Armed with a new brewhouse from Brewstar Systems, a company rebrand and the brewing prowess of one of the UK’s most respected young brewers, Campervan Brewery is pressing ahead with the next stage of its evolution and that means more beer for more people in more places.
“Looking back, starting out with an 8% Grapefruit Double IPA that was cask only was probably somewhat naive. But the, shall we say, very select number of buyers said it sold really well and it gave us a platform to grow from.”
An early member of one of the UK’s finest beer destinations, Paul Gibson and Leith-based Campervan Brewery have grown and evolved immensely since those early brews. But one thing has remained constant and that’s creating excellent beers that people enjoy.
And now a recent expansion is complete, their aim is to build on a newly- established core range and to get their beers in the hands of more people across Scotland, the UK and beyond.
The Campervan Brewery tale started as many great stories do – a garage, a 1973 VW Campervan (‘Olive’), a brew kit and a dream. After serious illnesses to his wife and daughter forced a career break, Paul Gibson evaluated his passions in life – beer, classic VW campervans, surf, the great outdoors, travel, food and family life – and began the Campervan Brewery to tie these elements together.
Brewing had been Gibson’s respite in these tough times, and after several promising years of both garage and transient brews in Olive, Campervan Brewery was opened in 2017 in Leith, Edinburgh. This was soon followed by Lost In Leith, one of the few specialist beer bars in Scotland catering to weird and wonderful styles from across the world.
With a passionate following, Campervan is now recognised as one of Edinburgh’s (& Scotland’s) best breweries due to their strong core range and interesting array of special releases, from sour beers to imperial stouts.
“Looking back, starting out with an 8% Grapefruit Double IPA that was cask only was probably somewhat naive. But the, shall we say, very select number of buyers said it sold really well and it gave us a platform to grow from.”
Paul Gibson, Campvervan Brewery
But Gibson, and his team, have worked to get to where they are now. “I was in a dead end job. I was living for the weekends and dreading a Sunday night of fear and the anxiety of going into my normal role,” he recalls. “But campervans were a big passion. So I decided to take control my own fate and start up a business.
“Launching Campervan, probably about nine years ago, I was brewing out the back of the van on a 50L kit. I was fortunate early on that a couple of local producers supported me and got on board with the idea.”
One such supporter was the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. Working with them, Gibson would produce The Hoppy Botanist which pays tribute to John Hope, the 18th century botanist who introduced rhubarb to Scotland.
This pale ale put a modern twist on traditional rhubarb crumble and custard using fresh rhubarb, crumbly oats and sweet vanilla pods to create botanical beer at its best.
“We did around 100 bottles and they all sold out within a couple of hours. People asked the question of how they could get it again so that planted the seed of thinking that maybe I’m on the right path here,” explains Gibson. “So I took on a unit in Leith eight years ago. We had the lease in January and we were up-and-running by March.”
Brewing would take place once every two weeks, producing around 3,000 litres each month. Following hot on the heels of their cask Double IPA was session IPA Leith Juice, which remains one of their most popular beers to this day.
“I think the name resonated with people and also becase we were a new brewery. Thanks to the loyal support of customers that have become friends, we’ve been struggling to keep up with demand for it ever since, really.”
Despite a new range of core beers in 2024, Gibson smiles and admits there “wasn’t a strategy as smart as having a core” early on.
“We didn’t have the capacity to make lager, either, so it was a case of having a bit of fun, working with different producers and different ingredients. It was never just about the hops, yeast or malt. We were fascinated with lemongrass, coriander, different fruits and the like,” he says.
“But as time went on, the demand for beers like Leith Juice meant it would have been very silly for us not have that in the fermenter all of the time.”
Along with Leith Juice, a 4.7% Session IPA featuring Simcoe and Cascade hops, other mainstays in the Campervan range include the 4.8% Leith Pils and the 4.5% gluten-free Extra Black porter.
To coincide with the company’s recent rebrand, these core beers have been joined by two new additions in the form of Mango Mimosa, a new and improved mango Berliner Weisse, previously known as Mimosa.
