequence Beavertown transferred part of the production to Brouwerij De Brabandere in Belgium and to fellow brewery Redchurch in London, and made plans for a bigger brewery nearby (inside.beer, 26.5.2018).
In February 2019, Beavertown released plans of a new brewery called Beaverworld located in Ponders End, 7 kilometers north of the former Tottenham site. The whole plot totals more than 24,000 square meters with a 12,000 square meter building on the site of a former light bulb factory from 1886. The new buildings comprise the brewery itself, packaging space, warehouse, logistics hub, offices and a visitor center.
The brewery is commissioned with a five vessel brew house from Steinecker that allows to brew in 150hl batches, 38 fermentation maturation tanks from Krones ranging from 150hl – 600hl in size along with centrifuge, filtration and an automated dry hoping dosing system, a KHS packaging line with the capacity to fill up to 30,000 cans per hour (330ml) and a KHS keg line that can fill up to 160 kegs per hour (30l) and the ability to be expanded in the future to an ultimate capacity of 240 kegs per hour.
The visitor center has a main taproom space with full length views into the brewery and external, along with a small professional kitchen that is available for food traders and external caterers popping up at the taproom.
“Beaverworld is the answer to our dream of getting more Beavertown in the hands of the masses and we could not be more excited that it’s now up and running. With Beaverworld we’re expecting to create our own lasting legacy,” said Logan Plant, the founder of the brewery.
“This is the culmination of many years of hard work from Logan and the whole team at Beavertown,” Heineken craft development director Jochen Van Esch said. “Our partnership meant they could open a state of the art brewery, the largest brewery in London. It means even more people can enjoy Beavertown beers in pubs and at home, and we will facilitate this where we can.”
With the opening of the new facility, Beavertown’s old Tottenham facility will not be shut but will be used for brewing special releases and seasonal beers.
