John O’Groats Brewery – microbrewery
UNSPOILED WATERS, UNCHARTED TASTES.
Having been keen home brewers for many years, Allan, Simon and John started their brewing careers with simple kits bought from brewing shops. They then progressed to grain brewing using cobbled together ranges of pots and pans in their kitchens and garages.
Incorporating John O’Groats Brewery in May 2012, the three combined forces with local hotelier Andrew and had set up a 4-barrel brewery in the Old Fire Station by 2015, which was producing a range of cask ales.
They started selling bottles locally before beginning to distribute across the north of Scotland and finally expanded into the oldest building in John O’ Groats, “The Last House”, in 2019, where they installed a new brewery, bar and visitor centre.
The Defining Moment When the Business Decided to Invest in Packaging Automation?
Like most microbreweries that are ready to begin transitioning from cask or keg to bottles, the decision to invest in an automated labelling machine was quite a step to take. However daunting, the men agreed that it was the right time to bring the labelling in-house, and that’s when they approached Advanced Dynamics for advice.
Most bottled beers have a variety of labels on them including front, back and neck. But the design of the John O’Groats bottles was a singular wrap around label that surrounded the body of the bottles, which lent itself perfectly to our compact ELF-50 desktop labelling system.
After initial conversations, it became apparent that one hurdle we needed to face was the requirement to print the batch codes and best before details on the labels prior to application, a job which was currently being done by their contract label company. This issue was easily overcome with the addition of our TIJ batch coding system which enabled them to print all the info required on the label, in-line, prior to application.
With space at a premium, another major concern was the overall footprint of the machine, of which even with the TIJ batch coder mounted was less than 1 sqm.
At a distance of 515 road miles between Advanced Dynamics and John O’Groats, with the brewery being in the Last House – we can officially say that we have equipment in the northern most point in the UK!
