Henry Hobson is a fictitious character with a trade mark “coke” or more commonly called bowler hat. It was after this character in a play called “Hobsons choice” that the Cleobury Mortimer based Hobson brewery was named after way back in 1993.
Brewing the ‘Hobsons way’ has a common sense approach with attentiveness to quality, service and sustainability.
Sustainability and locality is a big part of what Hobsons stand for. All of the beers are brewed by local people, currently a close-knit team of 22 people using local ingredients with a backbone of sustainable technologies. With a wind turbine on site, not only are you enjoying great beer but it’s being produced by green energy; with the turbine generating one third of the electricity needed to create each bottle of Hobsons beer.
They can deliver cask, keg and bottle-conditioned beers directly to customers within approximately 50 miles of the brewery on a weekly basis, covering Shropshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, West Midlands and parts of Gloucestershire and Staffordshire. Hobsons put real effort into developing not just award-winning beers, but beers that will satisfy both the dedicated real ale fan and potential newcomers to real ale.
Some of their beers include Best Bitter, Town Crier, Twisted Spire, Dhustone Stout, Postman’s Knock, Old Prickly , not forgetting “Old Henry” and Champion Mild! A recent collaborative brew was launched with North Brewing to produce Olicana, a punchy IPA with tropical fruit flavours and aromas with a complex bitterness.
Another interesting bottled product is “Shed”, an alcohol free beer with just 22 calories per bottle brewed in partnership with Błonie Brewery. Shed Ale is brewed to support UK Men’s Sheds Association, with a donation per bottle sold made to UKMSA.
With such a wide range of beers and increasing sales, Hobsons decided it was time to upgrade their existing bottling line with something faster but taking up the same space. The addition of a new warehouse gave some opportunities in the reduction of manual handling and pallet movements.
With some suppliers saying “it would never fit” Enterprise Tondelli took on the challenge to meet the goals of Hobsons Brewery. Working very closely with their owner Mr. Nick Davis a plan was formulated, the clever people at Enterprise had some tricks up their sleeve and came up with a layout that defied the sceptics.
The project was carried out in two phases with phase one being the installation of a new counter pressure rotary rinser/filler/crowner from Enterprise along with incorporation conveyors. The new filler had the same footprint as the old machine, but could produce twice as much. The machine is designed for the craft sector so it is simple to use and easy to maintain. Low oxygen pick up is always important, so the machine has double pre-evacuation to achieve less than 50 ppb. Some existing equipment was utilised and integrated into the project by Enterprise.
The filler was inspected in Italy by members of the Hobsons team and full training was given. Then installation and commissioning of the filler and first conveyors was carefully carried out by the Hobsons staff. This rationalised the need for additional travel and external resources and ensured Hobsons had all the skills to run the machine.
Phase two was installed once the remote warehouse was built and ready for the new automatic depalletiser which was manufactured in Italy by Eurosistemi Srl, an Enterprise company. The high level all stainless steel machine allows short stack bottles with inverted trays to be depalletised in a very small space. Bottles are automatically discharged at high level (+3,500 mm) single filed, conveyed outside the warehouse, across a pedestrian walkway and then vertically lowered into the bottling room. To lower the bottles from high level to filler in feed height a pad type stainless steel lowerator was also supplied as part of the project. The conveyor system was also from Eurosistemi, with controls for this mounted in the depalletiser control panel.
Whilst the project at times posed some challenges Mr. Nick Davis said “We had several choices for the project, but Enterprise came well recommended by some of the brewers we know. We are pleased with the end result, whenever there were difficulties Enterprise always tried their utmost to resolve the issues and help us. We made a good choice.”
Enterprise Tondelli has been working in the industry since 1977 and supplying equipment in over 40 countries. The Hobson Brewery bottling project is just one of the latest projects by Enterprise that has ranged in scope from nitro beer canning, high speed wine bottling and turn key beer bottling. Supplying canning lines 1,500 to 72,000 cans per hour , bottling from 600 to 60,000 bph and kegging lines too. This wealth of experience ensures Enterprise add something to all their projects.”
Other case studies with videos and a full range of equipment can be found on their website:-
www.enterprisetondelli.co.uk – “from single machines to complete turn key factories”
People, Pints and Planet – the Hobsons Hat Trick
So where can you get a taste of the hat trick? https://www.hobsons-brewery.co.uk/