Completing the core range is a low alcohol pale ale, Off-Piste Pale, full of refreshing grapefruit and lemon flavours. Complementing Campervan Brewery’s fresh new look is a commitment to the impact on their local environment with 2p from the sale of every can now being donated to Surfers Against Sewage– a campaigning charity made up of water lovers who protect the ocean and all it makes possible.
And production manager Patrick Smith is enthused by the ability to produce more beers in 2024 and beyond. “In 2022, we released maybe 15 limited edition and collaboration beers in keg and can. But in 2023 we did three,” he says.
“So I’m excited that we now have an increased core range to offer but also, the capacity to make more season and one-off beers, too.”
That has been made possible thanks to the installation of a new brewhouse setup from BrewStar Systems. “Our old kit was a very manual 10 Barrel Kit. It was first thing that Paul bought, so we started off with that along with three open-top fermenters.
“Brew days were very labour intensive, generally needing two people for mashing-in,” says Smith. “You were looking at eight hours from mash-in to the end of the day and lots of things were outside the brewers’ control. So when it came to expanding, we have not just installed a new brewhouse but also upgraded the site, too.”
He adds: “We have opted for a three- vessel kit from BrewStart Systems that can go for multiple turns. Double brews are essentially taking the same time as a single brew used to and the level of automation means we can easily go up to triple, quadruple and even stretch it further to 24-shifts if we wanted.
“We wanted flexibility with this setup so we opted for a combined kettle and whirlpool with a dedicated shell-and-tube heat exchanger.
“This means that we’re not using the fourth vessel as a dedicated whirlpool vessel but we still get the benefits of being able to do hop stands at 78/80C on Leith Juice, for example, to get maximum hop flavour with minimal bitterness. And then on the other two vessels, the mash conversion vessel and lauter tun, were designed more about trying to maximize sugar extraction from our raw materials.”
The Campervan team opted for the BrewStar Systems setup following an extensive assessment of the options available on the market.
“JT and Oliver from BrewStar have such strong industry knowledge and their automation offering with Fermecraft was a huge plus for us,” says Gibson. “This setup has enabled us to keep our brewery the same size and not have to move premises, which is a real bonus.
And the team at BrewStar Systems enjoyed working with Patrick, Paul and the team. Here, JT explains the process they undertook to ensure they could meet all of the requirements Campervan had from their new setup.
“By providing Paul and his team with a three vessel brewhouse consisting of a mash tun, lauter tun and combined kettle whirlpool we gave the team to ability to brew twice a day to meet their growing demand with minimal impact on shift patterns ensuring no one has to work unsociable hours,” they explain.
“This configuration allows the brewers to experiment with processes and new styles with the ability to step mash and decoction mash through additional pipework between the mash tun and kettle.
“We also used this time to get an understanding of their output in terms of what packaging packaging formats they use and the splits for each.
“Through this we collectively identified an opportunity to save them some significant long-term costs by providing them with a fleet of kegs along with an automated keg washer and manual filling manifold to alleviate their reliance on one way keg rentals.”
During the design stage we utilise site drawing to ensure that not only that the equipment will fit on site but to also ensure that the layout of equipment maximises workflow through the site and maximise efficiency.
This starts at a high level with sketches on floor plans and then leads to our CAD team replicating the site in 3D, which helps visualise the space and any design considerations that can easily be overlooked.
Once the vessel dimensions were determined we produce a P&ID (piping & instrumentation diagram) to ensure all control loops and process flows that the brewers wanted were captured before the pipework design and port locations on the vessels are finalised.
This helps to minimise the pipe length required and hence reduce any losses as much as possible. These designs are then added to the 3D model where the system really begins to come to life.
“By numbering all the valves and pipework, the mechanical installation of the brewhouse can be conducted by the brewers without relying on other third parties. It’s truly as simple as matching the numbers and connecting using a tri-clamp!”
