HISTORY, DIVERSIFICATION AND INNOVATION  –

The Coopers Brewery Story

Family-owned Coopers Brewery has been brewing beer in Adelaide, Australia for over 163 years, and although modest in size, is the largest Australian owned brewery.  Over its operating history the brewery has faced many challenges which has prompted diversification to survive and now boasts the unique combination of ale and lager brewing, a maltings, malt extract and homebrew kit production and more recently the addition of whisky distilling and a world class visitor centre. 

This presentation will introduce Coopers Brewery and give an overview of our maltings business, before delving into a couple of quite unique technical aspects of our operations.  Our pre-steeping set up and kiln gas reduction through waste heat scavenging.  The pre-steeping provides a quality improvement as well as the opportunity to reduce water use, and the kiln gas reduction provides a financial benefit and improved sustainability.

About Our Speaker 

Dr. Doug Stewart 

Coopers Brewery 

Regency Park, Australia 

Doug graduated from the University of Sydney with a degree in Agricultural Science and a PhD. He completed post-doctoral studies at Michigan State University and the University of Adelaide involved with starch metabolism and the impact of malt quality on beer filtration, respectively. Doug joined Adelaide malting Company, Coopers maltings, in 2000 as Quality Manager and progressed to General Manager Technical undertaking a range of duties over 15 years, including production, research and responsibility for the technical aspects of the maltings. Doug then moved to Coopers Brewery in late 2014 as Quality Manager and subsequently moved into the position of Maltings Manager upon the completion of the $M65 maltings project. He is responsible for all aspects of procurement, operations and sales and marketing. Dr Stewart was made a Fellow of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in 2015.