FAQs

The Business of Brewing For Publicans

  • Drinkers increasingly respect and seek locally brewed all malt beer.

  • Brewing all malt beer onsite costs approx. $110 a keg depending on labour, which sells on draft for around $1100.

  • BrewStack is compact and easy to install - inexpensive and fast.

  • New excise rebate - anyone selling up to 100 kegs per week now gets a $350K per year rebate if they brew rather than buy the beer.

  • Lease to own repayments on a system that can brew 20-40 kegs per week is approximately $1000 - $1500 a week - revenue from 1 to 2 kegs.

  • Build a strong community and loyal patronage around your brewery /brewpub and venue

  • Set your venue apart

  • Add additional revenue streams - case takeaways, festivals, events and keg distribution.

 

Why would I choose a Spark BrewStack K5 or K10 compact Brewing System?

How does the Spark BrewStack compare to other brewhouse designs?

BREWHOUSE DESIGN COMPARISON
 

SINGLE VESSEL BREWHOUSE

PATENT SPARK K BREWHOUSE

Manufacturing Brewery
COMPACT
INEXPENSIVE
EFFICIENT
CONSISTENT
WORKPLACE SAFE
DURABILITY

  • It takes two weeks of plumbing, electrical and flooring work. The fermenter tanks and serving tanks can be stacked vertically to look good, work well and save space. We support venue design and installation, and pride ourselves on strong after-sales service, with warranty and fast parts backup to ensure that your project runs smoothly, inexpensively and results in a long term profitable asset.

    You will be given an installation manual soon after placing your order. This will give you a timeline for lining up your tradespeople as well as a scope of works for them to price.

  • We supply compact and simple 10 and 20-keg batch brewhouses. The K5 and K10 have been designed and developed in Melbourne specifically for professional brewpub operations.

    The SPARK difference is that we combine a compact footprint with professional technology, so you can brew great beer immediately and repeatably.

    Breweries using our compact systems qualify for the small brewer excise rebate.

    Brewpubs are much more profitable than standard pubs, as you can brew your own beer for around $110 per keg. You can serve your beer direct from the tank – no messy and wasteful kegging, canning or bottling and no cool room required.

  • The team at Spark are professional engineers, designers, brewers and project managers and we provide a full turn key brewing solution. This allows us to maximise the best value to quality ratio and the reason we lead nationally.

    We don't just build breweries, we work with you to get your brewing business from an idea to a profitable brewery.

    We have the hands-on experience and people required to get you up and running and brewing delicious beer! Including finding you a brewer, marketing the venue, developing recipes, understanding beer quality control, site layout, design and Installation.

  • We don’t offer finance, but our equipment finance partners do. An example of their lease-to-own options, based on a K5 system capable of producing 15-40 kegs a week is:

    • 20% deposit

    • around $1,000 - $1500 per week the revenue from one to two kegs over the bar.

    • 4-5 year lease term

    • Final balloon payment option

    • Payments begin after your equipment has had ample time to be delivered and installed (often 5 months after your sign a contract with them) so your business can be cash flow positive from the get go

    Our finance partners can organize finance for any of our projects.

How much space does my brewery need?

There are many layout options for your brewery, you can find a list of heights and diameters of tanks below to play with on your site plan. The number and size of tanks will depend on how much beer you plan to sell.

One layout is a line of tanks behind the bar to allow the full brewing, fermenting and serving process.

Rectangular brewing zones also work well, allowing a view of brewing from a bar around the edge. A typical floor area for the size range of venue brewing systems is 15 to 50 sqm.

The Burnley brew pub K5 brew house pictured below with 4 stacked tanks has a total brewing area 6.6 x 3.7m = 24.42m2, total equipment footprint 9.35m2 thereof, i.e. their brewing area is 2.6 times their total equipment footprint

  • We supply compact and simple 10 and 20-keg batch brewhouses. The K5 and K10 have been designed and developed in Melbourne specifically for professional brewpub operations.

    The SPARK difference is that we combine a compact footprint with professional technology, so you can brew great beer immediately and repeatably.

    Breweries using our compact systems qualify for the small brewer excise rebate.

    Brewpubs are much more profitable than standard pubs, as you can brew your own beer for around $75 per keg. You can serve your beer direct from the tank – no messy and wasteful kegging, canning or bottling and no cool room required.

  • Thermal stores allow more consistent control over strike water blending, wort chilling, water management, water reduction and water treatment in your brewery. Secondly it will reduce the load on your chiller especially during summer months and extend its service life.

    • Free up fermentation space

    • Condition beer for an extended period of time without compromising on supply

    • Serve directly from the bright tank to minimise kegging and labour costs

    • Allows for greater clarity and transfer off yeast, any yeast remaining settles in the dished bottom and will not be carried into the final draught, kegged or packaged beer.

    • Do not require caustic cleaning as often as uni tanks

  • The limiting factor of any breweries output is determined by the amount of volume you can supply.

    First you need to decide how many kegs per week you need to sell, this is determine through business planning. Once you know how many kegs a week you need to supply then you can apply the following.

    The amount of standard ale kegs with a brew cycle of two weeks (it takes two weeks from start to finish for most ales) is equal to the fermenter volume in hectolitres. E.g. One 10hl Fermentation Vessel can supply ten kegs per week.

    Therefore if your business plan calls for 30 kegs per week then you will need 3 x 10hl FVs. Additionally you want to allow 30 percent extra space to achieve your supply volumes, which is an additional 10hl FV.

    After you determine how many FVs you need you can add in bright tanks which do not alter you supply volumes.

  • We are the manufacturer in law of all of our equipment which is compliant with the national standards and covered by our local warranty. We are responsible for and control every aspect of the Australian Federal Governments definition of the five stages of manufacturing which are:

    • R&D

    • Sales and customer project management

    • Production - we work closely with several excellent fabrication shops in China

    • Project delivery & customer service

    • After sales service and warranty

    Spark systems are the best value available in the long run - our reliability, long local warranty and installation management support make us the choice for the best beer and the best business.