ALBION BREWING AND MALTING COMPANY, LIMITED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4269, 23 October 1875, Page 5 (Supplement)

ALBION BREWING AND MALTING COMPANY, LIMITED.

Our readers will remember tliat we gave a long description of the New Zealand Distillery when it commenced work. It was so great a success that Government found it to its interest to buy it out, and it abandoned the business of distillation oil the 30th of June last. The proprietors offered to the public their premises aud plant for the purpose of establishing a brewery and carrying on the malting business already established. The shares were all subscribed for, and the necessary alterations having been made, brewing was commenced about a month ago. Having tasted of the first brew, we are in a position to state that it is excellently good. We are not disposed to draw invidious comparisons, but we must say that it ia equal to the best of the Dunedin beer ; and this is saying a good deal, as Dunedin has male for herself a name, at home and abroad, for the quality of the various articles which she puduces under the name of beer. The cliru-te, it a} pears, has much to do with the position which she has held in this respect. It has been proved by analyses which have been made for the purpose of detecting adulteration, that there is in ColoDiai beer a very large amount of faulty brewing. It was a matter of tte first importance that the new Company should guard against having an inferior article. They accordingly advertised in Australia for a ftrst-cla&s brewer, and the result was the engagement of Mr W. 11. Lathbury, a thoroughly scientific man, who gained his experience in liurton-on-Treut and Sydney. As general manager and secretary, the Company have been fortunate in securing the services of Mr Joseph Eskdale, late manager of the Distillery Company. Upon the occasion of otir visit to the Brewery a few days since we found the works in full operation, and we learned that the first brew was made about a month ago. The property, which is freehold, comprises two acres in a block having frontages to Cumberland and Castle streets, about thirty yards from the main line of railway. The buildings, which are of the most substantial character, are of brick and stone, with slated roofs. The Company's water ia laid on, but that whicli is used for brewing is obtained from Mr John Logan's property, next the Town Belt, where a brick and cement reservoir has been constructed, and whence pipes communicate with the Brewery. The en gine which does all the hoisting, grinding, mashing, &c , is a twelve horse power, and the coal used to drive it is from Green Island. Mr Esk^ale informs us that one ton of Green Island is equal to 11 cwt. of Newcastle. The former costs 12a 3d delivered, while the latter costs 56s per ton. Newcastle coke is used for drying. The Company have now on hand a stock of 25,000 bushels of barley and malt. The barley is nearly all of Oarnaru growth. A tine sample of 200 bushels, grown at Queen 3 town and delivered at the Biuff, has recently been purchased. Hogsheads, to the number of 4500, have been purchased in Melbourne and Sydney, and are now undergoing a renovation in the cooperage. The staves and heads, which are all marked and numbered and done up inshooks, are planed inside, aud after being thoroughly steamed each hogshead is branded and numbered. There are two malt-houses aud kilns. One of the malt floora is 100 x4O feet, and the other 12S x 52. These are capable of turning out from 1000 to 1200 bushels of malt per week. The1 granary is above malt-house No. 1, and here the first practical operation towards the process of malting commences. The grain is here thoroughly cleansed by means of a patent screen, when it passes to the steep in the malt-house below. When germination is sufficiently advanced, the malt is elevated to the kiln floor. On the same level with the kiln floor, and in continuation of the line of buildings, at right angles to the malt-house, is placed the malt-store, where the "charge" in the kiln is "drawn." The commencement of what the brewers call a "period " begins by sending the malt down through a shoot from the store to the mill, where it is crushed, and then wound along by an Archimedean screw to the next division of the building, and elevated three storeys to the ground malt hopper in the mash room. The mashing process is performed in a wrought iron mash tun cased with felt aud wood, and capable of mashing 200 bushels at a time. The malt falling from the hopper meets in an intermediate masher with hot water, and when the two have been properly mingled together they fall into the mash tun, where they are still further amalgamated by means of a radiating rake, with a vertical and horizontal motion, driven by the steam-engine at the rate of 14 or 15 revolutions per minute. The boiler into which the wort is drawn is of wood, of a capacity of 4300 gallons, with a steam coil in the bottom. This coil is the only new piece of plant required in fitting up the establishment for brewing. The hops having been applied and the liquid properly boiled, it is drained off into the refrigerator, an ingenious contrivance placed in the coolingroom under the mash tun. From the refrigerator the cool beer or wort is run into tho

guiles in .the fermenting room, and in these enormous wooden vessels it is fermented with yeast for a certain space of time, when it is drawn off it copper pipes to casks in the tunroom or cellar, where the yeast is worked off and the liquor is cleansed—an important process to the future quality of the beer. This cellar, which is a very fine one, is of brick, : 188 feet long, by 66 feet wide, with an upper storey to be used as a granary. It will give ample accommodation for Jermentirig not less than 1000 hogsheads of beer at one time. Tne troughs into which the yeast is worked off are an improvement upon any that we have seen at other breweries. There are over thirty of them, each twenty feet by twenty inches, of 2£-inch Oregon. This establishment has been brewing from 100 to 120 hhds. per week for the last month, and as a new fermenting tun has just been put uo, the quantity will be increased to 180 hh'ds, so that by the first week in December, there will be a large stock on hand, which, it is expected, will be _of a superior quality. We should have mentioned thatthe only hops used are Golding's from East Kent, England, and Shoebridge's Tasmanian. 'No sugar is made use of, the materials being the purest water, aud the best of malt and hops. Beer properly made will improve by keeping a certain time, and for this season no beer will be sent out before the first of I December next.