Craft Brew—Filling, Cartoning Beer in Iceland
When Bruggsmiðjan Kaldi Brewery was launched in 2006 in the small town of Árskógssandur in the north of Iceland, glass bottles were of course the format.
But it seems that consumers in Iceland are just as mad about beer in cans as everyone else in the world. So last year the craft brewer installed a canning line—right about the time that the pandemic was rearing its ugly head.
“The machines were due into our plant in March, along with technicians from suppliers to get things up and running,” says Brewmaster Siggi Ólafsson. “We wound up doing most of the installation and commissioning ourselves, and we were only delayed about a month. By June of 2020 we were in production.”
The equipment in the line comes from numerous parts of the world, including the U.S.-made end-of-line Econocorp E-2000 cartoning machine. “We were led to Econocorp during conversations we had with other machine suppliers who are familiar with the kind of machinery that’s suitable for craft brewers,” says Ólafsson. “It’s just the right size machine for our production, and it’s very simple in design and, subsequently, in operation.”