Brewery 100 Years Photos

Description

1  “THE YARD” 1955
Barrels in foreground

2  Jim Newbigin – “The fermenting room as I saw it in 1955. The large wooden vat held 5000 litres. The beer had been made and was now mixing with water, malt and barley and stayed in the vats for 4 days before being piped into the bottling hall. We had to skim the froth off twice a day. Had a big paddle and walked around above the vat. The froth was put into the tub at the side and was then sent off to the piggery with the excess malt and barley. The piggery was owned by Mr Steiner.”

3  WATER TOWER 1955

4  WORT BOILER 1955
Jim Newbigin – “The Wort Boiler. A wooden barrel. First stage of the brewing, top (third) floor of the brew house. Boiling water was fed into it by gravity. My job was to stoke the boiler with coal from the ground floor. Observation deck on left. We lost a dog in there once – a fox terrier.”

5  BOTTLING LINE 1955
Jim Newbigin – “The bottling plant was the most modern in the country at the time. Bottles have been filled and are capped ready for labelling. Two dozen to a crate. Bottling plant at right. Capper at top right with crown seals. All on rollers going round to be labelled. Pallets stacked at right behind bottler. At top left is a grabber on wheels. The room was run by two people.”

6  BOTTLE YARD 1955
Jim Newbigin – “The bottle yard as I saw it when I started at the brewery in 1955. Decided to have a big clean up. It opens out into the inner yard of the brewery. Crates can be seen from other breweries: Red Band Pale Ale, Waitemata (Dominion Breweries) but most of them were ours (Leopard brand). The crates are waiting to enter bottle washer at the far end of the yard. I spent many hours in there gatting the machine to get it done. There were lemonade bottles as well – an aerating plant also operated under the trademark of Leopard. A dozen cartons had only just started being used.”

7  CORDIAL AREA 1955
Jim Newbigin – “Cordial area. Manager Joe Bell’s office and workshop. Made all flavours – hundreds of them – lime, sarsparilla, orange, lemon, cloves, raspberry. The stainless steel tanks at the end came from Mercer and Sons, Auckland. The cordials were mixed with something like an egg beater. The floors were sticky.”

8  ENGINE ROOM AND WATER TOWER 1955
Jim Newbigin – “Spent Sunday afternoon filling the hopper for boiler from the pile against the wall (centre). Kegs, called “butts” on left-hand side are empty. A butt held 150 gallons. Aerated water on right-hand side. Water was pumped from this engine room over to the brewery out of sight on right.”