Not all mine, either.
Firstly, a-ha’s appearance to sign copies of their 73rd greatest hits album: 25:The Very Best Of a-ha at Oxford Street’s HMV, which I couldn’t attend because Oxford Street is in London and I am in Cape Town. Initially, this seemed like a very bad thing, but it wasn’t really because I got to go round a brewery. There are no breweries on Oxford Street in London. (I haven’t verified this fact in any way, but it seems a fairly good bet).
Photo from HMV get closer
But as I say, thanks to the Ogilvy and the champion taste of Carling Black Label, I was invited on a Brewery Tour and Tasting – the beer, not the brewery – which was fun, interesting, informative and quite staggering when it came to sheer size and numbers. They make a lot of beer in Newlands. A lot. More than 1,000,000 litres a day.
And that, as I may have mentioned, is a lot.
The official photographs, from the official photographer are yet to come (and we’ll surely revisit this when they do), but I did knock a few pics off with my trusty 8MP X10 camera.
Keen mathematicians amongst you will have calculated that that amounts to a whole 3,000,000 pixels more than an iPhone 4, of course. Loving all these 0’s this evening.
Here’s a remarkable device filling the bottles in the bottling plant
It’s called a bottle filler and it spins around rather fast.
The whole bottling plant was hugely impressive (and rather noisy) as this short collection of video clips proves. It was a bit like watching the Discovery Channel in person. Except that there were no repeats.
The rest of the photos are here – blurring slightly as the day progressed. I wonder why.
Mash bar just off Oxford street has it’s own brewery and makes rather nice beers.
The bottle filler also looks a bit like the centrifuge that was meant to spin poo around in Athlone.
And we all know how that story turned out.
Reflex > “Just off Oxford Street” – so, technically not not on Oxford Street. Phew.
The bottle filler was excellent. Couldn’t believe how quick it was. Foam everywhere. I licked the soles of my shoes last night.
Twice.
Technically, no it isn’t directly on Oxford street, but within spitting distance (literally).
Funnily enough, after drinking Black Label it feels like I have been licking the soles of my shoes too.
Did you get the full SAB experience or was it just the Black Label tour?
Reflex > Technically is all that matters. When it suits me.
We went round the whole brewery, but it was centred around Carling Black Label – which I must say tastes very nice, not like the soles of anyone’s shoes.
It was related to their switching the brand emphasis from being for the “worker” to be for the “winner”. I could relate – a lot of my mates still give me a weird look when I order a Black Label. Obviously, there’s history, but the beer is good enough to stand in any market – they’ve even got a draught CBL pump in Caprice, which kinda shows how far they’ve got already.
We went around the bewery a few years back, there was meant to be 12 of use but only 5 people pitched.
Between us we managed to finish what had been laid out for 12, was a good night.
That tour had been organised by on the Castle reps at the time but we sampled all SAB products.
I have been quite impressed with the CBL ads lately, as a brand they went quiet for a good while and have come back strongly.
At a time they were going for the student market too, leaning on their slightly higher Alc content than the other beers.
Didn’t realise there was a draft variety either, then again I don’t hang around in Caprice so wouldn’t have noticed it there.
Reflex > The draught is relatively new. Now available at 60 outlets in the Western Cape. Poured one myself yesterday at the brewery and looking forward to the beer going more mainstream (no pun intended) so that I can enjoy it a bit more regularly.