Bottling beer interferes with the time and space continuum

Trust me, when you’re on the bottling production line time can quite literally seem to stand still. As you work you try not to look too often at the pallet of finished cases because when you do it seems that it hasn’t increased any, and yet you seem to have been bottling for hours.

So! Imagine the the joy, the relief, the near ecstasy of a mobile unit rocking up to the brewery, two lads eagerly beavering away on set up and prep and then hey presto they press buttons on a screen and it begins. Beer flows from unitank to canning machine and at the other end cases of lovely Lacada are stacked on pallets.

Besides the efficiency of the spectacle there is the heart warming fact that the beer is ready to go out of the door, there and then. Bottle conditioned beer is great, but we have to wait a fortnight after bottling before we can release to the wide world since we have to allow for secondary fermentation to occur in the bottle. With the unitanks to cans system we have the beer carbonated and ready to go.

What about the beer? It’s superb, no two ways about it – fresher and zing-ier. That’s not just our opinion either, that is feedback we have been getting already on the West Bay in cans. It was interesting to hear the canning lads say “we see a lot of different beers and these are really, really good.” Incidentally, they are out every day of the week, all over Ireland canning beer with four separate units so they do experience a lot of product, and tanks. They really like our tanks as well.

We’ve re-booted the branding somewhat. It’s been five years since we started, so going to cans has given us the perfect opportunity to move with the market which, as you know, is fast moving. Craft beer breweries not only continually turn over new beers and new styles, they also turn over and develop branding and design.

Of course we are spoilt here on the North Coast of Ireland for fantastic natural scenery and interesting natural elements from our coastal environment, so we are utilising some stunning photography from local photographer Gary McCall on the cans.

The East the Beast can design in particular shows the awesomeness of the surfing wave known as "The Beast" which breaks at East Strand beach here in Portrush on larger swells, so we had to have something great to match the beer in the can!

So far then, we have West Bay - Citra Pale Ale, East the Beast - IPA and now Malin - Strata IPA in cans. We’re going to continue with East and West and introduce a new beer as often as we can so watch this space. Malin is dry hopped with Strata which gives tropical fruit – think of mango, pineapple, maybe a bit of lemon. Catch it while you can!