Two brewers walk into an orchard: Batlow Cider has been acquired by Capital Brewing Co.
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Capital Brewing Co. is branching (pun intended) interstate – but not in the direction you might expect.
Proving once again that their focus is on the Canberra region, Capital has acquired Batlow Cider, a move which Capital Co-Founder Laurence Kain says came from a humble chat between mates.
“[Capital Co-Founder] Tom Hertel and I have been pouring Batlow Cider for over 14 years across our venues and for the last six years at the brewery, so we know the Batlow founders quite well.”
“We were talking with them towards the end of last year…I believe we mentioned we were thinking of making our own cider and they sparked the idea that maybe we could buy their business. It worked well for both of us and we are still good mates!”
It’s a sweet story about two local brands, but Laurence points out that the brand’s distribution bats well above its weight.
“Batlow is certainly a smaller region but we feel it is a nationally recognised brand, the cider has been in distribution across Australia for 14 years and arguably has the best distribution footprint of any independently owned cider brand in the country.”
“We are confident that with our marketing and sales resources we can deliver some significant growth to the brand. We also love the connection to the town of Batlow being so close to Canberra, we will continue to be sourcing apples from Batlow for the cider-making process and keeping a localised supply chain reduces the carbon impact of the product.”
Laurence and Tom.
Laurence and Tom are also keen to further refine Batlow’s carbon footprint by adding Canberra into the mix.
“Previously, the cider was pressed in Batlow and fermented and packaged at various contract facilities across NSW and VIC. Now the juice will be pressed in Batlow, fermented into cider and packaged here in Fyshwick – drastically reducing the freight miles per litre.”
As for the future of Batlow’s beloved cider, Laurence says the classics will remain the same while new favourites await.
“First thing we need to do is nail down making Cloudy Cider to taste exactly the same as the existing Batlow Cloudy,” he explains. “We are well on the way to this in our R&D plant. We are really excited to then start playing around with some smaller batch specialty ciders – I will be campaigning for Pineapple and Jalepeno Cider to be one of the first things we have a crack at this summer – but first things first we need to get the fundamentals of Batlow Cloudy perfect then start having fun with a few experimental fermentations.”
A new chapter for the former Batlow Cider owners but also for Capital’s passionate team, who are excited to sink their teeth into this new challenge.
“This is a really great opportunity for our production team to develop their skills and learn new processes. Cider making is closer to wine making than brewing and our team are really keen on the learning and development opportunity that Batlow brings into our brewery.”
Photography supplied
