There are quite a few things to report.
1. The brewing plant has been paid for in full. Dismantling will start on January 15. It is in Wisconnsin and will be shipped out of Chicago.
2. A six head Meheen Merlin bottle filler has been ordered and paid for. It has been built and is waiting to be freighted to Oregon. It is the one in the foreground, and ready to be shipped.

3. A labeller to match the filler has been ordered and a deposit paid. It is a pressure sensitive labeller for adhesive labels. It includes an air-knife to dry the bottles before labelling. Filling cold beer into warmish bottles creates condensation. There is also an ink-jet printer for applying best before dates to the bottles.
4. Both the filler and labeller will be freighted to Oregon where they’ll be put in a 20 foot container for shipping to Sydney along with a diatomaceous earth filter and a clean-in-place cart.
5. The brewery was supplied with a packaged steam boiler (generator), but it could not be converted for use in Australia. This was expected, appartently it is unusual to find a boiler that can be. A Simons VS 610 120 kWatt packaged boiler has been ordered and a deposit paid. The Simons boilers are manufactured locally.
The last week or so have been quite busy. With the new equipment the rush has been to have everything ordered and firm by December 31st to qualify for the Federal government’s 50% investment allowance.
There is still new equipment to buy, but the filler, labeller and boiler are the most costly ones. Other equipment to buy includes a carton sealer, possibly a carton erector, conveyors, and an air compressor or two – the brewhouses valves are pneumatically operated, and both the filler and carton sealer will need compressed air. Some of this equipment can be had second hand.
There’s no point trying to buy the rest of packaging equipment now to qualify for the allowance. I still need to work out how the packaging line will actually run. It will be a matter of suck it and see. I hope to lease some euipment first to play around with.
Have also been prowling around for premises, but of course all the real estate agents are off until the eleventh.