St Austell

The town of St. Austell may be a point on the compass unfamiliar to many around the world, with some 20,000 inhabitants, nestled on the picturesque south coast of Cornwall, United Kingdom. While its original sustained economic prosperity was due to clay mining, today the town is best known as a tourist destination and, for beer drinkers with a keen sense of what’s temptingly tasty, there’s St. Austell Brewery.

Founded in 1851, the brewery prospered to the extent that as of 1893, it relocated to its current location, prominently on the hilltop above St. Austell. The brewery was situated about a mile uphill from the new railway line that gave it access to markets further afield than Cornwall. (And horses pulling wagons laden with heavy barrels of beer gave thanks that gravity worked in their favor.) 

Today, over 20 years later, the story has played forward at pace. St. Austell Brewery has kept up with the accelerating trends in the brewing industry – and in many ways surpassed them. 

St. Austell’s growth is being powered by several increasingly popular beers launched since his arrival in 1999. Tribute, a characterful premium ale, was the first to gain prominence in the brand portfolio. It has been joined recently by the aptly named Proper Job, a session strength IPA - and then there’s Korev, St. Austell’s lager brand launched in 2009 that has achieved the near-impossible, gaining sales against lagers backed by the considerable marketing spends of multinational brewers. 

St. Austell has also distinguished itself from its regional family peer group by acquiring a nearby craft operation, Bath Ales, in 2016, subsequently announcing plans for a greenfield 60,000-hectoliter brewery that began production in May 2018. Currently, at St. Austell, the brewery is producing 213,000 hl annually on a 24/5 shift pattern. While cask ale still accounts for 50% of volumes, keg (17%) and bottled beers (30%) are driving growth, with cans starting to enter the mix. 

None of this would have been possible without investing in the brewery and, when possible, preferring the latest in technology. St. Austell has been shrewd in making the most of what’s new and improving, especially as suppliers have been rolling out smaller capacity solutions suitable for mid-sized breweries. High on their must-have list was membrane-based filtration. It had been on the radar for some time, with neighboring cider makers using the technology for years. 

In 2017, Pentair brought to market a Beer Membrane Filtration (BMF) range with hourly capacities between 60-85 hectoliters designed for brewers with annual outputs ranging from 10,000 hl up to 120,000 hl. And so following trials, in early 2018 Pentair’s 60 hl/h BMF + Flux Compact S4 came into service.