By Annette Shailer, editor Beer and Brewer
Less than a year since opening its brewery, Sydney’s Wayward Brewing is set to double its capacity and roll out bottles in response to the demand for its beers.
Tucked away in a back street in Camperdown in Sydney’s Inner West, the brewery is a hive of activity with a new bottling line being installed next week and new tanks arriving imminently.
“Our bottling machine will arrive in the next week then we’ll test it out and make it run. We’re shooting for the end of August that we’ll start distributing bottles,” Wayward’s barley cowboy Mikey Lowe told TheShout.
“We’re going to start by bottling our core four, so Charmer, Keller Instinct, Camperdown Pale and Fusami IPL.
“We will eventually be bottling most of them except special releases and seasonals.
“The beauty with this machine is that technologically it’s wonderful we can adjust the sizes 330ml, 500ml, 640ml and 750ml, without changing over. We just put in the bottles and it works it out. As a small brewery that’s fantastic to have the options to create a number of SKU items and sizes.”
Along with the bottling line, Wayward is also investing in new tanks to help keep up with the demand for its beers.
“We’re hitting the mark of where we thought we were going to be in two to three years, after six to eight months,” Lowe explained.
“We’re at capacity at the moment and that’s just keg stock. So we’re doubling our capacity size in the next few months.
“Having that extra ability to brew more with the new cool room and stuff means we can store more beer and we can brew more SKUs at the same time so we’ll be able to branch out and get a few more of those weird and wonderfuls that we all love to try.”
While many craft brewers are installing canning lines instead of bottling these days, Wayward chose bottles because of the premium connotations.
“Reason being is that there’s a sense of premiumisation. We might all work within the industry and know that cans are better but when we start broadening our horizons people aren’t quite at that stage. In a few years, absolutely,” said Lowe.
“So we’ll start with bottles and in five to 10 years as the broader public gathers up to the idea that cans are better we’ll have to look at switching.”
It’s been a busy time for the brewery, which launched its barrel aged program in May, rolled out brewhouse yoga classes and also managed to raise $15K for Cystic Fibrosis through its Craft for the Community initiative.
Wayward plans to continue the Craft for the Community initiative, with a new charity and beer to be promoted later this year.
“We’re also looking at adding more taps to the brewery bar too so we’ll have 24 to 36 taps depending on the storage space,” explained Lowe.
Wayward Brewing is open Thursday to Sunday and is located at 1 Gehrig Lane, Camperdown NSW.