| 15 T T Russell Fredric Sustainability the focus at popular brewery Owned by Mike Sutherland and Kirsty McKay, Sawmill Brewery’s facilities now comprise the brewhouse, coolstore, the Smoko Room and its connected outdoor beer garden. Sawmill Brewery REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Having moved from its original site in Leigh, Northland, Sawmill Brewery has been producing award-winning beer from its modern premises near Matakana since February 2016. In July 2016, the brewery opened to visitors and locals to experience Sawmill’s special brand of hospitality in its beautiful tap room and restaurant, The Smoko Room. This year, it added a further 880sqm of manufacturing space to its footprint. Owned by Mike Sutherland and Kirsty McKay, who bought the business in 2010, Sawmill Brewery has become renowned for its beer and world-leading sustainable operation. The business is supported by a team of 50, of which 12 are specialists in various aspects of the brewing process. “We were going to start our own brewery, then we approached the couple that set up the original brewery in Leigh, and fortuitously they wanted to sell,” Mike says. The move to Matakana was prompted by a lack of capacity in Leigh and the desire to add a hospitality experience inside the brewery itself. “Over the years, we have extended the original building so we could increase our capacity and install a new brewhouse, cellar area and new packaging lines,” says Mike. Sawmill Brewery previously warehoused its beer in a cool store in Auckland and transported to customers through third-party logistics, but this was inefficient and not the best fit for the brewery’s strong sustainability and environmental ethos. “We had the space and the land, so we added another building here and put in a 500-pallet cool store and an ambient store for additional packaging, too.” Sawmill Brewery’s facilities now comprise the brewhouse, coolstore, the Smoko Room and its connected outdoor beer garden, for a total footprint of 2300sqm and capacity to produce up to five million litres of beer annually, which is much greater than current production. The company has B Corp Certification, a designation that a business is meeting verified performance, accountability, and transparency standards. Sawmill Brewery’s sustainability initiatives are comprehensive, and it has won a string of environmental and sustainability awards. “Over the years, we have extended the original building so we could increase our capacity and install a new brewhouse, cellar area and new packaging lines.” Sawmill installed one of the first carbon recapture systems in New Zealand to recover Co2 produced in fermentation for use in beer production, and harvests all the available water off its roof for use in the brewery – around two million litres annually, which accounts for around 15% of its total water consumption. Mike says the heat-recovery system in the brewery recycles water, reducing water use by 1.5 million litres annually, in addition to saving 287,000 megajoules of energy and 6000 kilograms of LPG, while all the wastewater is treated on-site and irrigated on to surrounding land. “We have been using solar power since 2010. This year, we added another 161 solar panels to our brewery roof, which gives a total of 259 panels. “This generates roughly 30% of our annual power needs, and is equivalent to powering 18 to 22 New Zealand households.” Comprehensive waste-management systems and processes are also in place. Mike describes producing beer as a mix of art, science and engineering. Sawmill Brewery’s beers have garnered numerous accolades, with some being consistently medalled over multiple years. BREWING SUCCESS: CORESTEEL & SAWMILL BREWERY Coresteel Buildings North Harbour are proud to have built the second expansion building for the Sawmill Brewery, the new Brewery Chiller Andrew Boyd P 021 852 029 E andrew.boyd@coresteel.co.nz Keith Thompson P 027 475 9242 E salesnorthharbour@coresteel.co.nz
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