Brewery tour a bottler
Bloke’s Lounge members today had the sad privilege of taking the final official tour of CUB’s Yatala Brewery, originally established by Bernie Power in the late 80s.
The tours have been stopped due to lack of patronage.
Tour guide Catherine gave us all the in and outs of brewery operations and production. The stats are boggling, even when sober: basically the brewery produces about half of beer consumed in Australia - equating to about 50 million cartons - with territory covering the NT, Qld and NSW down to Sydney and only about three weeks stock at hand at any one time.
We had to drag some blokes out of the packaging area - they were mesmerised by thousands upon thousands of Crownies tink-tink-tinking their way along the production lines, going from stacks of empties off the back of a truck to carton-packaged beer ready for delivery.
After the tour the lads got to suck into a steak sanga or fish 'n' chips and sampled a few beers, with Roger Crook reckoning the Carlton Stout had coffee, caramel and chocolate overtones which lingered on his palate. We always thought Roger a bit blokey so we upped his cred and reckoned he could make a living giving wine descriptors - that was until the cheeky bugga said he read it on the label on the back of the bottle.
Below: beer blokes (clockwise from top left) - Ron Heslop and Merle Finney with Mike Darby in background; Robert Sanderson and Vince Paino; a restored Ford delivery truck; Ron Kuypers and Mike Carmody.
The tours have been stopped due to lack of patronage.
Tour guide Catherine gave us all the in and outs of brewery operations and production. The stats are boggling, even when sober: basically the brewery produces about half of beer consumed in Australia - equating to about 50 million cartons - with territory covering the NT, Qld and NSW down to Sydney and only about three weeks stock at hand at any one time.
We had to drag some blokes out of the packaging area - they were mesmerised by thousands upon thousands of Crownies tink-tink-tinking their way along the production lines, going from stacks of empties off the back of a truck to carton-packaged beer ready for delivery.
After the tour the lads got to suck into a steak sanga or fish 'n' chips and sampled a few beers, with Roger Crook reckoning the Carlton Stout had coffee, caramel and chocolate overtones which lingered on his palate. We always thought Roger a bit blokey so we upped his cred and reckoned he could make a living giving wine descriptors - that was until the cheeky bugga said he read it on the label on the back of the bottle.
Below: beer blokes (clockwise from top left) - Ron Heslop and Merle Finney with Mike Darby in background; Robert Sanderson and Vince Paino; a restored Ford delivery truck; Ron Kuypers and Mike Carmody.