JT, Brewstar Systems
Once the P&ID has been finalised, it’s then passed onto our automations partners at Fermecraft in Australia where they can then begin to work on building the MCC (Motor Control Centre) and HMI panel as well as coding the automated sequences and feedback loops based on the wide range of sensors incorporated into the brewhouse.
Another benefit of us recreating the site in 3D is that we were also able to also design the steam and glycol pipework (right down to the support brackets on the walls) to within 500mm of the services.
Not only did this dramatically reduces the installation time but also saved them a significant amount of cost by not having to rely on third party fabricators.
Once the designs have been signed off by the customers, typically after a number of iterations and reviews to fine- tune every detail, manufacturing then begins.
All vessels are made from the quality SS304 and SS316 stainless steel as per the customers’ requirements and to the highest standard to ensure that the brewhouse will hold up as well on its 1000th brew as it does on its first.
When manufacture is completed, the brewhouse and cellar is fully assembled at the factory and thoroughly inspected to ensure the welds and polish are all to standard ensuring no shadows or pits are exposed where bacteria can grow and lead to infections.
Once the inspection is complete the pipework and valves are all numbered up before being broken down, containerised and shipped to the brewery.
By numbering all the valves and pipework, the mechanical installation of the brewhouse can be conducted by the brewers without relying on other third parties. It’s truly as simple as matching the numbers and connecting using a tri-clamp!
Not only is again reducing the reliance on other third parties but also saves considerable install time, the team at Campervan had the entire brewhouse installed themselves in less than three days.
During the manufacturing period, this was a good opportunity for the Campervan team to get the utilities in place ahead of installation. Owing to the accuracy of the 3D model the connection points for the steam, water and glycol could all be determined accurately without the equipment being in situ.
This meant that when the equipment arrived on site, it was almost as simple as a plug- and-play with only the final connection between the Brewhouse/Cellar and the services needing to be completed, minimising the down time in production and getting the team producing beer as quickly as possible.
This simplicity follows through into the automations and sensors as well with much of the work being completed by the team, each sensor has its pre- allocated port location to ensure the sequences run as intended.
As this was one of the first installs we had an engineer from Fermecraft on site ensuring that everything ran smoothly however remote access features within the automations means that install and commissioning for the brewhouse can be completed with them on the other side of the world.
Fermecraft’s intuitive self-commissioning cellar feature was also utilised and allows the customers to bring their entire cellar online (including four legacy tanks retro- fitted with this technology) in under an hour, a job that typically would require software engineers on site for a number of days to complete.
“At Campervan you get out what you put in at the end of the day.”
Patrick Smith, Campervan Brewery
This feature also gives the customers full control over their cellar automations for future expansions as they will be able to complete all of the commissioning themselves without having to rely on third parties.
Since its installation several months ago, production manager Smith has been busy getting familiar with the new equipment. And the expansion and install was a major project for the Heriot- Watt graduate to have been involved in.
“I knew Paul from my time studying at Heriot-Watt and I was working in Glasgow when he was going through his early journey with Campervan expanding the cellar.
“They were replacing their older open-top tanks and reached out to see if I wanted to join the team. That was some five and a half years ago and I became the second full-time employee in the process. We’re now up to 15 people and advertising another five or six positions, so it’s rewarding to see hard work paying off. At Campervan you get out what you put in at the end of the day.”
And looking ahead, Gibson is understandably excited about the road ahead. “There is so much passion in Leith when it comes to supporting small businesses. We’re proud to be part of the community here.
“I don’t think there’s many places that would have welcomed me rocking up in a campervan and brewing on a 50L kit in those early days.
“The new setup will allow us to continue to cater for our local customers and also broaden our reach elsewhere, too. Not only that, we also have our new taproom which we want to see become something of a destination like our old one was.”
He concludes: “I am so proud of the new brewhouse and also of our team for working incredibly hard to make our rebrand a reality.
“My own brewing journey literally started with a love for travel in my trusty 1973 VW Campervan, so it is wonderful to see the brewery’s roots reflected in the new cans, packaging and merchandise.
“Our rebrand feels like the cherry on top following our brewery expansion and the opening of our taproom. We’re all set to take the next step!”
